Having heard such advice, young mothers sincerely wishing their child good, flatly refuse to nappies. Can buy them no more than 10 pieces, and then as a sheet. And excessively caring grandmothers, constantly trying to explain what is useful for changing clothes for a newborn child, repeat tirelessly that you do not need to swaddle a baby. Grandmothers, in turn, are indignant, scold careless young people and say that they are scoffing at the child for nothing. Who of them is right?
To find out, it is necessary to return to the beginning of the beginning, at a time when the child was still living in the abdomen of the mother. Today, many books and magazine articles detail the life of the baby before birth, and it has long been no secret that an intrauterine child can see, hear, smell and taste. This means that the kid has his personal experience and his attitude to the world long before birth.
The very first sensations of the child are tactile, that is, it clearly feels the touch. At the beginning of pregnancy (before 16-20 weeks), the fetus can swim freely in the amniotic fluid. He practically does not touch the walls of the uterus and can freely "soar" in its volume. But as the baby grows, the uterus becomes tight for him. He encounters its walls and feels them as boundaries. But this change he perceives not as a narrowing of the surrounding world, but as an initial information about the form of his body.
Approximately from 34 weeks, a noticeably grown-up fetus occupies all the intrauterine space. The walls of the uterus literally clothe him. Thanks to tactile sensations and touch, the kid can get an idea of the shape of his body, identical to the shape of the uterus. So at the end of pregnancy a certain intrauterine experience develops in the child, according to which he feels himself to be a ball, more precisely, an ovoid (shaped like an egg).
It is important to know that when the body is forced and restricted in movement, the child feels fine. Already in the last months of development, he gets used to the limited space and comfortable posture caused by the shape of the uterus. He is curled up, tightly pressing his chin to his chest, folding his hands on his chest and pressing his knees bent at the knees. And it is in this position that he feels comfortable, comfortable and safe.
But here comes the time of birth and the baby is born. Around him, everything changed dramatically: he got into a bright light from total darkness, into an immense space of limited close volume. You will easily understand the experience of the baby, if you try to imagine what you would feel if you stayed in a tight box for a few months and then you were suddenly taken out into the street on a bright day and forced to walk with a light, easy walk. Most likely, you would experience feelings that can not be called positive: the eye eats an unusually bright light, it is impossible to straighten out, legs do not move - all this delivers only pain and terrible discomfort.
For a newborn child, all feelings at birth are similar to those experienced by an adult in the situation described above. He needs a gradual addiction to such global changes in life. In order to keep the child's pleasant sensation from the world in which he found himself, it is necessary to return to him that which was usual for him, the perception of the form of his body. To the kid did not have to flounder in this vast space and constantly be afraid of it, you need an ordinary traditional diaper that returns an irretrievably lost "paradise" for a time to a little man.
Thus, swaddling a newborn is not just a remnant of the past. As soon as the child is swaddled, giving him the habitual posture of the embryo, he immediately calms down. As you understand now, this is not just happening. It is in this position that he feels the greatest comfort and safety. Our wise grandmothers knew perfectly well what a swaddling is useful for. They knew the experiences and fears of the newborn and that's why they came up with this simple method of mitigating the transition from the intrauterine habitat to the external, terrestrial.
Since that time, many things have changed, but the way of giving birth to children has remained the same, so we must continue using diapering for the intended purpose. And do not be afraid that this will limit the development of the child. At first, newborns quickly calmed down as soon as they are wrapped in a diaper, feeling the usual limited space. A few days later they are slowly pulling out of the diaper pens, trying to suck them. This is the beginning of the next stage, when the baby wants to recreate the full picture of his previous intrauterine life. In the belly the child sucks his fist or finger from about 16 weeks of pregnancy.
Therefore, do not regard release of the baby's handles as a desire to get rid of the diaper as soon as possible. After a few more days, to about two or three weeks, the baby begins to show interest in the world around him: he starts looking at the room, peering at the faces of the surrounding people, into various objects that fall into his field of vision. Then he really will try to free his hands from the cradle. Any loving and sensitive mother will regard this as a clear signal that it's time to stop swaddling the baby with the handles.
Many babies show a desire to sleep swaddled for a long time - up to 2 months. This is usually associated with difficult births, when the very fact of birth was perceived by the baby as a severe trauma. In this case, children simply can not get used to the new reality. Then the best option is to give the child the opportunity to get used to the new world gradually, as quickly as he can do it himself. The forcing of events in this case can do much more harm than good. So do not be afraid, swaddle your newborn baby until he himself expresses a desire to get out of the diaper. So you will provide a gradual addiction to the new conditions of life, and the child's mental state will not suffer.