Sarah Norris - The Baby Detective.
Hello and welcome to Mama Island, where we travel away from the noise and the pressure of real life to a safe and quiet place where we can spend time figuring out how to be great mamas without losing who we are and what we love doing and how to get the mama life we really want. Being a mama means enjoying your baby or child to the full when things are going well, but it also means dealing with problems when things are going wrong on an almost continual basis because nothing stays fixed forever.
Sometimes we can get away with small tweaks to what we're already doing, but other times things are going so wrong you need a much more drastic approach, which might mean major brainstorming and problem solving with a major reset, and that's what we're talking about today. I'm guessing we've been sitting around campfires ever since we first discovered fire, because it's the perfect place to catch up with each other, strengthen group bonds and share our experiences in a way that makes us feel warm and safe.
So that's what we're doing today on our island. Let's gather round for this week's episode.
What I want to share with you today is the real story of a couple with a six week old baby who were going through a seriously bad patch because it will show you how bad things can get but also how easily they can be turned around.
I'm telling you what I did, not because I'm smug, but because it's something you can learn to do. So try and picture yourself thinking through things with me. At this point, I was still working through an agency and they liked to send me in as a troubleshooter for difficult situations, often at the last minute, never having spoken to the parents.
So this time, the only brief I got was, it's a couple with their first baby, the baby's being breastfed, cries all the time, needs to be held to sleep, never sleeps in his Moses basket. Dad works long hours, mum is at home on her own all day on maternity leave. Both parents are exhausted and desperate for help. They're worried he has something seriously wrong with him like colic reflux or even worse.
Now, those of you are familiar with what I do. I have a system I call AIM, which is Assess, Investigate and Modify. It sounds fancy but it actually just sums up what most of us do when we solve problems, which is basically seeing what's really happening, figuring out why, and then fixing it.
The first part of this, seeing what's really happening, is the most difficult because problems with babies are not just logistical or logical. They involve emotions, which always make it harder for us to think straight. We worry about our babies. We worry we aren't good enough and we worry about what other people will say and that's before we even get to the sleep deprivation or other issues, so our clarity of vision is clouded before we even start.
When I go into this sort of situation, I care, but I don't have the close emotional ties so I can be more objective and see more clearly and I start as soon as I enter the house. What I want to know is what is happening now at this very moment and in this case, as I looked around, what struck me was that the pram was covered in piles of random stuff, when usually they show signs of being used, especially at six weeks. And the other thing was the sofa. It was covered in what looked like a besieged mum's survival kit. There were TV remotes, pillows, blankets, magazines, snacks, drinks, phone, iPad, Chargers, breast pads, medication, spare clothes, everything you can think of. Both of these things rang warning bells.
When I asked what their life was like at the moment, it all came pouring out about how mum really did spend all day on the sofa because baby was a nightmare to feed or to get to sleep. So when he did settle, she didn't move. She just held him, watching TV all day, eating snacks rather than proper meals. He was so difficult to manage that she couldn't cope with him and visitors at the same time, so she didn't let anyone visit, not even family.
Can you imagine how lonely that is?
He screamed in the pram so they never took him out. When dad got home, they had a takeaway or a convenience meal, eating in shifts, taking it in turns, holding baby. They really could never put him down. The days were bad, but they absolutely dreaded the nights.
Dad had to work long hours, so weekdays he slept in the spare room and mum had to deal with baby on her own, feeding him and holding him in a chair, terrified of falling asleep herself in case she dropped him. Over the weekend they took it in turns, so neither of them ever got enough sleep. They were literally both gray with exhaustion and it was so bad I don't know how they kept going.
Their days were just a relentless holding pattern of feed, hold, feed, hold. They were in the black pit of parenting. At this point, I now have a very clear big picture view of what is going on. So the next step was to learn the big picture of what their pre -baby life was like, because my aim is always to get people back to who they were, get them where they want to be, basically give them their life back.
So, normal life for this couple was they were tidy and organised, they loved to cook healthy meals for themselves and for guests. They enjoyed going for walks and having a fairly busy social life. Mum, on her pre -baby maternity leave, had been active and social, hardly watched TV at all, ate well and was really looking forward to all the normal mum things she was going to do when baby arrived.
So...now I had a picture of where they are now and where they want to be. So I have information and I have direction. Can you see I'm taking an emotional mess and pulling strands that make it easier to untangle? So now we can start trying to figure out why this was happening, which is where we start zooming in a bit and seeing exactly what is happening in much more detail.
