ParentTime Live! Transcript

Germs and Newborns

Cats and Babies

Returning to Work

Nursing Dads

Preparing Siblings for New Baby

Sibling Jealousy

Sleeping With Baby

Reading to Infants

Postpartum Depression

Keeping Baby Warm

Relieving Gas Pains

Rashes

Cloth Versus Disposable Diapers

Dr. Bill and Martha Sears on ParentTime Live!

In this November 4 chat event, Dr. Bill and Martha Sears share their views on a variety of baby care topics.

ParentTime

This event included slide images. Be sure to check out the schedule of upcoming ParentTime Live! events.

Moderator: Welcome to ParentTime Live! We’re discussing tips for postpartum parents with Dr. Bill and Martha Sears, parents of eight and authors of The Baby Book. Remember to send your questions as private mail to the moderator.

Question: I understand that you have eight children! How close are they in age and how did you manage to raise them and have two successful careers?

William and Martha Sears: Early on we realized the importance of having time and energy for ourselves, in addition to raising our eight children who were spaced 2-3 years apart. Remember, your babies and children most need happy parents. If you can strike a balance between your needs and your children’s needs, you’re off to the right start.

Germs and Newborns

William & Martha Sears: You may be surprised, but newborns are very hearty and carry a lot of immunity that you give your baby through your breast milk and the antibodies that your baby got through your placenta. As a precaution, keep your newborn away from children with obvious contagious colds, such as the tell-tale green, snotty nose.

Question: What if I’m not breastfeeding?

William & Martha Sears: If you are formula feeding, you have to be extra careful about exposing your baby in crowds. Stay away from unnecessary crowds, such as supermarkets and shopping malls, and church nurseries for at least a month. Wear your baby in a baby sling; that will contain her. Also, because she is somewhat hidden in the carrier, admiring strangers are more likely to keep their distance. If you carry a baby in your arms, every stranger in the world will want to be “in her face.”

Question: What if I (the Mom) have a cold?

William & Martha Sears: It’s normal for every mother to worry about sharing their germs with their babies. Yet, babies carry a lot of immunity. As a precaution, if you have the type of cold in which you are coughing a lot, wear a mask while you are feeding your baby. Wash your hands frequently. And avoid sneezing within a couple feet of baby. Most cold germs are spread through the air.

Question: Am I being neurotic when I ask friends and relatives to wash their hands before handling the baby?

William & Martha Sears: You are not being neurotic. You are simply doing what you can to keep your baby healthy. Although most germs are carried through the air, they are also transmitted through hand contact. Expect people to respect your care for your newborn and ask them to wash their hands. This is why we encourage mothers and fathers to wear their babies in carriers — preferably a sling-type — so that baby is contained and there is not such a tendency to want to paw and peer at adorable babies. Also, newborns don’t need to be handed around from person to person. They do better medically and emotionally in the arms of their most familiar caregivers.

Cats and Babies

William & Martha Sears: Despite what you read and hear about cats carrying germs, they are really quite clean little animals. But you definitely should keep your infant away from the cat litter that babies like to explore around nine months. During pregnancy, you may read to stay away from cats because of the danger of contacting a germ called toxoplasmosis. Actually, this is quite rare and not enough to banish your beloved cat. During pregnancy, you should definitely have someone else change the cat litter.

Returning to Work

William & Martha Sears: As long as your wife wants to and your family is financially able to. The great juggling act of today’s parenting is to balance parenting needs and financial needs. The longer your baby can enjoy the luxury of a full-time parent as primary caregiver the better start your baby will get. Ideally, if you can stay off work for two years to launch your child, you will see the payoff for you and your baby. If you do go back to work, try to get baby used to your substitute caregiver early on. And be sure your spouse shares in the child care if you are sharing in the family income. It’s very important to keep the same caregiver for the first two years. The family medical leave act allows you 12 weeks, which in our opinion should be the minimum time for a mother to be full-time with her new baby. When you do go back to work and choose a substitute caregiver, choose one that mothers your baby as close as possible to your style. Demand only the best for your baby. Yet, don’t worry that your baby will think the caregiver is her mother if the caregiver is so good. Your baby will always know you are her mother.

