For the past two weeks or so, my son has been sick. Let me tell you, practicing respectful parenting with a sick baby is not easy!
The biggest struggle I have been having is wiping my son’s nose. He hates it! But there is not much I can do when he sneezes, I have to wipe him up. As I go near him with the tissue he immediately turns his head away. When I try to wipe he will whip his head back and forth and eventually whimper or scream for me to leave him alone.
This is when I realized, I am approaching him all wrong.
RIE has taught me a lot about slowing down. When we want our children to cooperate, it is important to remember they run at a much slower pace than we do. When we slow down, get down on their level, and speak to them with respect, this is often all they need to do what we ask.
Why on earth haven’t I been following my own advice the past two weeks!? Well, it’s because he is sick, and my husband is sick, and there is lack of sleep, and I forgot. I forgot that my goal is to trust and respect my son. always. I forgot that I should be treating him like a human, not an object. Who do you know that would want you to come up from behind and start wiping their nose for them?
So I did some research on one of the RIE Mom groups on Facebook, and found some advice for what to do. This morning, I tried it.
My son sneezed, and there was snot everywhere.
Not moving from my spot I said, “Franky, you sneezed and have a lot of snot, I am going to get a tissue.”
I got up and walked over to the tissue box. I grabbed one and sat back where I was originally sitting on the floor.
“I have a tissue now.” I waited until he saw me and came over out of interest. I let him touch the tissue.
“I need to wipe your nose with this tissue.”
More waiting.
“I am going to wipe you. 1 … 2 … 3 …” and I wiped his nose.
And you know what my son did. Nothing. He let me wipe his nose completely, he let me wipe his mouth and under his chin. He watched me throw the tissue away and then went back to playing with his toys.
Did the process maybe take longer than if I just attacked him with a tissue, maybe? But my son was not traumatized by the experience. I can’t believe I wasn’t doing this sooner!
At RIE class, my teacher often tells us “anticipation begets cooperation“. Allowing babies to anticipate our actions before we actually do anything, gives them the opportunity to cooperate. This is the difference between any care-giver and an educarer. (remember RIE stands for Resources for Infant Educarers). My teacher’s mentor, Magda Gerber, explains that “the care-giver may scoop up an infant unexpectedly from behind, thereby startling, interrupting and creating resistance in the infant, the educarer always tells the infant before she does anything with him or her and thus gains cooperation.”
So that’s it. The secret to getting babies to cooperate is often as simple as telling them what you plan on doing.
I explained in one of my posts how I change my son’s diaper. It is never an easy task, and what has helped me was getting my son as involved as possible, having him help me by lifting his legs and wiping. There are still, to this day, many times that this task is incredibly challenging. Before I am able to apply what I described in that post, he is struggling to even lay down. So I recently starting using my teachers advice with this as well.
When I suspect he needs a change, I let him know that I will be changing his diaper in a few minutes. After this time passes, I tell him I will pick him up to go change his diaper. As I carry him to his room I am telling him that we are going to his room to change his diaper. (as you probably noticed, I try to say the phrase ‘change your diaper’ as often as I can) Before setting him down I tell him, “I am about to put you on your changing table”. As I am lowering him, “I am putting you on the changing table now”. etc.
It may seem annoying to an outsider, but what I am trying to do is really convey the message to my son that which I am about to do to him. This gets him ready and he has become way more cooperative once I lay him all the way down.
Communication, that’s the key.
As I am meeting more moms and as my son is growing, I am realizing this approach to parenting really comes down to the #1 rule, respect. I want my son to know that I hear him, that I am with him, that we are a team. I am not doing things to him because he is not an object, he is a person. Of course, I need to change his diaper and feed him, but I want him to be part of the process. Therefore to remain respectful, I really can’t do anything without communication.