Children who have had less than desirable experiences as babies and young children will probably have missed many important experiences that aid in attachment to their caregivers. The baby who cries and is not picked up soon learns that crying doesn't merit a response. For those who have volunteered in or visited orphanages, the almost eerie silence is something that is often mentioned. I have had opportunities to visit orphanages in China and volunteer in orphanages in Haiti, and the silence for the number of babies present is almost overwhelming.

When my oldest child was born, I received a plethora of (often unwanted and unasked for) advice on how to take care of her. From “don’t pick her up, it will spoil her,” to “let her cry,it will develop her lungs”, it was clear that the old school of advice that also tied in to feeding your child on a schedule rather than on demand was in full swing.

Thankfully, as in most fields, the pendulum in the field of child rearing swings back and forth, and currently, attachment parenting is more in vogue. Nothing could be better for a newly adopted child than a parent who is focused on how to attach.

How do you attach to a baby, however, who screams every time you pick him up? Why do some babies resist touch? Isn’t positive touch something that all humans desire at birth? Unfortunately, babies can learn that touch is not always a positive sensation and will learn to start resisting it. Babies who are born addicted to drugs often startle very easily, and don’t react positively to noise or movement. They do best swaddled very tightly in blankets as it gives them a feeling of safety.

When I worked in obstetrics as a nurse, I learned that premature babies are at the highest risk of abuse by their parents. I couldn’t understand why, since they seemed so precious and fragile. Who in their right mind would want to hurt such a tiny baby? It wasn’t until it was pointed out to me that preemies are often not used to positive touch after having spent so much time in isolettes, that when parents try to hold them and sing to them, they may respond by screaming rather than calming. Whispering softly to them with very limited or no motion may be more effective.

Medically fragile babies may require limited touch, as they are using all of their energy just to stay alive. Even breathing can be an exhausting experience for them. Whenever they are touched, it might be to be poked or prodded with needles or other medical instruments, so they start to associate touch as an unpleasant phenomenon. Along comes Mom or Dad who doesn’t know this…all they know is that when they try to calm their baby and bond with him, he screams instead.

Some babies even learn oral aversion, since rather than having pleasant experiences such as sucking for nourishment associated with their mouths, they instead experience feeding tubes going down their throats. If your baby seems to have oral aversion and a lack of desire to suck, one trick we used in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) was to get a small lollipop and place it so they can taste it with their lips and tongue. The sweetness of the lollipop lets them start to associate touch sensations at their mouth with pleasant feelings and tastes.

So how do you deal with the baby who fusses and cries and seems to have an aversion to touch? I’ll deal with that in my next post.

Coping with a Fussy Baby

Attaching in Adoption, by Deborah Gray