Two More Chapters From "Failproof Motherhood for a Failproof Child"

CHAPTER THREE: Your Baby’s Vehicle

Congratulations! Your baby has been conceived. The fun is now over (if getting here had anything to do with an intimate relationship with your baby’s father), and your work now begins. As the chapter title says, you are now your baby’s vehicle. You are also her home for nine months, so do not let her ride get too bumpy. EVERYTHING you do, eat, drink, and think about must have the goal of keeping your baby in comfort and at peace throughout this, her first journey in life.

Any negative thoughts can cause your stress hormones to escalate and will cause your baby to experience negative energy in an agitated environment. All this can keep your baby from the having the happy, secure, content feeling she must have to grow into a confident, high achieving individual. If you care about your baby, you will accept nothing less. With this idea in mind, it is time to…

CONTROL YOUR MIND:

1) Do not watch or listen to or read the news.

2) As much as you can, try not to converse with married people.

3) Never offer to babysit anyone’s children.

4) Only watch G or PG rated films that do not feature Jack Nicolson or Debra Winger.

5) Do not attend any place of worship.

6) Do not spend time with extended family members, particularly during the holidays.

7) Do not go to shopping malls or the Department of Motor Vehicles.

8) Do not listen to classical music, jazz, show tunes, rock and roll, folk or country music. What’s left, you may ask? There are plenty of more positive music choices. I recommend anything by Enya, Yanni, music from Disney films, and polka.

The best thing for your baby to listen to in utero is peaceful environmental sounds, such as ocean waves, or waterfalls. These happen to be two selections on my CD, Baby’s First Sounds, available from the Bestbaby website or on iTunes. You may also read books to your not yet born baby, but choose positive books, written for children. I advise against reading The Bible to any child, born or not. It is far too violent and judgmental to be a positive influence.

Once your thoughts and emotions are under control, you will be able to focus on the physical care and feeding of your baby’s vehicle: your body.

YOUR BODY:

To protect your baby from contaminants on surfaces, keep a container of hand sanitizer with you at all times, as well as moisturizing lotion to apply after the sanitizer. Sanitizer can be very drying to the skin, especially if you use it as I recommend, which is:

1) Before and after eating

2) After touching animals

3) After touching humans

4) After touching objects

5) After touching your own body parts that have not been sanitized within the last five minutes

A side note: Make sure your moisturizing lotion bottle has been sanitized before you use it. Do this by applying sanitizer to a tissue and rubbing the bottle with it. If you fail to do this, you will just have to re-sanitize your hands after handling the lotion bottle you just used to moisturize your hands after sanitizing. Your day could be a never-ending battle between your sanitizer and lotion bottles! This is not a relaxing way to spend your day, and could cause you to experience the kind of stress that I warned you before could compromise your baby’s vehicle (you), and, therefore, your baby.

Once you are properly maintaining your baby’s vehicle, you may consider taking it out for a spin, so grab a water bottle (I’ll say more about that in my “Hydration” chapter), that hand sanitizer and lotion, as well as sneakers that support your ankles and arches, and go for a walk — as long as you don’t live in an urban area, of course. City streets are no place for your baby to drive — nothing but stress and pollutants. So, if you are in a rural setting, or an indoor treadmill, walking is great exercise for you and your baby, giving you both oxygen and strength.

Walking alone is best. Walking with company will force you to engage in possibly stressful or emotional conversation, particularly if you are with your baby’s father. If you haven’t gotten the message by now, let me stress again that the less contact you have with your baby’s father during your pregnancy the better for your baby’s vehicle. You can allow him back into your space when it is time for him to change your baby’s diaper.

CHAPTER FOUR: Womb to Room: Like Birth Never Even Happened

Your goal as a mother should be to cause your baby to have the LEAST STRESS POSSIBLE. Stress, or any discomfort, be it physical or mental, will interfere with her bonding. Bonding is extremely important for a newborn baby and her mother. This is why an entire chapter on bonding follows this one.

With this goal in mind, you must work to provide your baby with a stress free transition from womb to room. Your baby must not notice that she has changed locations if her constant comfort is not to be disrupted. Therefore, the baby’s room — or whatever room she spends most of her time in, should be dark or very dimly lit. All outside noise should be filtered out. Ideally, the only sound should be that of running water. This can come from a nearby sink, shower, or from Baby’s First Sounds, on CD or iTunes.

Structurally, rooms differ from wombs in one important way: they are usually square or rectangular, rather than round. The transition from living in a soft, round oval to a hard, right-angled space can be most disturbing to a newborn. Therefore, it is important to round off the edges, shall we say, by covering up corners with sheets or blankets hung over each corner from ceiling to floor. This, combined with dim lights and the sounds I mentioned, will go a long way in assuring your baby that her home has not changed.

Now that we’ve covered sounds and sights in your baby’s new environment, let’s move on to your baby’s first touches. What should touch your baby? Ideally, not much, except your hands, of course, and possibly the baby’s father’s hands and those of childcare providers, as long as they are properly sanitized and lotioned, as, I would hope, are yours. Your baby’s towels and clothing should be the finest quality organic cotton with the highest thread count available. We have a great selection of non-dye, non-bleach colors available on the Bestbaby website.

Of course, you don’t want your baby’s towels, sheets, and clothing to have a harsh smell, as scents have an even stronger impact on your baby’s sense of wellbeing than sights, sounds and touch COMBINED! Bestbaby stocks an extensive line of linens and baby clothes as well as hand sanitizers and lotions with fragrances that will soothe your baby, such as lavender, peppermint, and fresh human breast milk.

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________________________________________________This story was originally published on Medium.com.