“Zoe is 3 months old and she keeps us awake
right through the night with her fits of crying. We have tried keeping her
awake in the day but that just leaves her tired and fretful in the day as well
as crying day and night. Whether we feed her, play with her, leave her- take
her into our bed for a while -nothing works. We are both worn out- even though
we are operating a shift system- and don’t know how much longer we can go on
like this.”
Mr and Mrs A
The sound of a baby crying has an impact on
almost everybody. In a busy noisy market a baby’s cry can turn heads as quickly
as an emergency siren. Indeed, a baby’s cry is like a biological siren. If we
did not care to answer it our species would not survive. A cry, then, is a
powerful communication that requires an answer. However, a cry that resists
comforting, linked with lack of sleep, makes a formidable combination for
anybody to manage, let alone new parents. After the major life event of
bringing a new being into the world parents need both their sleep and positive
proof of their ability to parent. To not be able to soothe your baby’s cries is
a draining experience. What else could make an unanswered cry so
psychologically stirring?
Psychoanalyst Joan Raphael-Leff specialises
in work with pregnant women and new parents. “A baby’s cry resonates with
primitive experiences in the parents reactivating a wordless recollection of
what it was like to be helpless and needy in their own infancy. This poignant
reminder can serve as the basis for empathy, helping the caregiver to
understand the baby’s urgent non-verbal message and meet his or her needs for
comfort. But when a baby can’t be soothed, crying can feel like an accusation -
a reminder of the adult’s helplessness in the face of the baby’s unhappiness,
catapulting the mother or father from sadness at their own constant failure to
rage at the inconsolate baby for arousing awareness of a needy child crying
deep inside themselves. “
Are the A’s worried that their exhaustion and
despair could tip over into rage? Hitting a baby is often the result of an
unsupported parent not bearing such a difficult combination. However, Mr and
Mrs A. do sound as if they are jointly involved in trying to help their baby
and support each other even though they have not yet found a satisfactory
answer.
What kind of birth was it? Were there any
particular difficulties that could throw light on Zoe’s crying ? Child
psychotherapist Dilys Daws, author of “Through the Night” comments “When there
has been a difficult birth both mother and baby can be really upset for quite a
long time after and find it hard to get a joint rhythmn going.” Difficulties in
foetal life prior to the birth can also have an impact. Dr Stella Acquarone of
the Parent-Infant Clinic points out that where babies are not adequately
nourished by the placenta they can cry for up to four months. American
paediatrician Professor T.Berry Brazelton whose recent rare visit to England
was hosted by the Parent-Infant Clinic, has found that if he warns such parents
in advance that their babies might cry for several months they are better
equipped to deal with it as they cease to take it so personally.
Some babies, through a cognitive deficit, a
disability or a unique sensitivity can experience more bodily discomfort than
others. Professor Brazelton has noted that such babies are more likely to cry
in the evening because they cannot process the tensions of the day that exist
in themselves or in their parents. Where the baby is over-loaded he thinks a
low-key approach is best. The parent should not talk and look and rock- but
only do one low-key thing at a time. Could Mr and Mrs A be trying to do too
many things to ease their baby? One mother said to me “I seemed to go through
all the checklist of things to do- check nappy, feed, play, cuddle, speak- at
about 90 miles an hour because I was so desperate. Only after my mother came to
stay and help did I have the space to slowly try one thing at a time”.
What other factors could lead baby Zoe to be
so distressed? Sometimes unworked through feelings about a past miscarriage or
a cot death are transmitted from mother to the baby. One mother, Mrs C,
commented “Whenever I put Sara down in her cot - even though I had a baby alarm
and the door open- I felt terrified of her dying like her brother did. I was
always relieved when she cried even though I was tired”. After a few meetings
with a therapist she realised how Sarah was crying for her and her unworked
through grief. “It was shocking to think that an eight week old baby should
realise my mood of depression”. As Dilys Daws comments “It is hard to allow the
separation that letting a baby go to sleep involves when it gets equated with
death. You may have had a serious separation or loss such as the death of a
parent, illness of a parent or yourself, hospitalisation when little or a
parent dying when you were an adult but before having the baby. If something
difficult like a loss has happened it does not mean you can’t soothe your own
baby. Indeed, once you have understood the connection you are in a strong
position and your baby can feel the difference.”
Mrs Dilys Daws, is a child psychotherapist
concentrating on work with parents and under fives and also working at the baby
clinic of a general practice. “ What a therapist can do is help parents have
conversations about their relationship with the baby to help them understand
the total emotional picture. This can be done very economically. Listening to
people properly once or twice can be very satisfying to both sides. It is
important to work with both parents wherever there are two. Above all I want to
emphasise the optimistic message that understanding what is going on really
does help people to get a grip on it.”
Brief work with parents and their babies is
successfully increasing.
Mr & Mrs A have done their best to answer
Zoe’s needs and they are increasingly exhausted and despairing. Now they need
some support for themselves that acknowledges the hard work they have already
put in.
HELPFUL INFORMATION
“Touchpoints”, T.Berry Brazelton, Viking 1992
“Through the Night” Dilys Daws, Free
Association Books œ 8.95
Dr Stella Acquarone, The Parent Infant
Clinic, 071 433 3112
“Psychological processes of childbearing”
(1991), Joan Raphael Leff, Chapman & Hall