I didn’t have any experience with babies until I had my own. I became a dad before I added ‘uncle’ to my list of titles and I wasn’t really exposed to babies growing up. I want to say I was a baby virgin but that sounds weird. The month leading up to the day my first son was born my anxiety was growing on me like back hair; I hid it well enough but every time I tried to address it, I got itchy. The baby wasn’t here yet and I already felt I was drowning.
When the pre-baby anxiety is closing in on you like you’re stuck in a vacuum seal bag, it’s easy to forget that you’re not the first person to have a kid. Heaps of people around the world have had children – at least more than ten – and hardly any of them would be classified as a genius. It turns out most of them didn’t know what they’re doing, but some of them worked some stuff out and then some of them wrote some stuff down.
The whole “no manual for being a parent” thing is not true – it’s just not supplied with the original packaging; you have to venture out and find one. If babies did come with a manual, labour would go baby, placenta, book. And that would be weird.
It’s easy to forget but parents can and should ask for help. I remember one night, when the first born was fresh out of the oven, he wouldn’t stop crying and we were trying to soothe him for almost five hours. Nothing would work. It was the first time crying broke me; The baby kept screaming and crying and we tried everything to get it to stop; Feeding, burping, changing, rocking, singing, feeding, burping, changing, rocking singing, feeding… Nothing worked.
Eventually we admitted defeat and called the 24-hour nurse helpline. I felt like a failure. After an age on hold the nurse suspected that the baby was just over tired, i.e., he was tired, so he was grumpy and it made him agitated, and it kept him awake. Their solution? Keep soothing but try harder. I wasn’t impressed with the solution, “thanks for that, very happy we stayed on hold all that time because I wasn’t feeling inadequate enough”.
They were right though, we rocked him like an etch a sketch and shooshed with conviction and he fell asleep. If we had called earlier this would have been a short post.
The second time I called that hotline was when we had started the first born on solids; he was sleeping better but he hadn’t pooed for four days and we were pretty worried, almost as backed up with concern as him. I called the parents helpline for advice. Some things made sense, for example, cut out the solids for now and just use breast milk, long warm bath with lots of kicking. No worries. But then it got weird.
One suggestion from the nurse was to rub some oil onto his anus to stimulate the muscles and him to focus. I was a little taken back when I heard that. “Sorry, say that into my good ear. It sounds like you asked me to turn my son’s butthole into an appetiser. Okay, any particular oil? Olive oil? Chilli oil. Okay olive oil, he’s five months old so I’ll use extra virgin. I’m a bit uncomfortable applying anything on the bullseye, can I use an applicator, like a sourdough? Is this conversation recorded for training purposes? Can I get a copy?”
I have since heard from an independent source that this is a common method despite it sounding insane. We did try it but cannot confirm nor deny it worked because there was no control group. But the one side effect is now my friends are suspicious when they come around and smell dukkah.
Russell Hartup 