WELCOME ONE AND ALL

Welcome, once again, to an up-dated and hopefully informative newsletter.

First we need to attend to a little house keeping. For all the parents in and around Christchurch, New Zealand, that have picked up a pamphlet and have shown an interest in our Baby Massage Classes, welcome.

Just so you know, the information posted on the website about Baby Massage Consults and Seminars are completely separate to what we are offering you here in Christchurch so all the information on the brochures are complete and correct. I personally, look forward to meeting you all in the next classes and for all of you that wish to attend, please contact us via our email or phone for future dates.

We would also like to repeat that 20 Tiny Toes Ltd has changed its format since this website was formed and you can now contact us by email, with your personal enquiries and we will answer them free of charge. How easy is that!

Personally I would also like to say thank you to the emails coming across the ocean from America and the United Kingdom, to name but a few. It is great to know we can assist parents on a worldwide scale.

Now, in the last newsletter we started our sequence on the innate gift of wind, covering the subjects of the Five Fundamental Life Skills and Accumulation of Wind. After receiving your feedback, we have decided to follow with the Gifted Signs that your babies communicate to you continuously through the discomfort of wind. Since this is a key part to breaking down the accumulation of wind and therefore quite extensive, we will break this into two newsletters. We will also provide you with three of the basic holds for releasing wind and one calming technique which is great to use when executing the Bolder hold.

We recognize that this newsletter is quite long, the longest one to date, however to give you all a basis to work with and practical solutions you can follow through with now, we feel this was necessary. So, maybe put your feet up, sip your chamomile tea and immerse yourself in some knowledge that we believe will bring you and your baby a heightened awareness of communicationJ

GIFTED SIGNS OF WIND

The signs listed below are all caused by wind and each one commands attention, some more dramatically than others depending on the accumulation your child is experiencing. Whether it is a physical or emotional sign, your baby is crying out for a deep relationship with you and slowly your baby and yourself will become aware that many of the gifted signs of wind bring them the opportunity of your security, which allows them to explore the limits of their bodies.

Signs, as a gift, are the same for every individual baby, however you may find some signs feature more prominently with your baby than others.

For the first two weeks, commonly known as the ‘honeymoon period’, winding may seem a laborious task without much reward. During this time, as mentioned before, your baby recuperates and saves energy by doing nothing much except eat and sleep. Use this time to watch and familiarise yourself with the gifted signs of wind although some may be absent because of your babies age. This knowledge will help you to be prepared for the more hectic pace when your baby reach three weeks of age as it almost seems like someone switches on a light in their bodies. The wind and discomfort they had once been too tired to acknowledge now allows them to be more vocal and demanding as they reach out to you for a relationship and security.

Remember, this time is a natural, positive development for your baby. Yes, it will be more stressful and demanding but you can ease this and make it enjoyable by being well versed on signs, nature’s wind rhythm, positions and the calming methods. All of which will be outlined in the coming newsletters.

Through the many signs of wind your baby is continuously communicating to you. Reading and acknowledging these signs gives you the answers to understand your baby while knowing when they are ready to burp. Most of the signs bring bonding, security, co-ordination and awareness for your babies, which you will find mentioned throughout the information below.

Sucking & Rooting
Both of these signs are used to aid your baby when hungry and uncomfortable.
When you touch your baby’s cheek they will innately turn with an open mouth towards your touch. This is known as the rooting reflux, which helps your baby to find your nipple, if breastfeeding, so they can use their other innate gifted sign of sucking. I must reiterate however that these two mechanisms are also apparent when wind is trapped in your cuties digestive system.

To verify this we need only look at the extent of this innate mechanism that all babies are blessed with. Every baby innately knows where and how to suck there thumb for the first two weeks of life. I believe this ability is there so babies can aid digestion and soothe themselves when experiencing the discomfort of wind and would venture to say that the thumb sucking in the womb is also used for the same reasons along with the obvious of stimulating the sucking reflex for hunger.

When they loose the art of naturally finding their thumb they look to us to provide the same soothing sensation they once could achieve themselves. By giving your baby something to suck other than the breast or bottle, you will keep them calm while the wind moves together and eventually upwards. You can give your baby a pacifier to help them or your clean little finger, turned upside down.

