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Calm and Attached
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16753 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1989 |
4,834 Words |
| Author
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William Sears, M.D.
William Sears, a father of seven, is a pediatrician in
practice in San Clemente, California. He is an assistant
professor of pediatrics at the University of Southern
California, a monthly columnist for Baby Talk Magazine, and
the author of ten books on parenting, including Creative
Parenting, Nighttime Parenting, The Fussy Baby, Growing
Together, Christian Parenting and Child Care, and Baby
Wearing. |
For centuries, creative parents have used a variety of slings, swings, and other things to calm fussy babies. Mastering the fine art of baby calming is a skill valued in every culture and necessary to every species. Now, promises Dr. William Sammons in his book The Self-Calmed Baby, the heat is off parents. Babies can be taught to calm themselves.
This book is bound to produce controversy. Parent-centered groups will welcome it as liberating them from the "incessant demands" of a fussy baby, and they will believe its promises that a self-reliant and independent child will result. Infant-centered groups and those mothers who have the choice and luxury of being full-time parents will regard The Self-Calmed Baby as yet another book that promotes untimely mother-baby separation. Actually, both groups will find suitable information in Sammons' book.
In an age when producing superbabies is much in vogue, The Self-Calmed Baby takes some of the pressure off achieving the impossible dream of being the perfect parent who produces the perfect infant. This book puts infant stimulation--the infant-care buzzword for the eighties--into perspective, advising parents to strive for a proper balance between stimulation and bombardment by knowing when to intervene and when to give the infant time and space to self-calm. I have always enjoyed books that emphasize parents' roles as playful companions and sensitive nurturers rather than super educators. In the early months of infancy, parents are often confused and uncertain about what to do--asking themselves, for example, whether to "pick him up or let him cry." The Self-Calmed Baby attempts to promote a balance between inappropriate overresponse and insensitive restraint.
Perhaps this book's most valuable advice is to urge parents to be good baby watchers--to be more observant of their infant's behavior and to learn his individual preferences and capabilities at each stage of development. Of particular interest is Sammons' emphasis on teaching mothers to be keen baby watchers by observing what self-calming techniques work and cataloging these skills for reference to use the next time baby is upset. Parents will find the suggestions on using various sleeping and arm-tucking positions worth trying. Infants find intucked-arms posture peaceful and reminiscent of the womb. A particularly noteworthy piece of advice is his suggestion that fussy babies be carried facing away from the parent's body so they can use the nearby visual stimulation to self-calm.
At no time in history has the
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