Parenting & New Baby Advice Blog

Archive for April, 2008

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet. William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) English dramatist, poet Romeo and Juliet, II:2 When we went to the hospital to deliver our twins, we had prepared a list of baby names worthy of the forty (40) weeks of anticipation for our babies’ birth. The list consisted of myriad names, all with sentimental value, significant literal meaning, or hip-sounding "twinny" alliteration.

All of the ultrasounds had been labeled "Baby A" and "Baby B." Although we thought we were prepared, the twin girls born on April 14, 1997, remained "Baby A" and "Baby B" as we sought for names that were worthy of such special, beautiful babies. When the girls were born, we looked at those tiny faces of the five (5) pound bundles of joy, and decided that none of the names on our list really "fit." I know it sounds silly that two unformed, premature infants would astound us in such a way as to make putting a name on a birth certificate such a perplexing feat. But, it is a permanent, lasting "label," if you will. Something more than what's put on a personalized baby blanket. Some believe it actually foretells a child’s destiny. (Some understand it will at least foretell a child’s treatment on the playground.)

Born in 1971, my parents named me "Starr." My father tells me it is due to his obsession with the television show, "Star Trek." My mother will say it is because a print of Van Gogh’s "Starry Night" hung in their bedroom. One of my mother’s hippie students came to visit me as a baby. Over a bowl of chocolate ice cream, she remarked, "Well" At least you didn’t name her" ‘COW’!" My grandmother said, "I am not going to call her that. That is not a name!" My mother asked, "What are you going to call her then?" Her response: "I don’t know, but I’m not going to call her THAT!" While thumbing through baby name books, I found my name, Starr, under the category of: "Names that are too much to live up to." Perhaps.

It was now time to name my children. After three (3) days of deliberation and prayer, we came up with the names "Zoe Claire" and "Skylar Ruth." Zoe means "life" in Greek. Claire means "bright & shining" in French. Skylar means "scholar" in Dutch, and Ruth is Biblical and means "compassionate friend." We announced the names of our twins to all of the family except my mother-in-law, Ruth. She came to the hospital and proclaimed, "Do my granddaughters have names yet?" The room was filled with relatives who were thrilled with the babies and the nomenclature. I told her their names were "Zoe" and "Skylar." With a laugh, she said, "No — really — what are their names?" Her reaction yielded a roomful of chuckles as my father whispered, "Ruth, they’re serious." Stunned, she replied, "Oh. What are their middle names?" "Zoe Claire and Skylar Ruth." Ignoring the fact that one of them bore her name, she continued in shock, "How do you spell those names?!"

Today, she thinks these names are both beautiful and God-given. My grandmother eventually felt the same about my stellar name. Do not be surprised if, on the day you meet your new offspring, you will be taken aback as we were, and throw out all preconceived notions of his or her destiny, and, most of all, the name he/she will carry with them throughout their life.

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Your Baby Begins to Look More at You

At two to three months, babies look more at their parents than at strangers. This helps you feel that your baby has formed a preference for you, which, in turn, strengthens your affection and love for your baby.

In actuality, of course, babies begin to look more at their parents because they see them the most - they recognize them. Hence, you become one of the first memories your baby constructs. Babies also like to watch things that change a little bit each time they look at them. Because faces change all the time, your face is an ideal stimulus.

Babies at this age are beginning to “understand’ what faces are. Two month olds can differentiate pictures with scrambled faces from those with faces with correctly placed features. By three months, babies may be able to discriminate facial expressions well enough to identify the eyes, nose, and mouth. Also, your baby will start to remember you and recognize you in other ways let alone know you are different from their rocking horse.

The Social Smile

Not only do babies smile more, they begin to smile socially-that is, they smile at people more than at things. These early smiles probably reflect more the fact that faces are familiar objects than that a truly social process is taking place. Nevertheless, when you smile at your baby, your baby can smile in response. There is nothing like those first smiles to make you fall in love with your baby all over again.

Your Baby Becomes a More Active Participant

In “talking” to their infants, parents perform what in adult conversations would be socially inappropriate behaviors just to get their babies to look and smile at them.

We make all sorts of funny exaggerated, funny faces when we look at our babies. The routine parents go through with their babies has been described as a dance. Your baby looks at you, locks his eyes on yours, and then looks away. You then use your routine of funny faces to get your baby to look back at you. It is as if the two of you are taking turns in a finely tuned conversation or dialogue.

By three months, your baby will assume a greater role as the initiator of the sequence of play and interaction. In the first month, your baby followed your lead; at three months, your baby can begin the dance as well.

Your Baby Becomes Adjusted to Your Rhythms

Your two month old is beginning to adjust to your biological rhythms. Most babies will now sleep through the night and feed more regularly and less often. Failure to make these adjustments to your sleeping and waking patterns can be a major source of strain on your relationship with your baby and your spouse. Especially fatigued parents have a hard time enjoying their babies. If your baby continues crying excessively and does not seem to be falling into any sort of routine with you, a call to the pediatrician might be in order.