To side track a little, I personally used to be against pacifiers in my early years of my career. Now, I believe they serve a great purpose in relaxing the tension from the digestive system to enable the wind to move up to be released. Unfortunately, pacifiers do not come with too many instructions so this will be another area I will re-visit within newsletters to advise you all on the correct usage of pacifiers.

Now back to sucking and rooting. Until now we have presumed or been taught that rooting and sucking means hunger. If you choose to go down this road as many parents have done before, you will experience accumulation of wind resulting in your baby becoming one of those heavy metal band members we have talked about. Miss reading this sign can also lead to overfeeding and I am sure this is why many babies these days are overweight for their age.

It’s time to start watching and listening to what babies are telling us. Sucking is an innate reflex that will calm your baby the instant they start so relaxing their body to enable the ingested wind to come up. The sooner we recognise this fact the happier our babies will be.

Stages of Sucking & Rooting
1-2 wks Your baby will automatically be able to suck their thumb or hand to ease their digestion while helping them to feel secure.

3-8wks The innate ability to suck their thumb on their own will disappear.
You will now need to help them to use their natural relaxation technique by providing them with something to suck, whether it is your finger or a pacifier.

6-12 wks The co-ordination and awareness of your baby’s body is now advancing leaps and bounds. Because of the discomfort of wind and with the aid of the windy stare, you will notice your baby trying to find their thumb to comfort themselves, even if this means hitting themselves in the face a few timesJ Slowly this movement becomes more and more controlled.

Hiccups
There are two signs that all babies innately have to ease them through the discomfort of wind. Sucking is one and the other is hiccups. Both of which are present before birth. I believe this tells us how precious and important these signs are to your baby’s development. Hiccups come on involuntarily to aid the digestive system in bringing up the ingested wind that has been taken in from feeding and I believe that hiccups have the same function, aiding digestion, while your baby is in the womb just as they do once they are in your arms.

Lets start listening! Would you be able to do me a favour please? The next time you get hiccups listen and feel them. You may be surprised. Accompanied by the first or second hiccup there will be a little bit of air expelled. Even as adults our body reverts back to its natural, innate process of hiccups to expel air that we may have taken in from eating or drinking to fast, or breathing funny. However, because in adulthood our digestive systems are fully matured, we no longer need the full assistance that hiccups provided us when we were babies. Now, they are a major irritation leading us to try many things to rid ourselves of them and we as parents, health professional and adults have made the presumption that we also should get rid of the hiccups that babies have. In my opinion, we have been so wrong!

The next time your babies have hiccups rejoice! Do not try to stop the hiccups by feeding them more or any other method you may want to use. In fact, you should be praying for them to continue for as long as possible because, as mentioned, a lot of air can be expelled during this time as the contraction of the stomach pushes the wind upwards to bring comfort to the digestive system. Often babies can be uncomfortable during the hiccups but by placing them in the correct position and using a calming technique, you can help them feel more secure while aiding the release of wind.

As soon as I hear the hiccups I generally place babies in the boulder hold, outlined below, making sure the body is extended. This gives them the chance to use their hiccups to the best of their ability. I have found that sudden movements when hiccupping starts can often stop the process so do be aware of moving your baby gently into the boulder hold. Then sit back, relax, use the calming methods and listen to the blissful sound of wind and nature combining to chill your baby out. Isn’t nature amazing!


Crying
Anyone that has had anything to do with babies knows that crying is a regular occurrence. There are many reasons your baby will cry but more often than not your baby will be telling you they are uncomfortable because of their wind. You will know this because they will be showing other signs of wind e.g. blueness around the mouth, arching backwards etc. I will cover these signs in the next newsletter.

I know and understand that listening to your baby cry can be a heart wrenching and being realistic, can send you round the bend sometimes, especially because most parents become sleep deprived. If you feel you have reached your limit and are running around that bend then take some time out. This is a normal and common experience and often to best thing you can do is place your baby in a safe, secure place and walk away. Take the time to release the tension in your own body because, at this point, neither of you are benefiting. The anxiety you feel will be picked up by your baby making them anxious and this tension will virtually make it impossible for the digestive system to relax enough to expel wind. Remember, wind will only move when your baby is calm. Time out does no one any harm.

