Bonding with your baby - Anne Anderson

The relationship between the baby and the mother starts earlier than you might think.  This special relationship begins in the womb and is developed through care and sensitivity to the baby’s needs after the birth.  The baby will form the same secure attachment with the father or any other primary carer if he is consistent, sensitive to the baby’s needs and loving.

By being in tune with the baby and responding to the baby’s needs, the baby experiences a secure attachment.  He/she feels connected to the mother/father/primary carer and safe in the learned knowledge that needs will be met, and so the baby learns to trust.  As the baby grows into a child, if this positive and formative relationship continues, the child feels valued and loved and develops self-esteem and confidence.  In time, from this secure, trusting and safe foundation they form other relationships.  They also begin to take risks by exploring their world and establishing a degree of independence, able to return home where love and esteem is reconfirmed to them.

If you did not have this kind of supportive and loving childhood yourself it may be difficult for you to provide it for your own children.  You may have experienced parenting that was emotionally and physically absent, or with conflicting and confusing messages that left you feeling alone with a hole deep inside you.  You may be always trying to fill this hole by feeling needy and jealous in your relationships, or you may have learned to shut yourself off, burying those feelings of loss and emptiness and becoming emotionally distant to avoid being hurt.

Not everyone who gives birth is able to gaze with wonder on their little bundle of joy, feeling blessed with a feeling of falling in love in an intense bonding with their baby.  Conflicting feelings around loss of independence and value, exhaustion and resentment can lead to postnatal depression and feelings of being a failure and letting everyone down.

Research shows that babies and children who receive positive contact with their primary carer 30% of the time will usually grow up to be balanced adults.  Those mothers and carers are ‘good enough’ parents.  They give just enough to ensure a positive bond with their children.  

What can you do to form a positive, secure bond with your baby?  You are probably doing it already.  Babies are born with their own temperaments in place and are born ready to learn by copying and responding – especially to their favourite person – YOU!  

Here are a few suggestions of things you can do to establish or build on your bond with your baby when you have the time and when you feel able to.  Wait for your baby to be ready to play games, don’t try to control the play, respond immediately to him/her and be open to learn who this little person is.

1. Observe your baby’s behaviour and try to understand what he/she needs or wants.  

What do you observe about your baby?

What do you observe about yourself?

What is your baby saying to you?

2. Look into your baby’s eyes, pull faces, mirror what he/she does and see what your baby does when you imitate him/her .

3. Play peek-a-boo so your baby is surprised by you disappearing and appearing again (but not distressed by this).  Have fun blowing raspberries or whatever makes your baby laugh.

4. Try to relate to your baby by playing games or baby massage with lots of gentle physical contact.

5. Sing songs, play naming games like ‘This little piggy went to market’ naming toes, fingers, knees etc.  Your baby loves the sound of your voice and wants to learn.

6. Hold your baby in different ways.  What does your baby like?

7. Play follow my leader with your baby.  Crawl after him/her – what does your baby think of that?

After play or interaction reflect on what happened.  What was fun and what wasn’t?  Why?  What felt alien to you – why was that?  Do you think that kind of bonding is probably outside your own experience?

Consider a parenting course on communicating with your baby or child to get you on the right track which will help to stop you repeating damaging family parenting styles you have experienced but don’t fully understand.

Bonding and attachment are very important and affect us all for the rest of our lives, but if we missed out on positive bonding, to some extent we can make up for it later in life.  A good teacher, sports coach, youth club leader or encouraging and supportive boss can be very good role models and give us feelings of self-worth, achievement, confidence and value.  Best friends and partners can give us love and positive regard our own parents were unable to give us.  We can experience positive emotions we lacked in our childhood with our own children, and explore the child in ourselves when playing with our children – catching up on positive bonding we missed out on the first time round.    

If you feel all is not right – take heart.  All is not lost.  

Mothers and Daughters - By Anne Anderson

When you were pregnant did you fantasise about what sort of mother you would be?  Did you start to think about your mother in a different way?  

As well as being our parents’ children, we become parents ourselves with children of our own.  In particular, a new mother will suddenly be very aware of her own experience as a child being parented by her primary care giver – usually her mother.  The impact of the same sex parent is very powerful.  Are you aware of ambivalent feelings around remaining a child and at the same time being independent and grown up?  When you are struggling to adapt to all these changes and responsibilities you are likely to feel lost and vulnerable at times, unsure of how to do it all and how to get it all right.  You also have a need for your mother’s approval – something that never leaves us.  So your thoughts turn to your own childhood and your own mothering.  This is your learning place for parenting and you must decide if you want to follow what your mother did or challenge her way and forge your own with your children.  You feel you need to be nurtured yourself, and at the same time, are nurturing your own baby.