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Separation Anxiety

Your baby’s protest at your leaving the room-sometimes referred to as separation anxiety-is a healthy reaction. Rest assured, it does not mean your baby will become an overly dependent adult. It is part and parcel of normal development.

Separation anxiety requires both cognitive advances involved in the development of object permanence [you continue to exist in your baby’s mind even when you are out of sight] and a special need for you that cannot be met by someone else. Separation anxiety represents your baby’s fear of losing you. In the earlier months, your baby probably woke up from a nap screaming; a year later, just calling for your baby from another room, may be enough to help her wait for you. This change happens when your baby can remember who you are [even when you are not with her] and is confident that you will come back to take care of her. Before your baby develops object permanence, when you leave the room it is if you no longer exist-it’s little wonder she screams when you are gone.

By twelve to eighteen months, your baby understands that you are a distinct entity. [On one day you may wear a suit and on another day you may wear blue jeans, but you are still the same person.] At the same time, your baby begins to realize that you exist even though you are no longer in the same room. As babies develop greater motor control, they can move away from their parents and can see them from a distance, which helps babies to perceive themselves as separate individuals. This separateness helps babies begin to develop a sense of self.

Peek-a-boo, one of the most delightful games played with babies is supportive of your baby’s beginning differentiation of “self” as separate of you. When you cover up your face, to a young baby, you really have disappeared. To a baby at the beginning of this stage, the absence of your visual presence is cognitively interpreted as your disappearance. When you uncover your face, you magically return. For an infant, the emotions of surprise and the joy of being reunited are very real in these games.

Peek-a-boo continues to hold magical powers for the eighteen month old. Toddlers cover up their faces with their hands so that they no longer can see us. What is so amusing is the toddler’s belief that she cannot see you, you cannot see her either. Although the toddler has begun to recognize her existence as separate from you, she is not yet able to take on another person’s perspective [that is, put herself in someone else’s shoes].

A Secure Attachment to You

By twelve months of age, your baby has formed a meaning relationship to you. [Here we are speaking to mothers, because women have traditionally been the primary caregivers for babies. But much of what is discussed here applies to fathers as well.] Psychologists refer to this as a baby’s “specific attachment.” Not only does your baby clearly prefer you, but he also strives to avoid your absence and can use your presence to give himself security.

People used to talk about this relationship in terms of its intensity-how much and how loudly did a baby cry when his mother left the room. They believed that babies with more intense reactions loved their mothers more. We now realize that the intensity of a child’s response to separation from his mother is less important than the degree of security that he can gain from her presence. In fact, psychologists now classify children in terms of whether their attachment is secure. A secure attachment is shown with babies who seek closeness with their mothers. After a separation, when their mothers return to the room, these securely attached babies approach and look up to their moms.

Having a secure attachment is good for babies’ long-term development. Securely attached babies end up having better peer relationships and emotional stability during the first six years. Of course, the seeds of this relationship begin early in life with the mother’s handling of their babies. Studies find that mothers, who responded sensitively and appropriately to their babies in the first two to six months of life, are more likely to have babies with thee secure relationships. Surprisingly, the baby’s characteristics early on seem to play little role.

Recognition of Self

About this time, babies can also recognize themselves in the mirror. One study examined how babies reacted to their mirror reflections. Lipstick was put on their noses, and observers watched to see if the babies would try to wipe the lipstick off. The babies all learned how to recognize themselves in the mirror and wipe off the lipstick somewhere nine and twenty-four months.

Because babies are becoming more aware of their separateness, they begin to recognize how vulnerable they really are without you there to take care of them. Try to think about how it feels to have your feet pulled out from under you. That’s how your baby feels as she starts to realize that she is not you.

This happens right before your baby takes her first independent steps. Tolerance for frustration and stressful events diminishes. At times your baby seems like an “emotional wreck”-quick to cry and not easily pacifiable. You wonder what happened to your nice calm baby. Some psychiatrists have suggested that the apprehension associated with walking may be ear of loss of support from the parent. All of a sudden, your baby is alone and separate. Independent walking perhaps marks the discovery of the solitary “self.”

Conflicting Feelings

Your baby will experience conflicting emotions as he masters walking. At the same time he is hanging on to you, he is pushing you away. With his first steps, striving towards greater independence, he seems to be saying, “Look at all the things I can do! I can walk and go where I want.” In the next breath, showing his extreme dependency, your baby seems to say, “Stay here, I can’t be without you for a moment.” All of this is healthy and normal.

Development of Attachment to a Transitional Object

By this time your baby may have established a specially loved baby blanket or stuffed animal [a “lovey”] that accompanies her to bed and to scary places. This lovey is called a transitional object because it helps your baby in the transition between extreme dependency on you and the move toward independence.

