Infants do not cry to upset you. They don’t have a concept of hurting others and they don’t have any reason to want to do so.
Infants do not have any other way of communicating distress or an unmet need. They do not have a choice about crying.
Do not ever yell at, shake, or punish an infant. They will not learn from this – but they will be upset and afraid and possibly harmed, either in the moment or via problems in brain development.
It’s okay to take a minute to set an infant down and go into a
quiet room if you are having a hard time staying calm and comforting,
and come back when you have more self-control.
The only way to get an infant to cry less is to meet their needs. If
you spend a lot of time with infants you can actually learn to notice
when they need something, before they cry about it at all. Most infants
show signs of discomfort, hunger, or having a full/wet diaper, before
they get upset enough to cry.
Infants whose needs aren’t
usually met right away may learn to cry immediately. Regularly not
responding to an infant’s crying teaches the infant to panic every time
they need something, and the trauma of being so afraid so often as an
infant can cause issues with healthy brain develoment.
If a baby is crying, they need something.
Is their nappy/diaper clean and dry? Even if it’s just wet, it should be changed right away.
Are they hungry? A quick way to check is to run your finger over their mouth and see if they try to grab it with their lips.
Do they have air bubbles? You may be able to tell if this is the problem by feeling the infant’s tummy for unusual firmness.
Infants need to be burped right after they eat to help them get
rid of air bubbles that may get trapped and cause discomfort. If it’s
been little while since they last ate, it may be more effective to lay
the infant on their back and move their legs in a bicycle motion.
Are they too warm/cold? Touch the infant’s hands and feet to see if they need more or fewer coverings.
Are they overstimulated?
If it’s too noisy/bright or they’re being touched by too any people,
etc., they may need to be held by one calm person with a blanket over
their head. Like most people, infants tend to get more easily
overstimulated when tired.
Are they able to breathe freely? Infants cannot blow their own nose. A nasal aspirator is an inexpensive tool you can use to help them clear nasal congestion.
Are they in pain? When
an infant is sick or otherwise in pain, it may be beneficial to give
them pain medication formulated for infants, such as baby tylenol.
Always follow the instructions on the bottle and consult a doctor or
pharmacist with any questions.
If a cold doesn’t start to improve within a few days or the infant seems to be in pain but you don’t know why, consult a doctor. The infant may have colic, silent reflux or other issues which can sometimes be treated.
If the infant is more than a couple months old, they may be teething. Baby tylenol will still help but a numbing paste, like orajel, on their gums may be more effective. They may also need teething toys to chew on or a cold wet (clean) washcloth.
Do they just need reassurance? Infants like being sung to, murmured to, and soothed with rhythmic “shhh”-ing. Calm and steady sounds help reassure them that they aren’t alone and help them relax.
Another way to comfort an infant is to bounce them gently and rhythmically in your arms, and/or pat their back rhythmically.
Some infants, including most newborns, may need to be swaddled. A tight swaddle helps the infant feel secure and warm. Ask a doctor, nurse, parent, or YouTube to show you how to do a proper swaddle.
Do they need to be held? The
need for touch is the need most often ignored. Infants are significantly
more likely to thrive with lots and lots of skin-to-skin contact. They
also just need to be held, in general, a lot of the time.
Being
held (especially with skin to skin contact but even without it) helps
the infant release hormones necessary for healthy brain
development. Being close enough to feel an adult’s steady heartbeat is
calming and beneficial for an infant.
For these reasons and many
others, infants need to be held – a lot. Our closest primate relatives
maintain constant physical contact with their babies for the first year
of life. Historically most humans have lived communally, which allows several people to take turns providing the necessary physical contact.
Infants don’t need to be held every single moment, but the more they are held, the safer and more secure they’ll feel and the more likely they are to be healthy. A sling, baby wrap, or wearable infant carrier can help an infant get necessary contact time.
If an infant needs contact to sleep, consider getting a cosleeper cushion to safely allow you or someone else to sleep next to the infant. If that isn’t possible, sleep training where you pick up and comfort the baby each time they cry, and then put them down slightly sooner each time that night, may help.
Do not let an infant cry and cry for help and not give it to them.
Add: infants who have experienced long term neglect STOP CRYING to get things or communicate. This isn’t growing out of crying to replace it with language, I’m talking about pre-verbal language absence of crying to express needs.
This does not not mean the baby is a “good” baby. This means the baby has been neglected or attended to so inconsistently that they have given up on social communication of needs. It is not a good sign.
A little louder for the people in the back.
You would not believe the amount of times I have heard “you’re going to spoil him”, “he’s manipulating you” and so on, for holding/rocking/COMFORTING my son when he was fresh. (And seeing people tell this to new parents while at work I’m like ???? Their baby?? Is 3 hours old?? What?? The fuck??)
Pardon my language but are you fucking kidding me? Who came up with this idea that infants, INFANTS, are manipulative? They think something disappears from existence when they can’t see it anymore, and you’re telling me they have the mental capacity to be manipulative?
