What Do We Really Need? Beyond the Store Purchases Wet Set Gazette Jul/Aug 2005 column
I remember the thrill of “shopping for baby.” All that pastel was sooooo appealing. But truth be told, most of what we think we need to buy in advance of baby’s arrival is an illusion conjured by our shop-happy culture, an alluring but costly response to the most natural of pre-parenting instincts—to nest.
If you’re itching to make a big purchase, I recommend a rocking, fully-reclining lounge chair, the kind stereotypically reserved for watching football and midnight reruns of Law & Order. As glorious as the baby stores’ glider-rockers are, wooden arms are unforgiving. The comfy embrace of a lounger will see you both through many nursing-through-the-night bouts of teething or fevers or stuffy noses… a true lifesaver, sleep-saver, sanity-saver!
What you don’t need—at least for now—is a crib. If you go the family bed route you may never need one; otherwise, a cradle by your bed will provide the closeness you both need for many months. While “attachment parenting” doesn’t mean wearing your baby 24/7, on-body carriers like snugglies and slings can be wonderful. If possible, borrow some to try; together you and baby will know which to buy. Radical but true, there is always time later to purchase what is needed, and in fact, waiting is a great way to begin developing the essential parenting tools of intuition and discernment. You will become the expert on your baby, discovering if she prefers sponge baths to “real baths” in the plastic contraption, or… if the sound of Velcro frightens him, or… if she is enchanted by green.
The nursery itself can also easily wait! It’s time we outgrow this Victorian notion of The Baby’s Room; indeed, the best place for baby in the first few years is close to you. So you have lots of time to move to a bigger place or convert the guest room. In fact, guest quarters are better to have, along with someone to occupy them sometime in the early days or weeks. Whether it is a postpartum doula or your mother or your partner’s mother or a friend, human companionship and help is invaluable—to cook, field extraneous phone calls, do laundry and fetch your water when you nurse.
Note: It only qualifies as help if this person’s presence decreases anxiety, tension, and insecurity, and contributes to feelings of peacefulness, competence, and joy! This is no time to buckle under the pressure of someone else’s need to feel needed and included—or worse, entertained! Nature designed these precious weeks for slowing down to the languorous pace of new life, for falling in love with your baby, for unfolding the mother in you. Clearly discuss expectations with Mom or Mom-in-Law or Jill-from-college. (And besides, the ability to set authoritative, loving boundaries is going to come in handy on a daily basis for the next eighteen years!)
Beauty is imperative. Silk veils in soft rainbow hues draped over your newborn’s cradle or bassinet will soften the sharp contours of this brand new world. Not just enchanting, but well-advised in light of brain science and the growing epidemic of sensory integration disorders—which are associated in part with the bombardment of sensations to which we routinely submit even our teeniest babies. And oh yes, please refrain from schlepping your less-than-six-week-old baby to the mall or anywhere else that represents a full-scale assault on fresh new senses! (Speaking of pet peeves… do yourself and your child an important service and opt out early from the vicious and destructive cycle of fear that Junior will miss the Ivy-League boat if you don’t introduce him to Baby Einstein, or any electronic “enrichment” shamelessly hyped to parents who just want to do the best for their children. More on this hot topic next issue.)
The most important nest preparation you can make is possibly the least appealing, because you can’t put it on a credit card: Cultivate your ability to just be. One of the major causes of parental misery is our impulse to be somewhere other than where we are right now (or to wish our kids were somewhere else.) Whether it’s with a colicky baby who is crying for her 27th straight evening, or a toddler who has again missed getting to the potty (recalling that bumper sticker, Sh - - Happens.) It is in the very resistance to giving ourselves over to what is, that lies much of our distress. And paradoxically, when we let go of our idea of what should be in this moment, and instead receive this moment as it is, any moment can become perfection. Bliss Happens.
Depending upon your own experience of babyhood, and whether someone was able to “just be” with you, this might be an incomprehensible—maybe even terrifying—concept. But babies and children are our Zen masters, inviting us daily to our own renewal through presence. Poet Andrea Potos sees it as an invitation to “unclench your life.” Her instruction for the new mother: “Give up your calendar and clock, start flowing with milk time.”
Do less… buy less… be more.