The easiest way for me to see this was to watch the next feed. Baby started feeding well. There were no latching problems. One was doing a great job, but she was super careful not to disturb him because if he came off, he wouldn't go back on. When he did stop, she gave him a quick wind over her shoulder, then put him back on. And he did try to feed more, but was obviously uncomfortable and started squirming. Then got more and more frantic, gasping and gulping like he was hungry but couldn't eat until she had to give up and stop and just hold him.
Now at this point I'm thinking it's wind, he needs more winding and then thinking it can't be that simple can it? But hoping like crazy it was because that's so easy to fix. I really didn't want to sound critical in any way so I just suggested maybe we could see if he had some more wind and they told me, wait for this,
The midwife at the hospital told them breastfed babies don't need winding, so they hadn't bothered much. I hear this so often and I get madder every time. I told them what I'm telling you now. That is a downright lie, stupid and dangerous, and no health professional should ever be allowed to repeat it.
You might think I'm a bit over the top in my language, but I stand by what I say. What else would you call giving parents such bad advice that ended up with a baby being left in pain for six weeks and parents being put through the worst six weeks of their life. Honestly, I see it all the time and I'm so sick of it.
Now, I didn't say it quite like that to the parents because they were traumatized enough. I just told them that all babies get wind no matter how they're fed and that I've seen breastfed babies that get lots of wind and bottle -fed babies with hardly any. It's just down to the individual baby, the circumstances, even pure luck, and they weren't doing anything wrong.
Now, winding just happens to be one of my superpowers. In fact, one of my clients even called me Winderella. So, I took baby and went through all my holds, my movements and sequences, and managed to get a lot more wind out of their baby, and at each burp,
I could feel his little body calming down and relaxing. We left it at that for that feed because he was exhausted. But when he was ready to feed again, we did what I call a business feed. This just means the focus is getting as much food into that baby and as much wind out as possible. So we're not doing cuddling or snoozing or phone scrolling or chatting. We're there to get a job done.
I winded him before we even began the feed, which got him off to a good start. Then, whenever he looked even slightly wriggly, we took him off and I winded him. Then Mum put him back to the breast again. It worked and he fed calmly on and off for about an hour until he'd just passed out, milk drunk and happily full, probably for the first time ever. The parents looked stunned.
The next step was to see if we could get him to sleep in his own bed. So I suggested we try and that swaddling would help him stay asleep as we transferred him, especially as being put down was new to him. The mum told me he hated being swaddled, but I explained that most babies actually find it comforting unless they still have wind causing them problems. I used swaddles very successfully and believed it could be a really useful sleep tool for them moving forward, so I asked if I could try it and reassured her we could take it off if he really hated it. Mum agreed, so I gently swaddled him. I rocked him for a couple of minutes standing next to the Moses basket and then gently put him down and he stayed asleep. For the first time in his little life he was sleeping happily in his own bed.
The parents just stood looking at him and then at each other, unable to believe what they were seeing. And I told them that their baby was perfectly normal and healthy and that everything was going to be all right. Mum burst into tears of relief and dad wasn't far off and I was feeling a bit emotional myself. Baby slept for two hours, which gave us time for a much needed talk because the parents were relieved but were also feeling really guilty that their baby had been uncomfortable for six weeks.
I explained that baby would be sleepy for a few days as he caught up on sleep, but after that he will be absolutely fine. No lasting emotional or physical damage, no damage to their bonding, and that they would then have the fun of learning who he really was because he'd be relaxed enough for his personality to show through.
That's the thing here parents and baby had been put under terrible pressure, so none of them were reacting normally. So we still had work to do to help them relax and settle into a new normal. It's heartbreaking to think that they'd been robbed of the first few wonderful weeks, but it was sorted now and they could all move forwards. I was booked for two weeks and we had figured out and fixed the problem in just a few hours, which was great because the next stage was basically rehabilitating the parents after their awful start.
I took over most of the baby care so they were able to catch up on sleep and when they felt okay we started building them the life that they should have had. Their confidence had been badly knocked so I showed them how to wind and settle their baby to sleep so they could start to believe they could do it themselves.
Then the fun started as I gradually took them through all the normal firsts. First friends coming round to visit, first walk in the park, first trip to the shops, first pub lunch, first bus trip, first beautifully cooked meal at home, their first supper guests, I even sent them out on their first date night. And as we did all this, I guided them through it but gradually retreated until they were doing it all themselves with great big proud smiles on their faces. After that, we talked about gentle flexible routines, how to create them and how to adapt them for whatever they wanted to do. And mum went to her very first baby class.