Your baby’s lovey provides security and comfort, particularly in fearful situations. For your baby, this selected object is said to serve the purpose of keeping a part of you with her even while you are gone. It is important to respect your baby’s desire to have this lovey with her.

Some babies maintain this attachment to a special lovey into the preschool years and beyond. There is no predetermined time for an abandonment of a lovey; your child will put hers aside when she is ready. In most cases the attachment is normal, and will be outgrown naturally.

If you found this article helpful, you might also enjoy reading, Baby Teething Timetable.

Since the 1970s, remarkable improvements in ultrasound technology have opened a real "window on the womb." Ultrasound consists of high-frequency sound waves that are bounced off the baby to give a photographic picture of the fetus. Unlike X-rays, which have much higher powers of penetration, ultrasound will identify soft tissues. Thus, it can give a complete picture of the growing baby and is a very useful diagnostic tool.

An ultrasound scan may be used to date the pregnancy, and thereafter used as needed in hospitals with the equipment. If not, women who may be at special risk because of problems with a previous pregnancy, or who would like to have a scan, can often be referred to a hospital where it can be performed. The pregnancy can be very accurately dated at around 16 weeks by measuring the circumference of the baby’s head. This knowledge is useful in avoiding problems later if the mother is unsure of her dates and does not know when the baby is due.

The scan can locate the position of the placenta, which can be helpful if there is any bleeding later in pregnancy, and it can be used to check that the baby has no major physical abnormalities such as anencephaly. Ultrasound can show congenital heart defects, kidney disease and other severe abnormalities. Ultrasound can also detect if the mother is expecting more than one baby.

There has been some controversy about the safety of ultrasound, which has concerned some women. They are not sure whether they should accept a scan. Ultrasound has now been in use for many years without any evidence of harmful effects to the baby. All indications are that the benefits of having ultrasound outweigh any potential risk. Not least is the benefit of reassurance given to many women on seeing their baby is alive and well, particularly those who have waited a long time to have a baby or who have experienced a miscarriage. However, a large study carried out in the United States by the National Institutes of Health on 15,000 women with a low risk of problems in pregnancy showed that while detection of twins and malformations was increased, and pregnancy could be dated more accurately, the outcome-in terms of healthy babies-was not improved when ultrasound was employed. There was no difference in the rate of fetal or neonatal death or subsequent illness. Rates for preterm births, for the outcomes of postdate pregnancies and for low-birth-weight babies were similar for those who had had ultrasound and those who had not. Although the percentage of abnormal fetuses detected in the group who had ultrasound was three times higher, the termination rate was about the same in both groups.

So, while ultrasound is of undoubted benefit to women at high risk or in special situations where a problem is detected, its routine benefits are unproved for now. Ultrasound can help some mothers anxious about their pregnancies by reassuring them, but can also create anxieties for others: "Towards the end of my pregnancy they started to worry about whether my baby was growing as he should. I don’t know what started it, but once they got this idea into their heads they wouldn’t leave me alone. I was in and out of the hospital having my blood pressure taken and having ultrasound scan after scan. My blood pressure was up-with worry, no doubt-and they couldn’t decide what to do. They said they would have to induce the baby early to make sure that all would be well. Then they changed their minds and decided to wait. I was in the hospital for the last few weeks of the pregnancy and, of course, the baby decided to be late. I was two weeks overdue before they decided induce the birth. By then I was so desperate I said, ‘Yes.’ It was a terrible birth, ending with an emergency Cesarean, and when he was born he was 7 pounds, 1 ounce. He didn’t look overdue. I asked my doctor later, ‘So what happened with this small baby?’ There was nothing wrong at all! My worries were for nothing. They said they couldn’t explain it but he had appeared small on the scan. So much for all their wonderful technology!" Some women-and doctors and midwives, too-feel that, with the increased reliance on new technology, many of the old skills in obstetrics are being lost: "I had shared care and I noticed a tremendous difference between my visits to the well-baby clinic and my visits to my very experienced doctor. At the clinic, people seemed to poke and probe for a long time and suggested that I have another scan to see the baby was growing OK. When I went to my doctor, she examined me very quickly and said, ‘Oh, this baby’s doing fine, I think he weighs about 4 pounds now.’ I asked how she knew and she just said, ‘Experience.’ In the clinic, I feel like you only see the junior staff, with the senior staff called for special occasions. No wonder you don’t always get the best care and they give you all kinds of unnecessary tests!"

Having an Ultrasound Scan.

An ultrasound scan is a simple, noninvasive procedure. In early pregnancy you are usually asked to drink a lot of water an hour or two before your appointment and not to empty your bladder. This pushes the womb up in the pelvis and will give the ultrasound operator a clearer view. You will be asked to lie down on a couch and remove any clothing that covers your abdomen. A cold gel is rubbed over the abdomen to enable the ultrasound operator to move the scanner smoothly over the area. As she does so you will see the baby’s outline appear on the television screen and you will also see the fetal movements.

