Affectionate baby

Two days ago, right after our pediatrician visit for four months, Mara stated rubbing her right hand erratically on her head when I was nursing.

It happened every time, and was starting to get me worried. Her hand was not gentle at all, but flailing and grazing the side of her head. I wondered why she would be doing that. Was it a weird way to cope with early teething? Could her cradle cap be getting weird - it's supposedly something completely innocuous. Or could it be something more worrisome and should I call the doctor?

I talked about it with Greg and we decided to just wait and see how it develops, cause generally babies do weird things.

Two days go by, and last night around 3am Mara is doing it again while drowsily trying to nurse to sleep. I was quite awake because I had just tried rocking her instead of nursing. It almost worked! except that she smelled mommy and knew the bar is open any time. So we ended up nursing.

Once again, she was intensely grazing her head with that not-graceful-at-all hand flailing/smacking.

Then my memory sparked. Here's the back story.

We had watched a Nova show a long time ago about an experiment where they studied how mother-baby bonding affected rats/mice. Rat moms lick their babies' fur instinctively when the babies are young, some more than others. Cleaning, but maybe more than just that. They noticed that the rats that were licked a lot as babies were growing up to be significantly less stressed out, and with reduced risks of health problems compared to the ones who didn't get licked as much.
In their experiments they swapped baby rats between high-licking and low-licking rat moms to check whether genetics was the only factor in this, and it turns out the offspring from non-high-licking moms would also get the benefits if they were licked a lot. It wasn't just genetics, it was the early life behavior that changed the rest of their lives to the better.

Some similar studies on mice showed that less licking at baby ages increased the amounts of cortisol they produced (stress hormone) and made higher-anxiety mice. Also, a lack of folic acid in mice moms caused obesity, diabetes, tumors, and "worst of all, blondness" as Greg laughingly put it.

This was one of the many things we discussed a long time ago, around the time Greg and I were getting quite serious about our relationship and wanted to figure out our expectations and hopes about having babies. We both wanted that to happen soon in our lives and wanted to make sure we are a good match in our beliefs about having and raising kids. That, by the way, I would recommend to any new couples as a must-have discussion early on ;-)

We decided then that our babies will be licked a whole lot, if you will permit the metaphor.

Now back to present days.

About a month ago I remembered that story and started to do the next best thing to actually licking Mara's hair: gently stroking it with my hand every time I nursed her. I bet lots of moms instinctively do that. I know I like my hair stroked when feeling relaxed - it helps relieve stress and even headaches. I also have a feeling that this preference started in my early childhood. I should ask my mom when she comes to visit.

This soon became one of our little things we do at nursing time: I gently brush my fingers over her little head.

Tonight, seeing her flailing her hand wildly, I felt a little stab of love for this little struggling baby and reached out and slowly petted her head in the same way to soothe her and myself, wondering once more what could cause this flailing.

Then she stopped. She stopped stirring, and sighing, and flailing her little right hand. She just nursed happily and quietly until she fell warmly asleep.

And I finally got it.

My baby was trying to soothe herself just like mommy does, she's just a little too young to do it graciously, so she's doing the best she can! This gesture suddenly became as gracious and grand as it could ever be in my eyes.

Being a parent makes you cheer at a stumble, laugh at a diaper leak, and be utterly amazed at a tiny hand grabbing a spoon. It makes you see beyond actions, it gives you a glimpse of the potential those actions might be proof of, it makes you notice how all the things we take for granted as adults are so crazily complex.

It makes you sit in wonder, appreciate what you really have in your life, and let yourself be immersed in plain sweet happiness.