As everyone relaxed, it was lovely for them to see that they actually had a very calm, easygoing baby and we all almost melted when on the fifth day he did his first smile. This has stayed in my mind as one of the loveliest jobs I've ever done. We stayed in touch, but apart from a couple of quick phone calls, they never needed my help again, which is exactly as it should be. It was a happy ending, but it should never have happened in the first place. That midwife should never have given them such bad advice.
There should be much more good quality support for new parents and antenatal classes should actually prepare parents for caring for a baby. Parents should not be led to believe that having a baby is supposed to be hell and that you can kiss goodbye to sleep or a social life for the first year because it's just not true. I want this to be as useful as possible. So I just thought I'd explain what had actually been happening for things to get so bad to help you spot problems early on.
Basically, the key to keeping babies happy is to meet their needs. And it's not complicated because there are only four. For new babies for the first month, six weeks, they need to be well -fed, well -rested, comfortable, which means free from pain, and secure, snuggles and swaddles. When you get this right, life goes smoothly with hardly any crying. When you get it wrong, you end up like this couple. So my guess is things started going wrong from the very first few feeds because when baby fed, he got wind which was only partially being removed thanks to the bad advice that the parents were given. It was not their fault.
Okay, so if a baby has tummy ache, he is battling hunger pain and his survival instinct pushes him to feed through the pain but after a certain point usually when baby takes just enough milk to satisfy their initial hunger the pain wins and they stop feeding. Now they may have enough to keep them sort of satisfied but they can't take enough to give them that really lovely full tummy feeling and without that they can't sleep deeply for long enough. So they start the next feed already tired, which makes it even harder to cope with tummy pain. So they get stressed more quickly, so they take less milk, so they sleep badly, so they're weak, hungry and stressed and so on. In less than 24 hours you have a baby who is over hungry and over tired and the only way they have of telling you this is to yell.
So they do the other thing that happens with trapped tummy wind is that because it hurts more when they are horizontal, and less when they are at an angle or upright, they scream when you lie them down and quieten when you hold them. Then over time they get used to being held and you end up in the same sort of situation as this family. In this case, the domino, the one thing that set everything else off toppling was wind but It could also be from not enough milk, say from delayed or insufficient breast milk, or from parents wrongly thinking they should be limiting intake from a bottle.
It could be lack of sleep. When parents don't recognise their baby's sleep cues or realise how much sleep babies really need, or they just get carried away cuddling and playing and passing baby around family and friends. It could be over-stimulation when babies are in a noisy, bright, busy place and being handled too much for their personality type. Heads up here, sensitive babies have enough of stimulation a lot quicker than the more placid babies. But the good news? Just one good feed or one good sleep or one quiet room can turn things around and get you heading in the right direction again. So if things are going wrong, don't panic.
Just try and follow what I did. Remove as much emotion as possible and write down exactly what you are seeing in front of you to get a clear picture of what is happening now. No criticising or blaming yourself or anyone else, just the facts. Next, get a clear picture of what your life looks like once this problem is sorted and be specific. Don't say, I want it to be calm and quiet, say, I want food to be calm and easy and I want baby to sleep in their own bed so I can get on and do other things.
And finally, ask for help. Don't settle for being stressed and unhappy. Don't wait. Please believe me, there is always a way to make it easier and then go looking for the right solution for you. Find someone you trust, either someone experienced, someone who makes you feel good, not bad and go and ask them.
Ignore anyone with a one -size -fits -all attitude or someone who doesn't really listen to you or who is just repeating what everyone else says because everyone is not you. You are you and that matters.
Ask your nice friends and family, ask your nice health professionals. I had one client with serious PND, postnatal depression, whose health visitor got her through three children and was worth a weight in gold.
If you think I'm a good fit for you, I do in -person and Zoom consultations, but I also have a really good blog and Instagram and Facebook posts and this podcast and they're all free and there are plenty of other parenting coaches out there. Just look around and find the right fit for you.
That's it for today. I hope that taking you with me on this problem solving journey has given you food for thought and hopefully some useful actionable ideas because I want you to leave our island feeling a bit more confident about recognising and solving your own momma life problems so you can get nearer to where you want to be.
That's it for today and I hope you found something to love about our time together. If you did then please take a second to hit subscribe and share it with anyone you know who could do with some time on our lovely island. And if you want to check me out on Instagram, I'm at The Baby Detective. See you next time.
