When we are finally parents, family and friends want to celebrate the arrival of the new baby by coming to visit us, knowing the baby, spending time with us, commenting on the play and, on certain occasions, taking the newborn.
Some parents doubt whether it is recommended by the risk of getting something to the baby and some mothers (I emphasize mothers, because they are the ones who live it most) feel that they are sharing a part of their being, something that is theirs and that, in a way, they are breaking, or not respecting, their intimacy. That's why today I want to talk about it: Once we are parents, should we let visitors take the baby?
Disease transmission
Babies are born with a very immature immune system, arrive home with one or no vaccine administered and many of the adults do not follow sufficiently recommended hand hygiene or ignore your common sense. I mean that the hands are fantastic for spreading babies, children and adults carrying viruses and the nose and saliva are also fantastic vehicles of viruses, which should be very far from a baby if we are not well. Come on, if you're a little cold, never take a baby. And if you want to take it and you're healthy, wash your hands First.
It is not a matter of maximum hygiene or putting the child in a bubble, because you are not going to sterilize your hands, it is a simple matter of preventing what can easily be prevented, such as eliminating what you bring from the street of your hands.
Sharing my son with people he doesn't know
A baby when he is born only knows his mother. He knows how he speaks, he knows how it smells, he knows how it tastes and, when he sees it, he knows how it is. He also knows the father a little because he knows how he speaks, of hearing him inside. Then, in addition, with the passing of the hours and days he knows him more and more.
However, grandmothers, aunts, cousin, uncles and others they are all unknown. Yes, they are part of his family, but the baby does not know, so for him they are strangers. It can be perfectly normal and logical that you feel bad, even threatened, in the arms of a person whose smell, voice and presence are unknown to you and a "but honey, don't cry, I'm your grandmother", won't make you feel better ( poor grandmothers, I always end up talking about them).
If this happens, as parents we must be clear that between suffering the baby for being caught by strangers and between suffering strangers for not leaving the child crying trying to calm him unsuccessfully, it is better for strangers to suffer. We extend our arms, "leave me, who is getting nervous, I will see if I calm him down", and return him to a quiet and well-known place where, apparently, he should not have left, his mother's lap (the father's lap) It may be worth it too, but in a situation of acute discomfort, mom's works much better).
My baby is me, it's my intimacy
In addition to the possible crying of the baby, which we want to avoid as parents because we do not like to see him suffer, there is the issue of belonging, of intimacy, of the possession of the baby. Many mothers, as I have said, feel bad when other people take their babies.
It is logical. It is a creature that has developed nine months inside your belly and it is totally logical that you feel like protecting you at all times and not wanting to share it because it's your baby and you are the one who should take care of him. You must love him and he must love you.
You know that the day he was born, his umbilical cord was cut. That day they separated you from each other. However he was there, with you, in your chest, hugging each other and although that physical cord was cut you feel that there is something, another imaginary cord, that still unites you and that makes you should protect him because it still depends on you, and a lot.
It is not a completely rational feeling. You know that while others catch you nothing will happen. But from your insides, from the heart, from that place where they are born the purest feelings, the good ones and the bad ones, those that create a knot in the stomach and in the chest and that make it cost you until swallowing saliva, from there, that strange sensation is born that makes you want to get up and pull the arms of others to your baby. Because this is it, your baby. Of yours. Yours, because it's you. He was born from you and is part of you. He was born of you and you have not yet separated.
That is why it is normal for you to feel it and that is why it is logical that you prefer that others do not take it. The head, your rational part, tells you to make a gut heart, to take a long breath and let them take your baby. Your body tells you the opposite.
What to do then?
Well, talk to your partner, explain how you feel, why you feel it and let him know that it is normal, that baby has been born from your entrails and that, although it is not the same, or is not exactly the same, in the same way that You don't like to share your husband, you don't like to share your baby.
Time will pass, the cord that unites you will become more elastic, you will know him more, he will know you more, you will feel that he is really safe in the arms of others, he will probably feel the same (or not, and if so, his crying will serve to catch him again) but that feeling of intrusion will disappear. I speak, of course, of those moments in which the grandparents want to take it, the uncles… the near people. The closest to the child, those who know him most.
The strangers? No, with strangers we don't have to feel that confidence and with them we don't have to feel comfortable sharing it, probably because our son doesn't feel comfortable leaving with anyone either.
So, in summary, no, we should not share our children with anyone if it makes us feel bad. It is better to follow the dictates of the heart than to follow reason. At least this is worth more like this. Over time we will learn to give our son more freedom and autonomy, to let him interact with other adults and other people. Until then, we are responsible for it and yes, we are mammals and we protect our young, especially mothers.
