For the sake of helping out at least one couple out there and to clear my head, I am writing this. I hope to provide an objective view but I'm sure it will be tainted with my personal biases.
Now that my baby has grown up to be an delightful and bright preschooler, IMO, having a tolerable newborn experience is a combination of:
1. Being prepared
2. Having the correct expectations
3. Having a support network and talking to lots of people, post-natal
4. Understanding the fragility of a new mother and behaving appropriately
5. Possessing suitable personalities and the capability to learn/adapt
6. Being blessed with a well-behaving baby that sleeps well
Below I'll expand on these points, one after the other.
When I hear about someone having a baby for the first time, I don't think of congratulating them. Same goes for an engagement and purchase of a single family detached home. Having lived through these events with varying levels of success/failure, instead I wonder, "Does the couple know what they are in for?"
Is the couple prepared? Being prepared doesn't necessarily mean knowing the scientific names of the different types of poop that come out from the baby during the first week of post-natal. If you're busy, I suggest attending prenatal classes, digging deep and asking questions of parents: To what depth would you need to know what's going to happen and what to do if you are starting a project you've never done before? I don't suggest reading books as, in general, the language is very generic or euphemistic. Also the book medium is one-way and not fit for a Q&A format.
Personally, I readily admit I was not prepared for our 32-week preemie although the nurses in the ICU where our baby was transferred into, did prepare us adequately IMO. Having said that, being prepared would have left time to work with the many issues not directly related to the baby which I did not expect ... read on. I should have drastically cut down on my projects and commitments once the pregnancy was confirmed.
As with anything, having proper expectations and perspective will set the stage for a feeling of gratitude and relief or a feeling of being cursed. While this is not training one can pay for, AFAIK, I believe it is important for both partners to have had experience taking care of or playing with younger children. Ideally babies or toddlers, for example, cousins, nephews, etc. Having this experience is like being a volunteer or intern in the parenting "job position". Not having this experience may set unrealistic expectations of what is normal child behavior. On the other hand, I have heard of parents where their first born was relatively easy to take care of, and then being stunned by how much crying, etc. that their second-born does.
In my case, I had some experience with newborns and toddlers through my brother's kids but apparently my wife didn't have such experiences, only the occasional short visit with kids of friends.
For both mother and father, having a support network of family, friends, and professionals is important. For the mother, having friends that are also new mothers or have young children is ideal. A mother or mother-in-law assisting may actually be detrimental if that person is not sensitive to the fragility of a new mother or is over-reactive. IMO, hired help, is better than grandmothers as they will be more respectful of a new mother. Empathy from friends is also important for a new mother, which she might not receive enough of from the father.
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| Eczema still suffered as a preschooler when not properly untreated |
For my experience, with a fearful and paranoid atmosphere persisted by the matriarch and not challenged by my partner, we had a closed environment in which my wife had little face-to-face contact with friends, advice from medical professionals was perceived to be ill-intentioned, and the experiences of others was not sought out. Therefore when we had problems (overheating, eczema, frequent crying and a restless sleeper), we had difficulty handling them and tried the same approaches over and over again, with little success or relief. To be specific, time-consuming to brew and apply traditional medicine was attempted for over a year with no consistent result for his eczema. We still do this but have in addition, accepted more conventional treatments, namely cortisone anti-inflammatory creams.
While at work, for example, people are generally sensitive to how to question others ("I think maybe this approach might work better" versus "Your approach is not working; let's try something else"), when it comes to parenting, unsolicited questioning of someone's methods, whether their child is 2 or 20, is almost taboo. For a new mother, uncertain of her new role, but somehow believing that parenting instincts should come naturally and thus no mistakes will be made, being questioned can shatter her self-esteem. Also being "upstaged" in any way, that is, the baby being calmer or happier with someone else, can cause the mother to think "the baby doesn't like me, I'm doing a bad job, I'm a poor mother". This can lead to baby blues or post partum depression, and generally a vicious circle in which the mother feels she can't do the job, therefore performs poorly, and receives more bad feedback from the baby and possibly others close to her.
In my experience, I tried to be sensitive to this and temper my words and actions but I'm sure I said or did the wrong thing numerous times. For others in my wife's family, I don't know how conscious they were of my wife's mental state. They themselves were probably too wrapped up in their own fears to be empathetic to my wife. My wife still recalls feeling like she had to eat lots in order to breast-feed our child, but simultaneously having no appetite. This is a possible symptom of depression.
If you or your partner overreacts or can't think under pressure, you may be in trouble. Other key traits for a parent IMO, important for dealing with the trials of a newborn:
- Initiative and independence
- Adaptability to take on new jobs and roles in the household
- Ability to work together as a team
- Ability to multi-task, to some degree
I view taking care of a newborn and raising a child like a project or maintenance task at work, something that takes planning and proper execution, involving a variety of team members. Therefore a lot of traits important for work are also important for childcare, and vice versa.
I think having a baby improved me as a person, making me more open-minded to beliefs orthogonal to my own. Yes, I'll admit that sometimes my in-laws were right (although rarely). It also forced me to put into place a way to keep track of things that have been started, where they were left off, and what has been done and when. This has helped me in all aspects of my life. I also learned to set alarms/reminders for many things, as there can be many distractions (crying, partner wanting help, food overcooking, etc.). I was already cleaning toilets, so changing diapers wasn't a big chore. While I thought I was a decent cook, I further learned to make soups with fish bones and various beans, how to scale and gut a fish, as well as to take apart a whole chicken. I learned to cook more quickly as well as being used to cooking more frequently (and deal with the more frequent kitchen messes). The stove-top timer is a helpful reminder tool when you have multiple things cooking and you're cutting up raw meat on the side.
Of course having a healthy baby is key to having less stress. Yet, being blessed with one that also behaves well sometimes seems like the luck of the draw? Is it the care provided that makes a baby cry less or would the baby cry the same amount regardless of the care provided? Sometimes, the best that we can do is go through the checklist and hope something you do eases the baby. On the other hand, learning lullabies is very helpful. Music soothes the savage beast, the tired parent, and sometimes, even the baby.
My baby was born premature but upon leaving the ICU after about 3 weeks, he still seemed relatively unscathed by his early arrival. A month later, he developed umbilical hernia, which by western standards is relatively harmless. But the matriarch considered it life-threatening. For 3 years, years after anyone reasonable would have considered the hernia resolved, my mother-in-law would quaver if my child cried at length, thinking the hernia condition would pop out from his bellybutton and possibly kill him. So while in some minds, my baby was relatively healthy, others felt he was close to death.
Ways of raising a child, self-awareness, and teamwork with other care-givers (despite differences), like anything else, can always be improved, so if you have any comments, I'd like to hear them.