Babies cry because they have needs to be met. It’s not rocket science. Their brains NEED love, human touch and interaction, to develop properly. You will not spoil your child by soothing them when they cry.
In the 50’s there was a book that went around telling everyone to leave their children to cry. I blame that for a generation of Reactive Attachment Disorder.
Carry your children on your body the way humans have done for centuries. If their crying bothers you, that is because it is meant to. See to the baby and tune out the sound. Or put in earplugs while caring for said child. Or so anything other than ignore or punish your child.
“He’s running out of time” – the dreaded 30 second rule.
I meant to make this a long time ago (and probably HAVE made a long-forgotten draft somewhere), but kept convincing myself that it wasn’t important enough.
It’s a small figure skating scheduling tidbit.
This is ep12, after Yuuri and Victor have their pre-FS rinkside talk and Morooka mistakes their laughter for crying.
In this scene, Takeshi is commenting on the length of time Yuuri took to head out to center ice after his name was called by the announcer.
Rule 350 on page 12 of the 2016 Special Regulations rulebook (the rulebook edition that was out when YoI was created and finished, and currently still in effect), addresses the Call to Start. It outlines the expectations for skaters taking a starting position, and the consequences upon failing to comply. A skater has thirty (30) seconds to take their starting position upon having their name called. If they take even 1 second too long, the skater(s) will receive a penalty of 1.00 point, and if they are not in position by 60 seconds, then they are considered withdrawn from the segment of the competition (Short Program, Free Skate, Short Dance, etc.).
This rule was put in place after the 2013-2014 season ended because… the ISU wanted to shorten times and speed things up for TV programming. Prior to the 2014-2015 season, the time limit was 1 minute so that skaters had time to center themselves before starting. But the ISU deemed that 30 seconds was plenty of time. As you can imagine, that tripped up some skaters in following seasons. The most recent one I can remember off the top of my head is Yuzuru at the 2017 Worlds Men’s SP.
I do want to stress that the 30-second countdown only starts once the announcer introduces the next skater to skate.
As we see with J.J. and Otabek in ep11, the next skater is allowed onto the ice as soon as the previous skater steps off. So while the judges are calculating scores, the next skater can skate around a bit and get a feel for the ice again. This means that a skater might be on the ice for a few minutes before their name is finally called.
——————–
On a related note, in case fic writers would like to know for whatever reason:
Finishing AFTER the music ends can also incur a 1 point penalty for every 5 seconds passed the maximum allowed program time (rule 502, page 74).
It’s not a big deal if a skater moves slightly after the music ends, but if their movement makes it so that they exceed the maximum time limit (2:45 for SP; 4:35 for FS), then that’s when a timekeeper and referee make the call. For example, if a skater’s program is 2:40 seconds, then they are right on the exact allotted time, and if they miss the end of the music by 2 seconds, it would put them at 2:42 which is still within the 5-second grace period. If a skater’s program is 2:45, then they need to end EXACTLY with the music or they will be penalized because they exceeded the 5 second grace period. This is why it’s a good idea to NOT make a program the maximum time, because even a second or two of wiggle room at the end can be the difference between being OK, and being dinged a point by the Referee (in consultation with the Timekeeper). This happened recently with Shoma Uno at the 2017 GPF Men’s SP.
Same goes with being under the minimum time limit: 2:35 for SP/4:25 for FS. Better to make a program slighter longer than the minimum, in case the skater strikes their final pose a tad early.
So to tie it all up, Yuuri
used up the preparatory time to resolve issues and set himself at ease. The announcer called his name while he was talking with Victor. When they parted, Yuuri was cutting it close to being penalized for taking his starting position late, but he made it in time, so he received no deductions.
the most implausible thing about superhero movies is that these guys make their own suits, like seriously those toxic chemicals did NOT give you the ability to sew stretch knits, do you even own a serger
I feel like there’s this little secret place in the middle of some seedy New York business neighborhood, back room, doesn’t even have a sign on the door, but within three days of using their powers in public or starting a pattern of vigilanteism, every budding superhero or supervillain gets discreetly handed a scrap of paper with that address written on it.
Inside there’s this little tea table with three chairs, woodstove, minifridge, work table, sewing machines, bolts and bolts of stretch fabrics and maybe some kevlar, and two middle-aged women with matching wedding rings and sketchbooks.
And they invite you to sit down, and give you tea and cookies, and start making sketches of what you want your costume to look like, and you get measured, and told to come back in a week, and there’s your costume, waiting for you.
The first one is free. They tell you the price of subsequent ones, and it’s based on what you can afford. You have no idea how they found out about your financial situation. You try it on, and it fits perfectly, and you have no idea how they managed that without measuring you a whole lot more thoroughly than they did.
They ask you to pose for a picture with them. For their album, they say. The camera is old, big, the sort film camera artists hunt down at antique stores and pay thousands for, and they come pose on either side of you and one of them clicks the camera remotely by way of one of those squeeze-things on a cable that you’ve seen depicted from olden times. That one (the tall one, you think, though she isn’t really, thin and reminiscent of a Greek marble statue) pulls the glass plate from the camera and scurries off to the basement, while the other one (shorter, round, all smiles, her shiny black hair pulled up into a bun) brings out a photo album to show you their work.