If your mother has died you may feel conflicting feelings of grief and loss, unable to share with her a child and grandchild and this important time in your life, along with joy and hope for your new baby.  Whatever your situation, your mother is with you emotionally and you carry her with you in your head and your heart.

Feelings become magnified for new parents.  Buried anger and resentment come to the surface, causing difficulties with your relationship with your mother.  Is she helping you or interfering?  Is she criticising you or offering advice?  Issues you have with your mother, whether they are unresolved and old or new ones, have a direct influence on how you feel about yourself as a mother.  If these feelings haunt you, they may set in motion a cycle of blame and resentment - even revenge.  Confronting these feelings will help you work towards finding forgiveness and reconciliation with your mother.  Letting go of old pain will help you feel better about yourself. 

What was your mother’s own parenting like?  What was her experience?  What is your mother like as a person – not as a mother?  What has she had to deal with in her life?   This has all shaped her as a mother and has shaped your experience as her child.  She wasn’t perfect, but you are not perfect either.  We all do the best we can and hope our children will understand that of us.  

Forgiveness comes from acceptance and understanding and compromise emotionally.  When you forgive you let go of anger and resentment.   You can’t change your mother’s life experience, who she is, or what has happened and things said in your life, but you can accept them and choose to let go of your negative feelings.  In doing this you are on a path to a new bond with your mother.  If you are unable to bond with her, you are on a path to let go of your anger and resentment, and if this is gnawing at you now, you will find release from those negative feelings.

I went through a sort of teenage rebellion with my mother, at 32 when I had my first baby, with a surge of resentment and anger that bubbled out of me.  She withdrew from me at the time of the birth, physically and emotionally, and when she did visit she was preoccupied with finding a sugar bowl to fill up, tutting about the lack of order in my chaotic kitchen.  The emotional distance between us brought childhood experiences sharply into focus.  When I was able to really think about her own experience I remembered that her first child had been born at full term with the cord wrapped round his neck and he died at the birth.  This was my first child and I was able to make sense of her constant high levels of anxiety around my pregnancy.  I don’t think she was able to be around me at the time of the birth because it brought back a surge of grief for her own first child who had died.  It took me years to come to that place of reflection and understanding.  

If you are able to, talk through how you are feeling with your mother.  You may find it helpful to write your mother a letter.  This is not a letter you will give or send to her.  It can be very powerful to see your strong feelings written down, and the act of writing them down can help you to reflect on those feelings and acknowledge them in a non-confrontational way.  What did you need from your mother when you were small?  What does the young you want to say to your mother?  What do you need from your mother now?  What do you want to say to her?

If you are in emotional pain in your relationship with your mother I hope you can find forgiveness and peace.

GO WITH THE FLOW - By Anne Anderson

At the time of the birth of a baby, especially a first baby, family and friends rally round and help the new mother and father feel part of their community and part of the cycle of life, all of them offering help and advice that is invaluable emotionally and practically..........or is it??

What advice and help did you get?  And was it any use?

I read a lot of books before I was pregnant with my first baby.  There seemed to be a lot of rules to follow and a lot of opinions from strong minded people - experts with letters after their names, writers, midwives, other mums and celebrities - like David Cameron, they all seemed to be supremely confident they were telling me “the right thing to do”.

My mum was from the Dr. Spock generation who felt a child needs firm boundaries and rules and a time schedule to live by.  My loose timings for bathing and bed times were a constant source of irritation to her.  I SHOULD have my babies fed by 5.30pm.  I OUGHT to have my babies bathed by 6.00pm.  They SHOULD be settled by 6.30pm.

Helen lived just down the road and also had a baby about the same age as me.  Helen followed this sort of schedule, which seemed to suit her children.  I knew her boys were settled by about 7pm.  In the summer she told me she always made herself a gin and tonic and sat in her garden watching the sunset.  When my children were still running around and I had not even started dinner for myself and my husband, if I looked at the clock at around 7.15 I thought of Helen sitting in her garden with a gin and tonic and watching the sunset.  A voice in my head would say – I SHOULD have got the children in the bath by now.  I OUGHT to be more organised.  How is it that Helen is BETTER at organising herself than I am?  I’m NOT AS GOOD as Helen at this stuff.