Stages of Crying
1-2 wks Generally, at this age, the heat of your body is all your baby will need to stop crying. More often than not they will fall asleep as soon as they
are cosy however this does not mean they don’t need winding. To avoid the accumulation cycle burping is necessary otherwise you will find, when you put them down to sleep therefore away from your body heat, they will wake crying with the discomfort of wind. Your baby can burp while sleeping but at this age they tend to wake-up before doing so.

3-8 wks Your gorgeous, sleepy little bundle has now become very vocal and quite demanding. They have moved on from recuperation and are now more aware of the discomfort in their digestive system that is caused by wind. They will cry out for your help more readily at this age.

8-12 wks At six weeks wind starts to combine crying with sounds. Crying stimulates and strengthens your baby’s vocal cords and over the weeks you will notice their cry changes and at around six weeks wind starts to combine crying with sounds. By eight to ten weeks these sounds will be a little more controlled. I believe, and have been proven right by many twins throughout my career, that these first sounds are brought about by wind getting trapped in the throat, which causes vibration of the vocal cords. While you can aid and nurture this development by mimicking the sounds your baby makes (re-connecting you with your language of old) we must remember this is also a sign of wind. Obviously, it is important to enjoy and respond to the beautiful start of your baby’s language but we must also keep in mind that the trapped air in the throat is preventing the release of further wind buried in the stomach.

Windy Stare
This is definitely one of the more lovely signs of wind and along with hiccups and smiling, my favourite as it may well become yours. What is a windy stare? A far off gaze in your baby’s eyes which will now be wide open with a look of serenity. This occurs after you have just feed them and is more noticeable after the two-week-old stage.

What often happens is this fantastic gifted sign is present straight after a feed but like the trapped wind causing the gooing and gaaing, will soon, if ignored, turn into crying and tension. Once again enjoy the ‘Five Fundamental Survival Tools’ that are provided through the adorable windy stare such as expansion of awareness to environment, but be aware this is a sign that wind needs releasing.

The potential for bonding and security are huge within the make-up of this sign. As parents and adults we become more animated towards babies when their eyes are open so giving them the opportunity to see us laugh, smile and probably freak them out with all of our silly faces that naturally transpire when talking to them. Taking the opportunity of this innate sign not only provides you with a fantastic bonding situation but, as your baby gets older, the windy stare allows them to see when you are nearby so leading them to a secure feeling within their environment.

The windy stare, in relation to co-ordination and awareness has a huge influence over the progression of your babies’ vision and I find this an amazing natural process to watch. Over the stages you will go from seeing your baby starring into space to starring intently into your eyes or at the movement of your mouth as you talk and bond with them. Through this sign they strengthen and develop the muscles of the eye so, in time, they will learn to control their vision and follow the movement of their own body to help them. For example, around ten weeks you will see them starring at their hand as they try to control it towards their mouth. Oh the joy!

Stages of Windy Stare
1-2 wks As I’ve said before, this is the recuperation period for your baby
so the windy stare will not happen that often, as your baby will sleep a lot however, if your baby does show this sign then they will only gaze into space. Even if you wave your hand in-front of them you will receive little response.

3-8 wks Well-documented research shows us that by three weeks babies can distinguish between light and dark objects and with wind producing the innate gift of the windy stare, your baby starts to interact with the environment and you a lot more.

8-12 wks I love this developmental stage for the windy stare. Your
baby starts to focus on detail within their environment and will start to follow the movement of objects. A fantastic, exciting development!

POSITIONS TO AID THE RELEASE OF WIND

The three positions outlined below will help to stimulate communication, bonding, security, co-ordination and awareness, all of the natural gifts that encompass wind. Before we explore the first three of our many holds, I would like to cover a few important factors to aid you in fine-tuning the positions.

