Happiness can be learned from the cradle

Make your baby happy, from birth

Whether we are an adult or a child, we know that we are not alone when our feelings are recognized and taken into account. To feel good, a baby needs when he comes into the world that those who care for him can reflect what he is going through. It is essential that we listen to them with empathy, that one understands his point of view without being overwhelmed by his distress, and that one helps him to understand what he is going through.

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Help your child to open up to the world

With this support, he learns to recognize his emotions, to have clearer ideas, to adapt to his social environment, to open up to the world. Little by little, over the months, the child acquires the capacity to manage his feelings instead of being overwhelmed, to tolerate frustration, to control his impulses.

In more than twenty years of pediatric consultations in Boston, pediatrician Claudia M. Gold has understood that everyday behavior problems – colic, disturbed sleep, eating disorders, repeated anger, anxiety, crying – are in fact. symptoms of disruption in the baby’s relationship with his parents. The child does not manage to regulate the expression of his emotions, nor his mother, there is a quarrel between them, they are angry, sad …

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Intense and overflowing emotions

To avoid this type of problem, it is not enough to teach parents how to be with their child. There is no point in saying what to do if they don’t understand your underlying motives. What special support does the baby need to thrive? What Claudia Gold calls in an original way the “psychic porterage”. Psychically carrying a child is try to understand their behavior and meet their needs in a climate of empathetic benevolence, while offering him a framework likely to contain and soothe his intense and sometimes overflowing emotions. In babies, the left brain, that of language and rationality, has not yet taken control over the right brain, that of emotions and affects. Dominated largely by his right brain, a baby seeks to understand the world and becomes an avid reader, a true expert in the emotions he seeks in his environment.

Emotions permeate a toddler as deeply as the sponge absorbs water, they are their primary nourishment, and those who love them need to consider their emotional needs even before their classic needs, especially dietary needs.

This essential recognition goes largely through the loving gaze of his mother and allows the baby to feel that he exists., to be true. Where does this primary capacity of the mother come from, but also of the father in a second step, to “bear his child by thought”?

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Immediate maternal empathy

For Claudia Gold, it is linked to the innate attachment that the little human has for his mother. It was the English psychoanalyst, John Bowlby, who first spoke of attachment to describe the way a child hugs its mother in times of stress and fear. This essential, secure attachment relationship begins and grows when the parent is fully emotionally available.. The toddler feels free to explore the world, confident that when there is fear or danger, the caregiver will have the appropriate response.

If no one is really available for him, if his mother is only intermittent or if she is emotionally detached, depressed for example, the child will show an insecure attachment, he may be alternately clingy or aggressive towards his mother, unreliable, or have unpredictable reactionss.

The second component of a “psychic porterage”Reassuring is the immediate empathy that a mother has for her child, the fact of feeling mentally and physically what she feels, her ability to see the experience from her point of view, to put herself in her shoes. An ordinarily sensitive mother quickly adjusts to her baby’s natural rhythms, observing him discovers what is right for her and adapts accordingly. In short, she knows how to welcome her emotions.

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Become the “safety base” for your child

The third component is how she will be able to regulate the difficult emotions of her little one. She must be able to accept her feelings by setting limits to her overflow, helping her calm down, containing her anger and frustration. The fourth component of psychic carry is based on the mother’s ability to regulate her own feelings, her outbursts of anger, her outburst. She must never allow herself to be overwhelmed by her distress, even in times of great stress, to remain attentive, receptive to her baby..

To become a “safe base” from which her baby can explore the world, a mother needs all the help she can get. Practical help, not for taking care of your baby, but for chores around the house. A friendly company too, a friend, which provides the young mother with emotional support. The family, the grandmother for example, can play this role.

If this is not possible, the immense popularity of Moms Forums on the Internet has become an effective means of seeking a basis of security among Internet users. 

By Stokke

Offer him a reassuring cocoon

In his room, your little one creates his first landmarks and apprehends the borders of a world that reassures him. the choice of bed, an intimate space where he rests, soothes his tears and dreams, is decisive. A real cozy little nest, its bed bears the imprint of its scent! It is therefore difficult to part with this “soft toy” at each stage of its growth … Fortunately, there are evolving models like SLEEPI, designed by the Stokke brand, which grows with your child from birth to 10 years old. Oval in shape, like a cocoon, this cradle (then bed) in beech wood adapts to all uses. For example, for infants, the bed has swivel wheels, which are very practical for moving it from one room to another during naps. When the toddler is old enough to get up on his own, one side of the bed can be removed very easily to allow him to explore his surroundings. The height of the mattress is adjustable and a junior extension kit is available as a supplement to adapt it to older children.