Nursing Dads

William & Martha Sears: You can nurse your baby. Nursing means primarily comforting and holding, in addition to breastfeeding. Fathers “nurse” their babies differently than mothers. Don’t sell yourself short. There are unique male ways of comforting babies. My favorite and one that has given Martha a lot of rest, is the neck nestle. Drape your chin and neck around your baby’s head and sing a tune like “Old Man River” as you hold your baby up on your chest. The male voice vibrates more against baby’s skull bones (they hear with their skull bones in addition to their ear drums) and lulls a fussy baby to sleep. Also, try the “warm fuzzy.” Drape baby over your bare chest skin-to-skin while you are laying down. The rise and fall of your chest, the warm fuzzy feeling of your skin and the warm air coming from your nose against baby’s scalp is likely to lull baby back to sleep. Be prepared for your wife to hover around ready to rescue fumbling Daddy from fussy baby. Yet, convey to your wife that you are confident in taking care of your baby. Politely ask her to go shopping and let you and baby have time and space to work out your own father-baby comforting techniques. Be sure she leaves baby well-fed and initially keeps her time away from baby to no more than an hour. Once you have proven yourself as a baby comforter, your wife will be more comfortable leaving “her” baby with you. The result of this is that everyone wins. Baby gets used to father’s unique way of comforting, you grow your nurturing skills, and your wife will be less burned out as a mother — and as a wife.

Preparing Siblings for New Baby

William & Martha Sears: When there are three years between children, sibling rivalry is much less. Involve your three-year-old prenatally. Let him go with you to your doctor’s appointments, and listen to the heartbeat and watch the pictures on ultrasound. This is called sibling bonding. If you know the sex of the baby and have already chosen a name, let your baby relate to the preborn baby by name. Let him help you pick out clothing and decorate the nursery. Give him a job and a title, such as “Mommy’s little helper.” Show him pictures of himself when he was a baby and tell him what babies do and what they are going to be like. “They need a lot of holding and a lot of Mommy’s time, just like you did when you were a baby.” Impress upon him that he is still special and will still have a lot of time with you and Daddy, and how much fun it will be to have a little baby to play with. A useful tool when your baby is born is to get a sling-type carrier and wear your baby. This gives you two hands free to attend to your preschooler. You may be surprised how little sibling rivalry will occur when he sees that Mom is still available to him. Enter parenting not expecting sibling rivalry. Sometimes if your child senses that you expect conflicts, he is sure to provide them.

Sibling Jealousy

William & Martha Sears: Continue to impress upon your toddler how special he is. Give him a job and a title and pay him a token or a toy for helping you. A lot of handling sibling rivalry is just plain old marketing — convincing your older child that he has not lost something. Tell him what’s in it for him. This is why if you wear a baby in a carrier, you still have two hands free for your toddler. While you are nursing or feeding your baby, you can read a story to your toddler. Your toddler will then realize that every time baby is due for a feeding, he gets a “feeding” of something special too. Be very careful to impress on your toddler to be gentle to baby. Show and tell. Show him how to pat and rub and gently hug baby (“Because baby is so tiny and is not big and strong like you are”). Always supervise them together. Don’t leave them alone together. Also, be sure that Daddy spends a lot more time with the older child, so that what energy he loses from you he gains from dad. Give your toddler a very clear message that you will not allow him to hurt his brother. You can even at two years of age begin impressing on your toddler the concept of what brother or sister means and convey to the toddler what behavior you expect. You expect kindness, gentleness, cooperation, and help. But do it in a way that the jobs are fun for him.

Sleeping With Baby

William & Martha Sears: Wherever all family members sleep the best is the right arrangement for you. There is no right or wrong place for baby to sleep In our opinion, sleeping with parents is in most cases the best arrangement. Since we are into polls this week, being election week, if you were to take a poll among babies and they could vote, we guarantee that over 90 percent would vote “yes” on sleeping with their parents. After all, put yourself in the place of a baby. Sleeping next to a warm body and the “all-night diner” and the loving voice and touch baby is used to is certainly more secure than sleeping behind bars. You will find that sleeping arrangements change according to the development of your baby. Some babies sleep better in their parents’ bed early on and a crib later. Sometimes vice versa. As long as your sleeping arrangement is working for you, you are giving your baby a healthy attitude about sleep, that sleep is a pleasant state to enter and not a fearful state to remain in. This will create lifelong healthy attitudes about going to sleep and staying asleep. Be sure you have a safe sleeping arrangement. Don’t put baby to sleep on a soft waterbed or sofa, and place baby to sleep on his back. Also, don’t worry about your baby never leaving your bed. He definitely will. This high-maintenance stage and high-touch parenting does not last forever. The time in your bed, in your arms and at your breasts is a very short time in the total life of the child, but the memories of love and availability last a lifetime.