When I first started holding babies, (17 years ago) it was very rare for the baby to be calm and quite. I lacked confidence at first (as most first time parents do) but as my confidence grew I realized that babies are not as fragile as we are lead to believe. In fact, the main advice I can give you in relation to perfecting positions is to be firm in your holds. I cannot stress enough that this provides them with the security they crave while helping them to feel confident within you. When I start teaching positions to clients most of them are very successful in perfecting the hold but their baby will cry inconsolably this is commonly caused by the lack of firmness provided so if this is the case for you, don’t panic. Practice makes perfect and as your confidence grows, as mine did, you will both start to relax and enjoy.

Feeling Wind
The essential skill of feeling wind provides the same answers as the gifted signs in relation to determine when and where your baby’s wind is. Like the signs being communicated to you, feeling wind can be used throughout the whole process of nature’s wind rhythm including each individual position.

A baby’s stomach would be pliable when accumulation of wind is absent. I can’t count the number of times I have arrived to help out and teach a family to be told, ‘my baby or twins have colic and have this medication to help them out.’ My first reaction is to feel their baby’s stomach checking for pliability and 95% of the time it feels like there is a small balloon inside waiting to be let down. Learning to feel wind has helped me a great deal to establish when a baby’s digestive system is comfortable enough to enable developmental sleep and growth instead of fitful sleeping. I have provided you with information throughout most of the positions to help you do exactly that.

Once you have mastered this art and combine it with everything that nature’s wind rhythm incorporates you will also acquire the skill of knowing exactly when your baby is going to burp. Cool, eh!

Along with feeling your baby’s wind it is important to stimulate the area in which you feel it moving so helping to continue its journey. Now, a lot of parents pat their babies on the back but this only breaks wind up into smaller, unmanageable pockets. To stimulate and benefit your baby gently rub with your flat palm from the base of the back upward to their shoulders. If the wind is on their right side them rub on the right side but once again from the base of their back upwards to the shoulders.

So, keeping that in mind and the fact that practice makes perfect, lets start to work through the positions to expel wind.

STRAIGHT HOLDS – step one of nature’s wind rhythm
When you start to learn the positions outlined it is very important to read and understand all the information given on each position before giving your baby the pleasure of experiencing it.

Beach Babe

We all know that as parents and adults we often have many things to achieve throughout the day therefore I have started by introducing one position that allows you flexibility within the role of winding. The Beach Babe position will give you time to have a shower, eat breakfast and many other tasks, while knowing that you are also providing your baby with the needed position to help the movement of wind.

The Beach Babe position is always my first port of call after a baby has burped as this position gives me the opportunity to provide both physical and visual stimulation to help keep them calm, which remember, is the key to releasing wind. One Calming Technique that I always use here is to place my hand across the babies stomach, exerting slight pressure which helps lesson the discomfort the baby is feeling while also, allowing me to feel the wind moving as described above.


This position is aptly named as your baby lies on their back on either a rug or your knee, as if they are sunbathing at the beach. While your baby is lying down, gently place your flat palm on top of your baby’s thighs exerting slight pressure bringing their legs out straight. This lengthens the abdomen to allow the wind to move together and upwards however, if your baby is still in the early stages of the foetal position then just bring the thighs away slightly from the torso will be sufficient. Before doing this you can often conclude where the wind is hiding by watching which leg your baby keeps bending up towards their stomach. So, with one flat palm across the thighs, place your other palm with slight pressure to offer comfort and mentioned before, across your baby’s stomach so your fingers are perpendicular to the body. Once again, the idea is to feel the wind moving, which generally happens on each side of your baby’s body, while you watch for the gifted signs of wind.

The Beach Babe is a position that you will find yourself using naturally in situations like changing your babies nappy, bath time, while in the pram or lying them under the play mat.

So, while your baby is under the play mat you notice they have stopped moving there legs around and have the gifted sign of maybe the windy stare hence communicating that they are ready to bring up wind. Watching the signs is very important because at this stage, if you miss this opportunity then commonly the discomfort gets too much and the next stage is crying which means incorporating calming methods and often takes longer to expel the wind. But, fortunately you have recognised the sign or signs so it’s now time change their position either to the Boulder Hold or the Buddha.

