Experiences in Parenting (Part 2)

Kishore C.S. (Oct 2000)

This article is continuation of my Experiences in Parenting (Part 1).

Up to 6 months

It was sometime during 3^rd month after birth that we brought my daughter to my house in Chennai from Hyderabad where she was born. As long as she was in Hyderabad she was under care of Grandmother and other relatives who had some advice to offer on how to take care of the child. We were not really sure whether we would be able to manage on our own. What to do if she gets cold or fever, what care should be taken etc. were the questions that crossed our minds. As concerned parents, we looked for a child specialist who can be reached easily and luckily enough for us, we had a child specialist located in next street. That was a great assurance and there were couple of instances we called up the doctor at home.

I recollect an instance when my daughter started crying and was not be pacified easily. Any effort to pacify failed and finally we had to call the doctor. She advised a medicine which would reduce the inconvenience. We were relieved only after we gave the medicine and our daughter stopped crying. It was really a trying experience as a parent.

As the child cannot express her pain or inconvenience other than by crying, we have to really be attentive to how the child is behaving etc. The moment she starts crying we wonder whether she is crying because of hunger or some other problem. We take steps to ensure she is comfortable and taking care not to expose her to any extreme conditions of heat or cold.

The crawling days

Each child has milestones which we look forward to. One of the first milestone is when the baby starts to balance her head and observe people and surroundings. Next milestone was to watch her turn over and make attempts to crawl. We used to receive phone calls from relatives asking for latest status with respect to these expected milestones. And we were also looking forward to the same. We help the child to reach the milestones.

Our daughter reached a milestone much ahead of expected time. She got her first teeth in 3^rd month. Very tiny teeth in otherwise empty mouth added a charm to her smile. We watched the same with happiness and gloated over the same to others.

We got anxious when our daughter was not make any attempts to turn over and start crawling. Otherwise she was keeping good health. She started watching music on TV and instead of crawling she would drag her feet and cross the room on her back.

Much to our relief she started turning over in 7^th month and once she picked up the skill, we had a change of scenario. Now we had to run after her to prevent her from going to corner or pick up things lying around. Once she started crawling, she started picking up whatever is within grasp. Now we had the challenge of ensuring that no dust, no harmful objects, no heavy objects are on the floor which she can reach and do something with the same.

Anna prasana, a ceremony to start feeding the baby with rice, was performed in our local temple. We performed puja and then gave her very little taste of rice. During that ceremony she accidentally consumed rice as it as which was not mashed properly. After couple of hours she started crying and we didn’t what to do and what happened. Finally when she vomited the rice which most probably got stuck in her throat, she got relief and stopped crying. When I realized the delicate nature of children, I was amazed. Those cute little babies who are delicate need all the care in the world to grow up and being a parent is not so easy…

More about my experiences in Parenting in next article.