Then there are the activities that most of us go to that can also undermine our ability to feel good about ourselves.  The antenatal group of young mums is supposed to be supportive, but in reality is often very competitive.  “My child - is on solids already! .......is practically toilet trained........ sleeps through the night......... is no trouble.......... is crawling now........eats everything........ didn’t even cry when we went for her vaccinations........goes to anyone........ shares really nicely........”  etc.   How does this make you feel if your child’s progress is not at the same rate and if your home life does not seem so rosy?  It is easy to hear that voice again in your head.  ‘She SHOULD be crawling by now -   he OUGHT to be sleeping through the night - I SHOULD be doing better than this’ - even though you know really that children develop at different rates and that babies cause stress and exhaustion as well as joy for everyone, and life cannot be like a Facebook persona 24/7.

Try to recognise these thoughts when they occur.  You are going through a challenging time in your life and you are inexperienced.  And just when you start to feel you have got things under control, everything changes again.  Your life turns upside-down and you have to completely re-evaluate how you are going to manage these new challenges.  Of course you are going to feel vulnerable and unsure about how to manage it all, but take a deep breath and let it out slowly.  Do that a few times and while you are breathing say to yourself whatever calms you and centres you on something positive.

I am doing the very best I can

One day at a time – or on a bad day – One hour at a time

My personal favourite was the only advice my friend Julie gave me and that was:

GO WITH THE FLOW

‘Go with the flow’ reminds you that you cannot be completely in control.  On days when nothing goes as you have planned it and you feel everything is spiralling out of control, remind yourself it doesn’t matter that you haven’t done the ironing/cleaned the fridge/ raked the leaves/made a soufflé/run up some curtains/decorated the bedroom.  These things will all get done – but not today.  It doesn’t matter that my children were never settled in bed before 8 pm – that just seemed to be their natural time to settle and I wouldn’t change that (usually) happy winding down time for all of us.  When I thought of Helen sitting in her garden with a gin and tonic at 7.15 I reminded myself to go with the flow.  Her children were not my children and her stress was not my stress and we were both just doing the best we could every day.   Putting unrealistic demands on yourself just adds to your levels of stress and opens the door to the voice in your head that says you SHOULD have achieved something.  You OUGHT to have achieved that something.  

Why SHOULD you?  

 In difficult times LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS.  Go with the flow and do what needs to be done.  It might be that what you need to do is to cuddle up with your child and watch Peppa Pig with him, because he needs that time with you.  It could be that what you need to do is drop everything and visit a friend who is having a worse day than you are.   

Be kind to yourself and go with the flow.

Pregnancy, Birth, Baby Blues and a Little Kindness - Anne Anderson – Counsellor and Psychotherapist

It is a long time since I had my children.  They are now 24, 22 and 20.  My youngest has just had his birthday and is now not a teenager any more, and I feel that I have entered a new era in my life, as a parent, and in how I feel about myself.  

Out of the blue one day last month I got an e-mail from Vicky Stuart asking me if I would be interested in getting involved with Nurturing Natal Support. As Vicky and I talked about how to support mums and dads around the time of pregnancy and birth, I found myself reliving the pregnancy and birth of my first child.  It came back to me vividly – in fact it could have been yesterday that I gave birth.  Negative experiences came back to me, experiences that could easily have been positive ones. 

I went to the hospital for a check up whilst pregnant, all prospective mothers had to strip off, put a hospital gown on and, on a cold and windy October day, sit in a public waiting area, each holding a plastic basket containing our clothes.  We all felt uncomfortable, trying to manoeuvre gowns that are completely open at the back – and nothing on underneath.  Our dignity gone, we had to sit and self-consciously wait our turn.  The Consultant treated us like a production line and it was a de-humanising experience.  

During the birth of my first baby a Doctor was involved.  He did not really speak to me and did not explain what he was doing or what was happening, this left me feeling violated, anxious and tearful.