Boulder Hold

The Boulder Hold is my second consistent position that I tend to use and is already one that all parents are very aware of however, I often see it preformed incorrectly in relation to supporting a baby to release wind.

From the Beach Babe, pick your baby up with as little jerky movements as possible to avoid breaking up their wind and place them over your shoulder so they are facing behind you. In this movement make sure that their arms are up and over your shoulder too, which enables them to suck their hands and once again extends the torso to allow the wind to move upwards. Their lower abdomen should be level with your breast/chest. Bring both legs down so they are straight by tilting the pelvis towards you while straightening their legs. Place your hand on the lower back pressing gently inwards to exert slight pressure on the lower abdomen while using the other hand to support their neck. While the hand on the lower back/bottom offers security with the firm pressure, it also provides you with the prime position of feeling the bubbles move upwards and aids you in keeping the legs straight. This is a common hold used by many parents except, quite often I see babies hunched up which does not allow the wind room to move together and upwards so, make sure you focus on you baby being high up on your shoulder and their legs being straight down.

If you are sitting down while using the Boulder hold, it is important for you to sit up straight to enable your baby’s torso to be lengthened properly while helping you to place firm pressure in the correct places.

You may also find your baby doing what I call the ‘Stevie Wonder’ when in the Boulder and Buddha position and you should allow them to do this. Your baby instinctively knows where the discomfort is, as we do with our bodies, and quite often they will begin swaying from side to side and sometimes backwards and forwards to aid the wind upwards by themselves. Like Stevie Wonder’s instinctive moves, your baby will provide us with joy and music to your ears when the burps released.

CALMING METHODS

Fact: the calmer you are, the calmer your baby is.

Fact: the calmer your baby, the easier it is for them to release wind.
Why? Simple. Their stomach muscles are more relaxed allowing the movement of the wind that needs to be released.

The calming techniques outlined provide you with natural ways to relieve your baby’s tension. They also incorporate all of the five fundamental life skills of bonding, communication, co-ordination, awareness and security.

A pre-requisite with all of the methods that I will outline to you over the next few newsletters, is for you to remain calm at all times. If your energy portrays anxiety, your baby will automatically feel anxious so, I have included techniques that I use to remain calm, even with sleep deprivation. I personally feel too, that most of the calming methods provide you and your baby with a magical time to enjoy each other.

We are all born with our five senses of smell, taste, touch, sight and sound. For this calming technique I would like to focus on stimulating your baby’s sense of hearing to provide relaxation of their stomach.

Research shows that baby’s ears form around eight weeks old and are completely working around twenty-four weeks of age at which point Mum’s voice becomes recognised and a couple weeks later your baby will be able to distinguish your partners and other peoples voices. Although muffled, because they are covered with a protective layer of vermix (a waxy coating), bonding through the sense of hearing has begun, whether it is through voices, vibration or different frequencies.

The calming technique below carries on the bonding started in the womb from the sense of sound, into your newborn baby’s life. It is an amazing tool and I have found by using your voice and different tones or pitches near your baby’s ear, you can provide them with another form of security.


Pitches & Vibrational Sounds
At times your baby will cry inconsolably and know handholding will calm them. By using a different tone or pitch of noise to their crying you can distract them away from the crying and, if the noise is made correctly, you will also achieve the bringing down of your own heart rate which will ease your babies anxiety. Incidentally, when I practice these techniques they often ease my own anxiety and stress levels.

Place your baby securely in the Boulder hold, bringing your mouth to their ear. Now, I prefer to provide a hum that starts at the high pitch and works its way down because this has the best result on my own heart rate however, some baby’s prefer a hum that has a deep, continual tone. Either way the hum needs to start off on a different pitch than your baby’s crying as you first need them to become interested, so stopping the crying, and then calmed by the vibrational hum against their ear and the drop of your heart rate against their body. Whichever method you choose, I can guarantee one of them will work however, remember that a babies ear is still quite sensitive to sounds so instead of increasing your volume to be heard over the crying, change the pitch or start off making the sounds between the crying eventually moving to a continual hum.

Bingo, calmness for all. Good luck and enjoy!