Reading to Infants

William & Martha Sears: No interaction with your newborn is silly. Anytime your baby hears your voice and sees your lips move and your facial gestures, that is a valuable learning experience for baby. Mothers are particularly animated when they read to their babies. And this is a wonderful way to teach baby language, regardless of the content of your reading. Also, it teaches babies concentration. The way your facial muscles move is very enticing and captivating to developing eyes. A mother’s face is one of the most beautiful “mobiles” that babies can have. Give him yours. When you are reading to your newborn, watch how your baby follows your expression, even at age one month. At age one month, your baby can see best at an eye-to-eye distance of around 12 inches. A few months from now that will expand to 24-36 inches. In fact, video studies examining mothers talking and reading to their newborns showed that the newborn’s head moves in synchrony with the mother’s expressions. This movement is too subtle to be seen without special cameras, but obviously a mother’s expressions and gestures are perceived and responded to by her newborn.

Postpartum Depression

William & Martha Sears: You can help her in two ways. First, share the baby care. A lot of postpartum depression is just plain fatigue. Prove yourself as a competent baby-tender. Many mothers in their zeal to be the perfect mother neglect to take care of themselves. Even with our eight children, with our eighth, I had to remind my wife, veteran as she is, what our baby needs most is a happy, rested mother. I say this in response to her when Martha says, “My baby needs me so much, I don’t have time to take a shower.” It would help if you not only offer to take care of baby, but do specific chores. And, schedule an outing for her: “I’ve made an appointment for you at the spa (or wherever she likes to go). I’ll drive you there and pick you up in an hour. Meanwhile, baby and I will go out and have some fun.” One of the most modern remedies for postpartum depression is actually an old idea coming back. That is hiring a doula. A doula is another mother who specializes in care of the postpartum family. There are doula services in nearly every major city. Your hospital or childbirth class would have the names. Doulas are well-worth the money it costs to hire them. Continue being a loving, caring mate. And besides helping your wife, constantly give her strokes that she is doing the most important job in the world — mothering your baby.

Keeping Baby Warm

William & Martha Sears: The most reliable place to feel for baby’s temperature is baby’s forehead. Many babies have cold hands and feet, because their circulation is not yet well-developed in those areas. If your baby’s forehead feels warm, the whole baby is likely to be warm enough. In the winter months, it’s a good idea to put booties on your baby’s cold feet. In addition to the temperature of baby’s bedroom being comfortably warm (68-70 degrees), the consistency of temperature is also important. Here’s a Sears family trick that we have used to keep our babies’ bedroom comfortably toasty during the cold, winter months: Put a warm mist vaporizer in your baby’s sleeping room. The condensation of the steam releases heat and it’s a moist heat, unlike the dry air from most heaters. If you live in an old house, don’t steam the room up so much that it peels the paint or wallpaper

Relieving Gas Pains

William & Martha Sears: The key to relieving gas is to hold your baby in ways that put your warm hand on baby’s tense tummy and bend her in a way to sort of “pump” the gas out. Also, look at the colic carry pictures. We have used these positions to pump the gas out of many of our babies. Also, try the “I love you” massage, where you massage baby’s tummy from left to right as you massage the gas out.

Rashes

William & Martha Sears: Bumpy rashes are usually due to allergies, except in the first month when it could be normal newborn acne. The most likely allergies are something new in baby’s diet (or in your diet, if you are breastfeeding). In your diet, suspect dairy products, corn, and nuts. Or, it could be a change in detergent that baby has a contact allergy to. Sometimes a bumpy rash will appear in baby’s otherwise blemish-free skin during the winter months of low humidity and central heating. Normal newborn acne will disappear without any treatment. You seldom need any lotions on baby’s face. Drool rash can be minimized by a lanolin barrier cream, such as Lansinoh, massaged onto baby’s cheeks prior to bedtime.

Cloth Versus Disposable Diapers

William & Martha Sears: We are “what works” parents. Cloth is softer and if babies could vote I think they would simply like to be dry. Disposable diapers are more convenient and with the new super absorbency are certainly more convenient for travel. Try both to see which one causes fewer diaper rashes. Yet you will find disposables generally much more convenient. Be kind to your baby’s bottom and have fun with your diaper changing. In addition to feeding, diaper changing is one of the most frequent interactions you’re going to have. Reserve special songs and antics for diaper changing time as a way of keeping the squirmy little bottoms quiet.

Moderator: Thanks for participating in our chat with Dr. Bill and Martha Sears. We will now open up the channel so you can continue discussing some of the issues we touched upon.