Baby [Adventure]

 

[Adventure 175]

There are some things I haven't done in a while. Holding a baby was one of them up until a couple weeks ago, when I had the absolute pleasure of holding one of my pastor's twins during our Annual Meeting. 

Our choir director, commenting on how heavy Jonas is, asked if I'd take him. Of course, I obliged! He was a bit fussy, but my specialty is getting babies calmed and quieted and to sleep. Soon, he was napping peacefully. 

At one point in my life, I almost always had a baby or two attached to my body, whether it was one or two of my children or someone else's or a combination. At a La Leche League Conference once, I had a toddler in a mei tai on my back napping and a baby in my sling nursing and I was in the back of the room swaying to keep the toddler a sleep and lull the baby to sleep as well. There was a baby fussing nearby and the mom was trying to keep her toddler from running off while she got the baby calmed down. Her friend, who was also a friend of mine, was wrangling her own children and looked from the fussy baby to me and back to the mom, raised her eyebrows at me and I nodded in agreement. My friend, with permission of the other mom, tucked the baby into the sling opposite my infant and I swayed and bounced both babies. The mom got her toddler settled with a coloring book and a snack and offered to retrieve her now-sleeping babe. I told her, if it was all the same to her, her baby was helping provide the proper balance between the weight on my back and the weight on my front, so they were welcome to continue their nap until the conference session was done. 

After the session, the mom and I were chatting and she asked me how on earth I soothed her always-fussy baby. I told her it was just a talent I had. But the more I thought about it, I realized that my secret is that each baby has a rhythm or a motion or a combination of both that they find soothing. For some it's swaying, some it's bouncing; for some it's patting their back and for others it's breathing with them in a pattern that mimics sleep. For most babies, cadence is everything ... from the cadence of back pats or belly rubs to the cadence of your soothing voice to the cadence of your footsteps, swaying, or bouncing. And it's knowing how to slow what you're doing down in just the right way so that you can eventually sit or stand still or even lay the child down to sleep on their own if you'd like. 

Me? I'd rather hold the sleeping baby.