It can be difficult to interpret what you are seeing, so ask if you are not told. The operator can freeze the picture at any time and point out things to you without exposing the baby to any more sound waves than necessary. You will usually be able to see the baby’s head, the arms and legs moving around, and some of the internal organs at work. You may even be able to see the baby sucking his thumb. Eventually, couples look forward to finding out the gender of their baby (and can give friends and family an idea of what types of baby gifts to look for.)

"The woman took a lot of time to explain to me what she was looking for and what she could see. I found all of it so reassuring. She pointed out the heart beating, the cord and the placenta, the kidneys and the spine and showed me how much he was moving around." Other women find the process unnerving, especially if nothing is explained. "No one said anything to me and I was afraid to ask in case anything was wrong. She kept on looking at everything and taking measurements and I started to get very jumpy. Then she suddenly got up and said, 'I just want to get a second opinion on this,’ and I was terrified. I thought, ‘This is it. Something’s really wrong.’ I was in tears. Someone else came back and they were both looking at the screen, still not saying anything to me. ‘What is it, what is wrong?’ I finally asked. ‘Nothing’s wrong, I’m just checking these measurements,’ she said. I felt as if I weren’t a person-just a scientific toy." Usually the baby’s father is welcome to come and watch the process and see the baby on the screen. Many dads find this is a very positive experience, not only because they are able to give support, but also because the baby becomes real to them in an even more dramatic way than to the woman: "It was hard for me to take in that she was pregnant until I saw the baby on the screen. It was fantastic-it made it come alive for me."

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like this post on Preparing For A New Baby: A How To Guide.

Open adoption means something different to every agency. For instance, the birth mother and adoptive parents can conceivably have an ongoing relationship after the adoption. In most instances, though, open adoption means that the birth mother is allowed to write a letter to her child, then the adoptive parents will present the kids gift to the child at a certain time, or that an agreement is made to exchange pictures without names and addresses.

Open adoption is easier on the birth mother, since her existence is acknowledged. This may help reduce her grief after the adoption has taken place because she knows at least a little bit about the baby’s situation. When birth mothers have less apprehension, they’re less likely to try to find their children later on.

Independent Adoptions

Independent adoption means that you pay the medical and legal expenses for a pregnant woman who will be giving up her child. While this can be fast, allowing you to bypass agency red tape and restrictions, it can be emotionally devastating if the biological mother changes her mind at the last minute. Also, the adoption is not final until a judge signs the adoption papers when the baby is between six months and a year old. Keep in mind that each state has different laws about how long birth parents have the right to change their minds. If things work out, though, independent adoption can be a beautiful experience. You may get to take the baby home right from the hospital, whereas with most adoption methods you may not see the child before she’s a month old. You also have greater intimacy and control, since you will know the birth mother during her pregnancy. Some adopting couples have actually assisted in the delivery!

The first step in an independent adoption is to find a birth mother. This is easier said than done, but you can start by notifying relatives and friends. Other connections might be social workers, members of the clergy, and doctors. The important thing is to let lots of people know you’re looking. If you contact the National Adoption Exchange, [1218 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA19107]. They’ll put you in touch with local, independent adoption groups.

Know your state law. We can’t stress this enough. An oversight with regard to the law can overturn an adoption. How long do birth parents have a right to change their minds in your state? Is it permissible to bring a baby into your state from another? With interstate adoptions, it’s likely you’ll need to be in compliance with the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children, which operates in all parts of the country except

New Jersey and Washington, DC. Does the law allow for you to have an intermediary [someone to help you connect with the birth mother] in your state? Whether or not you can have a lawyer as an intermediary, you’ll need one to advise you about the law, and to do the paperwork.

Costs for independent adoptions can be less than those for private agency adoptions. Usually, you’ll pay the birth mother’s medical and legal expenses. Some state laws allow you to pay for her living expenses. Whatever you do pay, make sure you document it, because things like new cars for the biological mother may suggest baby-buying to a judge, and that’s illegal.

Explaining Adoption

While an adopted infant does not inquire about her origins, an adopted toddler-like any toddler-may. Direct answers to the queries of adopted children are always best, but remember that a child under the age of three hasn’t the comprehension of an older child. Simple truthful answers to your toddler’s questions will satisfy her. “You grew inside your mother and now you’re our little girl,” is one example. As your child grows older, your answers to her questions will become progressively more complex.

Other family members-especially an adopted child’s siblings and particularly those who are your natural children-should be included in your plan of simple truthfulness. Never try to hide facts about adopted children from any of your children. To do so invites misunderstanding and painful future revelations.

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