Inside it is … everyone. Superheroes. Supervillains. Household names and people you don’t recognize. She flips through pages at random, telling you little bits about the guy in the purple spangly costume, the lady in red and black, the mysterious cloaked figure whose mask reveals one eye. As she pages back, the costumes start looking really convincingly retro, and her descriptions start having references to the Space Race, the Depression, the Great War.
The other lady comes up, holding your picture. You’re sort of surprised to find it’s in color, and then you realize all the others were, too, even the earliest ones. There you are, and you look like a superhero. You look down at yourself, and feel like a superhero. You stand up straighter, and the costume suddenly fits a tiny bit better, and they both smile proudly.
*
The next time you come in, it’s because the person who’s probably going to be your nemesis has shredded your costume. You bring the agreed-upon price, and you bake cupcakes to share with them. There’s a third woman there, and you don’t recognize her, but the way she moves is familiar somehow, and the air seems to sparkle around her, on the edge of frost or the edge of flame. She’s carrying a wrapped brown paper package in her arms, and she smiles at you and moves to depart. You offer her a cupcake for the road.
The two seamstresses go into transports of delight over the cupcakes. You drink tea, and eat cookies and a piece of a pie someone brought around yesterday. They examine your costume and suggest a layer of kevlar around the shoulders and torso, since you’re facing off with someone who uses claws.
They ask you how the costume has worked, contemplate small design changes, make sketches. They tell you a story about their second wedding that has you falling off the chair in tears, laughing so hard your stomach hurts. They were married in 1906, they say, twice. They took turns being the man. They joke about how two one-ring ceremonies make one two-ring ceremony, and figure that they each had one wedding because it only counted when they were the bride.
They point you at three pictures on the wall. A short round man with an impressive beard grins next to a taller, white-gowned goddess; a thin man in top hat and tails looks adoringly down at a round and beaming bride; two women, in their wedding dresses, clasp each other close and smile dazzlingly at the camera. The other two pictures show the sanctuaries of different churches; this one was clearly taken in this room.
There’s a card next to what’s left of the pie. Elaborate silver curlicues on white, and it originally said “Happy 10th Anniversary,” only someone has taken a Sharpie and shoehorned in an extra 1, so it says “Happy 110th.” The tall one follows your gaze, tells you, morning wedding and evening wedding, same day. She picks up the card and sets it upright; you can see the name signed inside: Magneto.
You notice that scattered on their paperwork desk are many more envelopes and cards, and are glad you decided to bring the cupcakes.
*
When you pick up your costume the next time, it’s wrapped up in paper and string. You don’t need to try it on; there’s no way it won’t be perfect. You drink tea, eat candies like your grandmother used to make when you were small, talk about your nights out superheroing and your nemesis and your calculus homework and how today’s economy compares with the later years of the Depression.
When you leave, you meet a man in the alleyway. He’s big, and he radiates danger, but his eyes shift from you to the package in your arms, and he nods slightly and moves past you. You’re not the slightest bit surprised when he goes into the same door you came out of.
*
The next time you visit, there’s nothing wrong with your costume but you think it might be wise to have a spare. And also, you want to thank them for the kevlar. You bring artisan sodas, the kind you buy in glass bottles, and they give you stir fry, cooked on the wood-burning stove in a wok that looks a century old.
There’s no way they could possibly know that your day job cut your hours, but they give you a discount that suits you perfectly. Halfway through dinner, a cinderblock of a man comes in the door, and the shorter lady brings up an antique-looking bottle of liquor to pour into his tea. You catch a whiff and it makes your eyes water. The tall one sees your face, and grins, and says, Prohibition.
You’re not sure whether the liquor is that old, or whether they’ve got a still down in the basement with their photography darkroom. Either seems completely plausible. The four of you have a rousing conversation about the merits of various beverages over dinner, and then you leave him to do business with the seamstresses.
*
It’s almost a year later, and you’re on your fifth costume, when you see the gangly teenager chase off a trio of would-be purse-snatchers with a grace of movement that can only be called superhuman.
You take pen and paper from one of your multitude of convenient hidden pockets, and scribble down an address. With your own power and the advantage of practice, it’s easy to catch up with her, and the work of an instant to slip the paper into her hand.
*
A week or so later, you’re drinking tea and comparing Supreme Court Justices past and present when she comes into the shop, and her brow furrows a bit, like she remembers you but can’t figure out from where. The ladies welcome her, and you push the tray of cookies towards her and head out the door.
In the alleyway you meet that same giant menacing man you’ve seen once before. He’s got a bouquet of flowers in one hand, the banner saying Happy Anniversary, and a brown paper bag in the other.
I think I’m a little obsessed with Yuri!!! On Ice… I love this anime so much, more than other animes that I have watched, more than Attack on Titan, more than every one… so I NEED season two so much, it’s the only way I can pass school and everything.
