I have had a realization. My baby is not an equation to be solved.
The Problem: Colic and Bedtime
So often it is easy to wonder why our daughter cries so often and so intensely. As a parent, hearing your child cry triggers a response mentally, emotionally, and physically.
We have to fight the instinct at times to comfort and comfort and comfort. The mental checklist comes out:
- Baby is fed
- Baby is dry
- Baby is warm/cool enough
- Baby is loved and has been shown love today
- Baby has played enough and should be sufficiently tired
After all of the boxes are checked, some babies will continue to cry and/or scream.
Sometimes I tell people this and they look at me confused, because when they ask how the baby is doing they only want to hear the fun and cute stuff.
“Oh… sorry to hear that.”
No one ever told me about colic. Now that I share the fact that we have a difficult (though otherwise extremely happy) baby openly, I have found that it is much more common than anyone ever let on. Maybe people thought that if they shared this fact, they would be seen as bad parents? That is far from the case.
Troubleshooting: Insanity
They (Einstein I think) say that insanity can be defined as repeating the exact same thing and expecting a different result.
Well, raising a difficult child is truly insanity.
It does not matter how precise you are.
With The Bean, you could get her to bed perfectly one night and then the next do the exact same thing. You will get a different result.
Same temperature of the room, same books read, same gentle rock, same placement into her crib with the quiet walk away. It does not matter if you keep every variable identical, the result is always different.
Why is this?
The Realization: My Baby Is Not an Equation
Bean is a human being.
She has been a human being since the day she was conceived.
This reminds me of the time we went for her 19 week ultrasound. The tech needed to capture one more shot to finish the order for images.
The only image remaining to take was of The Bean’s spine; however, Bean-o was not in the right position to get a good angle for the picture. We tried everything we could think of to make this baby turn ever so slightly, but she refused. She must have been sleepy.
If Bean was a part of Katie, Katie could have just had the baby turn around, but Bean was and is her own person and she did not have the same plans as us that day.
Humans Have Seasons
Human life is amazing in all that God created it to be.
Something I have observed and heard talked about many places, is the idea of seasons, and not just the weather.
We all have ups and downs, days of high motivation and low motivation, and we change frequently. Call them swings, call them seasons, or call them anything you’d like. We rise and go to bed. Some days I am in the mood for an intense movie or even a book, other days I am in the mood for an episode of The Office.
If I get to have preferential choices that change, why can’t my baby?
Just because The Bean cannot communicate verbally yet, does not mean that she doesn’t know what she wants.
Doing Our Best
I do my best to read her signs and cues for hunger, sleep, boredom, and so on, but what if she is just in the mood to feel down for a bit.
What if, with a lack of words, she wants to vocalize as best as she can?
So often I am trying my best to fix and solve so that our baby is quiet and clean. Yet, if nothing needs to be fixed, this can drive me crazy.
Awe and Affirmation
This is not awe, like “awwwww she is so cute”. Rather, I think that when all else is taken care of, and even while those tasks are being done, a parent would benefit from having awe at the life that they have co-created with God.
This baby does not want to give you a headache or make you sleep deprived. They want what you want. They need what you need.
Babies need to be affirmed. They want to be given their identity of who they truly are so that they can rest in knowing that they are loved and that they do not have to change.
Who Else Is A Human?
Who else around me am I treating this way? Who else am I trying more to solve than to affirm.
Certainly my wife. When she has a hard day, the half-hearted solutions and band-aids come out like a muscle spasm. It is second nature to try to come up with a resolution rather than to empathize.
At work? Are we always trying to have the right answer for our boss or coworkers? This could be a natural reaction to want to be a good employee and to please other people, but when is the last time you saw the human side of your coworkers?
Friends, family, and everyone I am close to. This happens daily for people who are trying to make everyone happy. Those of us with this habit, the solvers, we are always putting the fastest solution that will please the other as a highest priority.
People Pleasing Ignores the People
Making others happy is not always a bad thing, but when the happiness of the person blinds us from the actual person right before our eyes, it is only adding to the problem that the individual is unseen.
The Real Solution
No.
Stop.
There does not need to be a solution.