Let’s see the world through the eyes of a baby.
If there is ANYTHING I’ve learned from living with a baby, is that life can be so easy.
No, it’s definitely not easy being the parents of a newborn. Oh my, we are tired and wondering about new subjects almost on a day to day basis.
But the moments we pay attention to Sophia and to what she must see, we notice how it actually wouldn’t be too bad to see the world through the eyes of a baby. If we just let go of the script we all firmly cling on to.
Honestly, it’s so interesting to watch a baby. They can look so intelligent, you can see the strong personality that’s still hiding out somewhere on the inside. On the other side, it’s a primitive being. She only thinks of her needs, doesn’t care about circumstances. When she’s hungry, she’ll literally attack anything that could be similar to her source of milk – Mommy is really lucky she still doesn’t have teeth!
On one hand, her primitive behaviour can complicate things. In our daily lives it doesn’t feel easy to take out our boobies and give her food right away. We aren’t always able to change the diaper and with all those rules, we can’t put our babies to sleep wherever they would fall asleep. We tend to bend the baby to our lifestyle. We get instructions to follow a feeding schedule. Baby has to sleep a certain amount of hours, there is even a sleep schedule.
Why?
Do we all work the same? Are we all hungry at the same time, for the same amount of food? Are we all the most productive after the same amount of hours of sleep?
I don’t think so.
I don’t even know after how many hours I’m at my most productive, because it varies every single day. I don’t care for the ‘oh no, tonight I slept only 6 hours, I do feel okay, but I’m sure I’ll feel my energy drop at any moment’. You know why? Because if you strongly believe what you say, it will become truth. And soon your energy will drop. Showing you you should have slept 7 hours. Or maybe 8. Whatever you believe you need.
There are many beliefs designing our lives.
Luckily, babies are still immune. I’ve tried telling Sophia she needs to sleep at least 16 hours a day, she didn’t listen. I’ve tried telling her she ate a lot a short time before, so she shouldn’t be hungry yet. Didn’t work, she still sounded like an air alarm.
Sometimes it makes us insecure, and we investigate the situation. I’ve learned breast milk adapts itself to babies needs. It can be different every single day. So how is it even possible we believe we should follow a feeding schedule? Isn’t the baby itself the ‘schedule’ that shows us how things work, today?
We could learn so much from a baby’s point of view on the world. Again, things can be so easy.
The only thing Sophia needs is sleep, feeling clean, the right temperature and food. Oh yes, and she needs entertainment. Let’s start with the last one.
Entertainment
Step inside a baby or children store and you’ll find millions of things we can buy for babies. From the very beginning we can buy our baby toys, which should teach them skill. One thing even looks cooler than the other.
At the moment I’m writing this, Sophia is almost 8 weeks old. She has been learning about ‘patterns’ lately. Did you know we have patterns all over the place? We even had them before having a baby, who would need them to learn about life.
What she likes the most? The head of our bed. It intrigues her, makes her smile.
She loves her colourful Mexican doll. It wasn’t meant for now, but from the first week she was born, she picked the doll. Before she was supposed to be playing or trying to communicate with things, she was having her special moments with her doll. And even though her she couldn’t smile, talk or touch it yet, I could feel the vibes of her little baby mind. In her mind she was playing with her doll. We all know how powerful the mind can be. It’s actually even more important what happens in your mind, than in the outside world.
Going out
Sleep schedules, feeding schedules, it all doesn’t make it easy to go out. In some countries even exists a quarantine for the first month – or longer – after birth. Mommy and baby have to stay at home. Really, why? Giving birth was really heavy, I admit. The first couple of weeks I struggled and now at almost 8 weeks, I still don’t feel the energy I had before. But why would I stay at home?
Do you think thousands of years ago, in the prehistoric era, people also stayed somewhere inside. Just because someone made that up? I don’t know how women acted back then, but I assume they were guided by what they felt.
It’s exactly what I did. We went out as soon as it felt right for me. Without worrying about Sophia. Two weeks after she was born, we went to Maastricht, which took us a 2 hour car ride to get there.
Sophia has the same needs when we go somewhere else, as when she has at home.
Hungry? Milk has to be there when I want to eat. I don’t care where we are, don’t come with excuses.
Dirty diaper? Just change my diaper.
Cold? Verify if my clothes are suitable, or give me an extra blanket.
Hot? Take my clothes off. Doesn’t matter where we are or what the weather is like.
Too many people? Put me somewhere calmer.
Bored? I only need to see a face or something colourful and I’m happy again.
Sleep? I can sleep wherever I want to. I don’t need a fancy crib, or anything. Your arms will do just fine. And otherwise, somewhere I can just ‘be’.
Sleep
It’s us parents that want to be sure our baby is comfortable. I’ve seen Sophia fall – and stay – asleep in the most uncomfortable positions. She didn’t bother, I did. Would it really be bad to let her sleep that way? I don’t want to start any discussions about parenthood, and how to deal with a baby. I can guarantee you that I always check up on her to see if I can feel safe with the way she is sleeping. It does make me wonder if it’s the parents worried mind talking, or if it’s nature.
Since the beginning she had a preference to sleep at night. She isn’t a morning person neither, she didn’t like waking up early. The nurse always came at 9 am and most of the times she would still be asleep – and stay asleep until she wanted to wake up. Soon she started to sleep through the night, waking up at 7 or 8 am and then going for another sleep cycle. Then after 12pm we don’t succeed in getting her back to sleep again. We’ve read in the books baby should have sleep cycles of 2 or 3 hours and sleep at least 16 hours a day, so we worried. Now that she showed to be like this for a few weeks, we just accept it as part of Sophia.
Experiment
I actually tried an experiment. Baby guides explain that when you don’t wake up your baby too much, they should be able to get back to sleep. Keep them in the night vibes, don’t communicate too much. I’ve tried to imitate the night schedule at 11 am, didn’t work. I could imitate what I wanted, she didn’t fall for it. Apparently for Sophia it’s when her day starts. I tried the other way around, after the night cycle, we brought her into the bright living room, where we had the tv on, music was on. We played a bit with her, fed her and after that she still went straight back to sleep.
You see, we can invent whatever we want to, it’s Sophia who decides. Sophia, who still acts purely on what she feels like. Everything is fine for her, as long as her first needs are covered. She doesn’t follow any guide, rules or beliefs. I try to act on what she shows me.
Don’t follow someone elses script
Now I ask you to try to see your world through the eyes of a baby for a moment. What do you enjoy looking at, without caring about what other people think of it. Without having to think about the possibilities you have. For example, if you like nature you don’t always need a big forest to feel fully satisfied. You can enjoy the trees, flowers, everything that’s close to you right now.
Act solely on what you feel, not what you believe.
You will see life will get so much easier, if you can let go of your beliefs for a little moment and stop following ‘the guide of life’.
It’s possible you will feel even better than ever, because you acted upon you, and not a script someone else created, thinking it would be the best for all of us.
