You may be more exhausted than you have ever been. Whenever people are sleep deprived they are more subject to swings of emotion and to feelings of inadequacy. This, by itself, is enough to cause a blue period (ask any practicing pediatrician).

To make matters worse, research has shown that women with the postpartum blues tend to have babies who cry significantly more than those of their counterparts. It hasn’t been proven whether the fussy, crying babies make moms sadder, or whether the sad moms make the babies less happy – but it seems to me that both are true, and that the crying can become a vicious cycle.

A true grief reaction, at a time of great stress (and insistent noise), in a person who is chronically sleep deprived, all built on a shifting foundation of tremendous hormonal surges – it’s a wonder that postpartum blues aren’t more of a problem. Most of the time, though, the powerful positive feelings that also accompany this time of new beginnings soon displace the sadness.

But if the ride is turbulent, and the oxygen masks should fall from the ceiling of the plane, first put on your own mask, so that you will be able to help your children. If the sky is falling, do the same thing – taking care of yourself is often the first step to being better able to love your baby. This is also a good principle to follow if you are having the best time of your life.

Get as much sleep as possible. If you are breast feeding, you will probably feel sleepy just after nursing. Sleep when the baby sleeps. Once nursing is well established, you may want to give your baby some bottle feedings (ideally of pumped breast milk), both to give Mom a break, and to allow Dad the treat of feeding his baby. If you are bottle feeding from the beginning, share the responsibility, if practical.

Eat delicious, healthy food – hopefully that somebody else prepares!

Get out of the house. Even brief breaks (particularly if it’s time the two of you can spend together) can be very restoring, especially if you get outside.

Clearly, this requires teamwork. Teamwork as a couple, as an extended family, as a community, or as baby care support such as a Doula that you arrange to work with you. An online community can be another source of support and wisdom. We’ve found the online community at DrGreene.com to be a great way for new parents to connect with new and experienced parents when they need it most, right from their own homes, without having to get dressed, go out, or look presentable.

Wherever you turn for teamwork, you don’t need in-laws or anyone else to come in and seem to be bossing you around. On the other hand, little is more valuable than concrete, loving assistance in caring for their baby – on your terms and in your timing.

Would you like someone to change more diapers? To join you in reading baby care books? Do the laundry? Call your pediatrician with questions? Rock the baby to sleep? Run out and buy supplies? Ask.

You have just done something magnificent in creating a new life. It’s normal and fine for parenthood to be an unfolding process. It doesn’t have to feel great right now to feel great in the future. You might feel like smiling all the time. You might not. But, take time to smile at your baby even if you don’t feel like it. Smiling may make you feel a little better, and your baby a lot better – which in turn will help you. You might also try laughing until it is funny. Seriously, try laughing out loud until you get tickled! If you have a hard time doing it, grab your partner by both hands, look into each others eyes, and laugh. Soon you won’t be able to stop.

This is an excerpt from: From First Kicks to First Steps: Nurturing Your Babys Development from Pregnancy Through the First Year of Life, McGraw-Hill, 2004, Pp. 200-201

It’s natural for parents to wish that they could prevent their children from experiencing heartache. But at some point in life, we will all experience disappointment and loss. We can’t stop all painful events from happening, but can we change how painful events affect our children? Researchers looked into the stories of almost 9000 ten-year-old children to see what could be learned. Archives of Diseases in Childhood released the results on August 3, 2006. The classroom teachers of the children were asked a single question – Is the child “worried or anxious about many things?” on a scale from 0 to 50 (very anxious). To examine the effects of a common major stress, the researchers focused on whether the children’s parents had divorced or separated in the last 5 years. They learned something very powerful. Not surprisingly, divorce and separation are linked to higher worry and anxiety. But some kids were far more likely to react this way to the pain of separation or divorce than others.

Breast-fed kids whose parents had divorced or separated were about twice as likely as other breast-fed kids to be highly anxious. But bottle-fed children who had gone through the same thing were more than 9 times more likely. The breast-fed children proved strikingly more resilient, even after accounting for a number of other variables.

There are a lot of possible ways to explain this effect. We know that, in some animals, the early close physical contact of nursing can physically change the way the brain is built. Stress hormone receptors are enhanced in the hippocampus of the brain. Serotonin effects are changed compared to those who received bottled breast milk. But beyond this, breast milk itself influences brain development. Perhaps the leptin in breast milk reduces stress by its actions on the hippocampus, hypothalamus, and the adrenal glands. Or maybe the breastfeeding is just a sign of closer attachment, on average, between parent and child. Or of something different in the personalities of the parents. It will take years to sort out exactly what is going on and why. My hunch is that all of these factors – and others – play a role.

I want to give my children the gift of resilient optimism…to teach them, wherever they may find themselves, to ask, “What is the best way forward from here?”

What do you want to give your children?

If you’ve ever had a massage, you know how soothing and wonderful touch can be. Infant massage has been the subject of recent studies and shown remarkable benefits. Dr. Marshall Klaus reported that in one study of premature babies, those who received three 15-minute massages a day had nearly 50 percent better weight gain, scored better on developmental tests, and went home from the neonatal intensive care unit an average of six days earlier! For full-term babies, a daily massage during the screaming stage can reduce crying and improve sleep for all concerned.

Massage can be particularly powerful if Mom is depressed. Not only does the baby’s crying decrease, but the brain wave patterns of distress and depression measurably decrease as well. In my experience, Mom also benefits directly from giving the massage (the reduced crying) and also benefits from getting a massage of her own.

Your instincts on how to give a soothing massage to your baby are probably all that you need. But here are some ideas. You might put on some of your favorite relaxing music. With your baby on his back, the feet are a great place to start a soothing massage. You can gently rub the top of the foot with your thumbs and the bottom with your fingers. Then separate his toes, and roll each one lightly between your thumb and forefinger, perhaps tugging slightly. Next, make a circle around the foot with one hand, and pull his foot through, hand-over-hand, and again with the other hand. You may want to lay his leg on one palm and knead the calves and hamstrings. End with gently pulling his whole leg through the partial circle of your hand, from foot to thigh, over and over, working toward the heart. Now it’s the other leg’s turn.

You can do the same for each hand and arm. Open his hands and gently knead and rub the palm and the back of the hand with your thumbs and fingers. Separate the fingers, and one by one pull each through your thumb and forefinger. And then his whole arm through the circle of your hand, working toward the heart.

You can turn him on his tummy, and let your hands glide down his back in gentle, firm strokes, with thumbs just to either side of his spine.

There is no one magic method. Be an artist with your hands to gently massage your baby, paying attention to his cues and your own. I’m a fan of relaxing music, warm towels, and perhaps a little baby oil or infant massage gel. Candles, a safe distance from your baby, can be a mesmerizing treat. There is something primal about a flickering flame.

This is an excerpt from: From First Kicks to First Steps: Nurturing Your Babys Development from Pregnancy Through the First Year of Life, McGraw-Hill, 2004, Pp 230-231