All about trust – a baby’s first lesson

By Tasneem Basha

It’s been nine long months and you are finally able to look into the eyes of your little bundle of joy, examine each little finger and toe and be mesmerised at even the whorls of your babys’ ears. But, if you’re anything like me, you soon realise that you can only be goo-goo eyed for so long, before you have to face the fact that your life as you know it has been completely and utterly overhauled. The question begs to be asked “what happens now?”, and of course there are no shortage of answers. People will tell you all sorts of things; that your newborn is too hot or too cold, needs to bathed or fed, that your little one has colic, what you can and cant eat and will remind you of the multitude of things you did ‘wrong’ while you were pregnant. It is, of course, completely up to you whose advice you take but do remember that Allah has empowered you with intrinsic knowledge as well.

Visiting family who had just welcomed their newest member recently, I overheard the remark “he likes to be in the arms”…isn’t this a debate we know so well. Are you spoiling the baby if you carry him too much?

The first thing we’re going to do here is forget about the baby and its still rudimentary coping skills and focus on you, the well developed adult, for now. Let’s imagine you woke up tomorrow in a foreign land, no sense of belonging, you don’t recognize anyone, you cant understand what they’re saying and you really want something, anything, but you have not the faintest idea what it is. Would you imagine this situation to be a difficult one? Scary? Overwhelming even? If you can imagine this, then you have some idea of a newborns perception of this world.

So of course your baby ‘likes to be in the arms’. He only knows being carried from inception, being snug and safe held in your womb. Your baby has been removed from a small enclosed space into a massive wide world (even if it is just the nursery), everything is new and not in an anticipatory way. Do you really think a baby being carried by her mother is thinking smugly to herself ‘hah! Got the old lady to carry me, that’ll show her’. I seriously doubt it. It’s not the feeling of being carried that your baby wants, it’s the feeling of being safe. The sensation of hunger or thirst that we as adults take for granted can seem an insurmountable and terrifying experience for a baby. Your baby doesn’t know what this gnawing feeling in his stomach is, why it’s there or what will make it go away. She cant name the lethargy that comes over her and threatens to take her primary caregivers out of her sight. She cant reason loud sounds or know it will go away. And you cant explain it to her or answer any of her questions. There is one thing you CAN do though, and that is reassure her.

You see, the most important thing a child needs to learn in his/her first year is not routine or discipline. It’s trust. Your baby needs to trust that you will keep her safe, safe from all her yet unnamed feelings and sensations. Safe from herself even when she cries too loudly and cant calm down by herself. Safe from your own anger and frustration. Yes, shock horror, new mummies do get angry and frustrated-it’s natural, expected even. And it’s at times when you feel like this that you need to be able to hand over to some-one you trust and not feel guilty about it.

Another thing babies don’t know about is schedules. I once questioned what a ‘demand-feed baby’ was and was told; ‘a baby that wants to be fed whenever she’s hungry’. Well dear me, I know a few adults like that too; they eat as soon as they’re hungry (sometimes when they’re not hungry too), they don’t wait 4 hours until the next mealtime. You eat when you’re hungry and drink when you’re thirsty so why would you expect a baby to do otherwise? A hungry baby will cry, should you deny this hungry baby a feed he will be in distress too. Is it any wonder then that he cries? The next time he’s hungry he will anticipate being ignored and feeding will become an experience he associates with fear. Establish a relationship of your baby’s needs being met and she will develop into a confident child knowing that she can trust her support system. In time she can and will learn to cope by herself knowing that if she cannot get it right, her caregivers are there to make sure everything turns out just fine. If her cries are responded too, she will learn that she has value. If she is made to feel safe, she will trust and learn.

In between all the nappy changes, feeding and burping remember that your baby is learning. His weight and health will be checked regularly but it is up to you to give him a good foundation to build his psyche on. Remember that newborns still experience the world through their mothers, so make sure you’re okay too – we’ll deal with this aspect in another article insha Allah.

A special Jazakallahu Khairan to Sr Tasneem for taking the time to write this. Your contribution is much appreciated. Muslimmums.co.za