After the birth there is a time of adjustment, when new mothers usually feel anxious about breast feeding and being able to cope.  Women have to come to terms with their changed body shape, and the physical changes, changed function and social attitudes to her breasts.  Women can be under pressure to breast feed – or not breast feed – or stop very soon – or keep going as long as possible.  Everyone has an opinion and the mother has to find her own way through social taboos and expectations to decide what is best for her and for her baby.  When I and my baby were home my Doctor visited me, he talked about the likely price my house would fetch if I sold it at that time, and then asked me ‘Are you a good cow?’  This was his only question, which again was de-humanising. He wasn’t interested in me and had no concept of the effect of that question on a new mum who was more emotional than usual in the baby blues period, and who was trying to adjust to the enormous changes to every area of her, and her partner’s life whilst feeling vulnerable with low self-image and a confusing loss of identity. 

Like most new parents, my husband and I were very tired and stressed and snapped at each other, but gradually we adjusted to our new role as parents and a family, and life settled into some sort of broken rhythm.

It seems odd that, after thousands of years of pregnancy and giving birth, this process should still be so little understood and can be so badly managed.  The mother should be at the centre of the process with the baby and her partner or birth partner, feeling empowered and supported, but it seems that our experience is often that we feel we are treated as the vessels for producing a baby. As well as losing a sense of identity and worth, giving up work and an income, however temporarily, mothers often lose any time and energy for anything except being a mum.  With this comes the added burden of feelings of guilt, fear, anxiety, isolation, loneliness and exhaustion.  Fathers also have to adjust often to becoming a provider, at least temporarily, and to being able to work and hold that job down at a time when he is also suffering broken nights, stress and change in his life and relationship with his partner, and when he is more likely to feel irritable, guilt and fear connected with parenthood, and lacking concentration for work.

Now I want to turn to you?  How are you coping?  Are you being kind to yourself?  It is so easy to get caught up in the baby’s routines and ‘stuff to do’ that you almost forget you exist.  Where are you in all this change and new responsibilities?  Try to take a few minutes each day, however busy you are to be KIND to yourself.  What can you do that you can look forward to and what will make a difference to your day?  It doesn’t have to be anything expensive or take a lot of time.  It can be a bubble bath, a walk in the park with the buggy – maybe with a friend and their baby, asking someone to babysit, paying someone to do the ironing, making time to spend with a partner.  I developed an obsession with a comforting milky coffee – with real coffee and brown sugar and I read one page of the newspaper.  For me that was my luxury of the day, a meditative and recharging time when I felt connected with the world – out there.  I promised myself those few minutes to myself when my baby was asleep.  He didn’t sleep much or very often, but those few minutes were for me, and they helped me cope so much better with the rest of the day. 

What do you really need to do today?  Are you overloading yourself with an impossible list of tasks that NEED to be done?  Does the house have to be perfect 24/7?  Can some of that list be done tomorrow – or the next day?  Be kind to yourself.  You don’t need to prove to anyone that you are Superwoman or Superman – you already are!

Nurturing Natal Support Meeting on the 28th October 2013

This months meeting really opened our eyes to how much things have changed in the short time we’ve been actively running NNS. We can not tell you how much it means to us to see all the people who are supporting our cause. Our team is growing, Our event is taking shape, and the connections we are making to bring you better support in the future is just astounding.

We have so many exciting things planned and we are finding it so hard to keep it to ourselves, but we are really proud of the supportive community we are building and look forward to releasing all our plans soon.

At our meeting this month we met up with the new members of our team, volunteering their time and skills to help support and raise awareness of the effects from birth trauma, now I can now introduce you to: 

Anne Anderson - Counsellor and Psychotherapist

Anne is married and has three children, now in their 20s.  As a Counsellor and Psychotherapist she works with a wide range of issues.  She has a special interest in grief and loss, mothers and fathers and postnatal depression and is the Counsellor for a Sure-start Centre in Northampton. Anne’s background is working with adults with learning disabilities, and with children with behavioral, educational and emotional special needs in schools.

James Butler - Pledge tree coordinator, I.T. Support

James has worked as an I.T. engineer, building PCs for the blind and disabled. He also has experience in web design. James volunteered for Nurturing Natal Support after watching the effect it had on his family. James is the coordinator of the pledge tree and will be placing your leaf on our tree. We look forward to seeing it grow.

LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS 

NNS our still looking for more volunteers to expand our knowledge and resources. If you possess the skill to provide us with anything from the list below please contact us at: team@nurturingnatalsupport.co.uk 

Skills such as:

• Graphic/Web Design
• Fundraisers
• Midwife/health visitors/health professionals 
• Sex therapists 
• Event volunteers 
• Promotions
• a general passion for helping our cause

If there is any other skills you would like to offer please also contact us.