How To Hold Your Baby

Give a grandmother an infant. Any grandmother. Observe the way in which she nestles the tiny babe in her comforting embrace, how she abandons all that is negative within her and emerges a matronly saint, how she manages to speak the language of children without coming off as a complete idiot. Without having to instruct her in any way, a grandmother will spend five seconds getting accustomed to the baby and will adapt to his or her squirmy patterns. In five seconds, she will have your baby in the utmost comfortable position and all distractions in the room will be abolished by the infant's commanding presence.

Show off

Unfortunately, we are not all born grandmothers. And while we new fathers concern ourselves with the important things of child-rearing, we forget to take the class on Baby Holding. And there you are, presented with your cuddly newborn baby and you look at your nurse like she's holding a bear cub. Sure, it's cute and all, but you don't want to hold it or anything. And then you realize that your child isn't, in fact, a bear and that you are obliged to hold it. What do you do?

What do you do?

Well, I am here to offer you simple instructions on how to reach for and hold your baby so that you don't come off looking like its brother or anything.

STEP 1 - Get To Know Your Baby
For amateurs, this step may take a while. Basically, you want to observe your child from afar, taking note of his or her size and weight. Will it be similar to lugging around a splintery log, or toting a bowling ball?
Get a feel for its movements. A newborn may be quite squirmy, like a baby crocodile, or quite sedate, like a drugged koala.
Ingrain his or her name into your head and visualize what it will be like having this small human in your arms, 8 inches from your face. If you don't know what his or her likes are yet, make something up and pretend he or she is a certain way. While holding your infant isn't a game, you need to be prepared for anything.

STEP 2 - Get To Know Yourself
Sure, you know the basics: your name, birthday, and address. But you may have to dig down deep before accepting the responsibility of holding your offspring. How do you feel about your child? Are you nervous? Excited? Anxious? Scared out of your mind? Are you still thinking about how your favorite team lost last night, or, God forbid, how you did on your high school English paper? Do you really want to hold your baby?

STEP 3 - Assess Your Surroundings
If you are going to be mobile while holding your baby, you need to take note of the various obstacles hindering your path. Look for tables, chairs, other people, or small animals. Make sure you have a plan should anything jump out and attack you.
I suggest finding a comfortable seating area for your first baby holding. This eliminates any careless tripping, although it does make you more vulnerable to surprise attacks.

STEP 4 - Decide On Your Method
You may be overwhelmed with the myriad ways you've seen people hold an infant. There's the cradle hold, the football hold, the over-the-shoulder hold, the lioness hold, etc. Before you even reach for your baby, you should have a general understanding of how you plan to hold it. You can always tell an amateur by the way he can't decide on his left or right arm position: he kind of stands there in place, almost dancing the Robot while his family looks on in disappointment.
Once you know what you want to do, tell your hand-off partner how you'd like he or she to hand the baby over.

STEP 5 - Reach For Your Baby
Don't just pick a holding method and hope your hand-off partner places the baby in the exact position. The trade-off is accomplished successfully with both participators. Actively reach out and grab onto the tiny human.

STEP 6 - Hold Your Baby With Pride
If you have made it this far, be proud. While you may not feel at ease holding something you did or didn't want in the first place, it has taken a lot of planning and will power to be in the situation you now find yourself. Smile, be happy, let the distractions in the room fade out as you bask in your successful effort. As a bonus, direct some of your happiness and pride toward your child. Talk to him or her, using its name. Don't worry if you don't know what to say just yet. Baby talk will come as you perfect steps 1 and 2.
Do not inhibit your child from moving. Instead, maintain a firm hold on the infant, adjusting as needed to compensate for its reflexive jerks. As the legendary rock group .38 Special once said, you need to "hold on loosely, but don't let go. If you cling too tightly, you're gonna lose control."

These are words to live by.

The Tao of Swaddling

Imagine having absolutely no control over your limbs. Your arms and legs sprawl, jerk, and grapple involuntarily and you are left helpless in the merciless control of your uncontrollable body. This is a sad reality for some grown adults, and their disability is indeed debilitating, subjecting such persons to wheelchairs and/or straitjackets. 

It's interesting to know that, as humans, we are not born with the ability to reach and touch something should the fancy to touch something strike. We can't feel what we want to feel, only what we happen to land upon. And our infantile jerks and reflexes keep us from any sort of quiet sanity for any length of time. Put an infant down for a nap without first inhibiting this reflex in some manner, and he or she will startle him or herself awake. And thus begins the inexorable crying which, in some cases, leads to bewildered tantrums. Your baby cries, too.

Such is the reason that one of the very first things a new parent will be taught is the art of swaddling. Our nurse was a double black belt in the art of Swaddle, proudly displaying her official Swaddlers® membership card upon her introduction. Not much is known about this ancient art of baby wrapping in those first few days at the hospital; your baby leaves the room crying and hysterical, and reenters in a wheeled plastic tub folded finely in a delicate flannel sheet like a baby caterpillar, sedate and serene. His arms are lost somewhere within the wrapping, and his tiny head is the only flesh left exposed. He remains thusly until the quake of his famished stomach revives him. 

They smile because they know they're waking you up in 2 hours.

You meticulously unwrap your child the next morning to change his diaper and to feed him, taking note of the measured folds your nurse used, knowing for certain that you will succeed in a masterful swaddle without the need of expert training.

And then your time to shine finally arrives. You brush your partner aside as she stands helpless in a sad state of futility, your child flailing about like a fish out of water. "I saw what she did," you tell her in your best James Earl Jones. "I know her secrets of swaddling." And you lay out the flannel blanket. You make a fold here, a crease there, remembering vaguely from your childbirth class something about how it should resemble a baseball diamond. "The one constant through all the years," you continue as Mr. Jones, "is baseball." You place your child's head at "home plate" and wrap first base around his body. You take the outfield and pull it up to the pitcher's mound. Then, with the pride of a strong Father, like Mufasa, you wrap third base across and around his tiny torso, completing your first swaddle. "Remember who you are," you say as you look down at what appears to be a head emerging from a small bundle of dirty laundry. Standing back, you comfort your partner as you look upon your child and proclaim, "I am your father."

The truth is, it takes a while to perfect your method. But perfection you must achieve, for it is certain that your little infant, with her girly muscles, will wiggle and squirm her way out of the tightest and most secure of swaddles. Once air touches the exposed hand that breaks free, she will scream at the top of her lungs, letting you know that she has outwitted your scheme of bondage. She will look up at you and, through a sinister combination of outrage and laughter, tell you that you suck at wrapping an itty baby girl in a itty bitty bwanket. 

And, deep down inside, you'll know she's right.