How to help a grieving infant
Mar 15, 2003 Adoption
So what do you do if your adopted infant is grieving? Again, this is excerpted from Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Parents Knew
HOLD NEWBORNS
Dr. Gregory C. Keck, attachment specialist and founder of the Attachment and Bonding Center of Ohio, said … “If adoptive parents are educated about attachment issues and would hold the child closely … and just didn’t put him down for the first month, you probably would have a whole different outcome.”NURSE NEWBORNS
Another way to facilitate attachment is for the adoptive mother to nurse the newly adopted infant. [Here they talk about supplemental nursing systems -- I need to get one, I got the pump on Thursday -- but skin-to-skin contact in bottlefeeding would probably go a long way, too.]USE SLING-STYLE CARRIERS
Dr. Connie Dawson recommends holding the baby until it “body-molds” to you.
They also recommend picking the baby up whenever it cries.
This, of course, is how we parented Noah. You know, it reminds me of education policies for gifted kids. Gifted kids get to do all kinds of really nifty things in their specialized, segregated programs but every kid would benefit from having that sort of enrichment. Why don’t we treat every child well instead of waiting and trying to “fix” things or meet the needs of a chosen few?
Well, I’ve got three of four slings, a baby trekker, a borrowed baby bjorn and two backpacks so I am ready for an in-arms baby again.
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Tags: Noah
It’s a tough job
Mar 14, 2003 Writing
One of my assignments is to find luxury baby items to review. I’ve been scouring the web looking for ridiculous, gorgeous baby gifts, linens and things to feature. Now my idea of luxury is buying a whole outfit from baby gap not on sale (something I’ve never done) so I am totally out of my league here. I sent my fillers editor some ideas and she said, “Not expensive enough.” Not expensive enough??? I dutifully went back to the grindstone finding wonderful velvet-lined baby blankets, designer infant gowns, and hand-painted furniture, most of which has met my editor’s approval. Whew, after all of that luxury browsing, I need to go lie down!
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Food for thought
Mar 13, 2003 Adoption
From Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Parents Knew
None of us wants to acknowledge the negative, painful side [of adoption] — that is, loss. But the truth is, the very act of adoption is built on loss. For the birth parents, the loss of their biological offspring, the relationship that could have been, a very part of themselves. For the adoptive parents, the loss of giving birth to a biological child, the child whose face will never mirror theirs. And for the adopted child, the loss of the birth parents, the earliest experience of belonging and acceptance. To deny adoption loss is to deny the emotional reality of everyone involved.
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I’m stunned — miracles happen
Mar 13, 2003 Uncategorized
CNN.com - Elizabeth Smart found alive - Mar. 13, 2003
Missing teenager Elizabeth Smart, the subject of an intense police hunt since she was reported abducted from her bedroom last summer, was found alive Wednesday in the nearby suburb of Sandy and reunited with her family.
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Ummm, what?
Mar 13, 2003 Blogging
Lynn wrote to me and said, “Your xml feed is now part of the news at TNH; the problem is, Moveable Type puts some weird character into your xml instead of an apostrophe. If there’s a variable to change, you might want to change it, because right now what happens is I get “s work” instead of “this woman’s work”"
I think it sounds very cool for my xml feed to be part of her extremely excellent site (I’m darned proud actually) except that I don’t know quite what that means. I also have no idea if there’s a variable to change. Can someone less tech challenged help me out here?
