Parenting (Part V). Frontiers Friday #159 ⭕️

Decoding the "music" of a baby's cry, how to soothe, and the perennial enterprise of parenting.

Thanks for reading Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development (FPD) and our weekly newsletter, Frontiers Friday (FF). If you are new here, learn about me, the About Page and our “Grand Plan” overview post.

These missives are meant to be what Lewis Hyde describes as true “Gifts.” What this “Gift” concept means for me is that

1. Nothing is expected out of you.

2. I hope you receive it.

3. I hope this animates and transforms you.

4. I hope you spread the love to others.

Here’s Part V of the Parenting series. If you’ve missed the previous four, feel free to go back.

p/s: I know it’s kinda weird to talk about “Parenting” in a site that is devoted to the “Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development.” But parenting is a perennial topic that we will face with our clients, and for some, in our own personal lives. As I’ve outlined in Maps of Knowledge, this is one of the key content knowledge we can acquire, so that we can connect with clients who need help in these areas (i.e., process knowledge), and to be adaptive when the specific situation is unique (i.e., conditional knowledge). If these definitions of the 3 types of knowledge sound foreign to you, check out this page.

FF159. Parenting (Part V)

1. 📽 Watch: A Baby's First Calming Bath

   Take a moment to watch this 2-min video.
   Better still, watch this with a child. Tell that child, this is you. And I am still learning to care for you.

   

2. 📽 Watch: Priscilla’s Dunstan Baby Language
   I usually share 2 brilliant training videos with my close friends and people I work with. I don’t have the rights to these specific videos, but here’s one video that gives you the key graf.

   I gotta tell you, I was skeptical. But as soon as my wife and I learned to listen carefully to the specific sounds of our baby’s cry, it turned things around. It was like a decoding key. We weren’t always right. But it gave us a handle.
   
   (In issue FF97, we talked about a specific study that asked the question “Are We More Emotionally Accurate With Voice + Facial Cues, or with Voice Only?”).
   
   It you think about it, before we evolved language, we made sounds. These vocal nuances expressed to the outside what’s happening on the inside. Sounds are like the musical gateway to emotions.
   
   Though printed-words doesn’t do it justice, here’s Aussie baby whisperer Priscilla Dunstan’s 5 universal words/sounds:
   
   NEH = I'm hungry

   OWH = I'm sleepy

   HEH = discomfort

   EAIRH = lower gas (pass motion)

   EH = Burp

   
   Pay careful attention to listen out for the pre-sounds, not the post-screaming that follow.
   I’m not sure if this is truly “universal,” but it feels like magic once you know what your baby is specifically crying for. For instance, trying to figure out if the baby is hungry (“Nehhh”) vs. feeling tired and sleepy (“Owhhh”), make a world of a difference.
   
   For more, watch this video, and check out her website.
   

3. Watch: The Happiest Baby on the Block- Learning How to Soothe
   This is the second video I usually gift to my close friends and people I work with when they have a newborn. If I recall correctly, this was recommended by our doula.
   In gist, Harvey Karp teaches parents how to deal with the fourth trimester. When a baby cries, one can trigger a claiming reflex by soothing sounds, cuddles and swaddling, and carrying the child in a specific way (I called it the rugby grip).

   

   Here’s a good visual summary. Worth checking out the their actual training videos, or read the details in their blog.

   Looking back, this has been a lifesaver.
   

4. 📕 Recommended Reading: Drs Sears The Baby Book
   I was gifted this book by a friend when our first child was born. It’s a comprehensive, not-so-small pocket guide to keep at hand.
   

5. ⏸️ Words Worth Contemplating:
   ”People are just as wonderful as sunsets if i can let them be.

   In fact, perhaps the reason we can truly appreciate a sunset is that we cannot control it... I watch it with awe as it unfolds. I like myself best when i can appreciate my staff member, my son, my daughter, my grandchildren, in this same way.”

   ~ Carl Rogers, A Way Of Being, pp.22-23.

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Reflection:

Not everyone is a parent, but we are all once a child.

When was the last time you took a good look at a baby photo of yourself?

Notice Board:

1. For some reason, over the last 2 months I’ve been getting emails from therapists asking about when the courses like Deep Learner and Structure and Impact will be open again. Stay tuned in the coming weeks.

2. You might be interested in my other Substack, Full Circles: Meditations on the Inner and Outer Life. Here’s one from the archive: Father-Figure and The Good Ancestor.
   

Daryl Chow Ph.D. is the author of The First Kiss, co-author of Better Results, and The Write to Recovery, Creating Impact, and the latest book The Field Guide to Better Results.