When it Comes to Babycare, What Happened to Instinct?

Quick: What does this cry mean?

I have a brand-new nephew, Nicholas (Nico, for short). His parents, my brother and sister-in-law, are mostly going minimal when it comes to baby gear. Part of that is a space issue–their house is  pretty compact. But a bigger part of it is that, from what I can tell, and not including having read probably four million books on pregnancy, birth, and babycare (they approach most things fairly intellectually), they plan to rely largely on instinct. (And by the way, the photo above is not little Nico, but stay tuned to the end of this post for a gratuitous, isn’t-he-the-cutest photo of the latest member of my rapidly expanding family).

As any of us who’ve given birth can attest, babies themselves are born with a host of fascinating and useful instincts. They can grasp a finger, even with their toes (shades of our simian ancestors!). A newborn placed on his mother’s belly will scootch his way up toward her breast–the urge to feed and the intoxicating, familiar scent of the mother is so strong. Even lying in bed beside his lactating mother, a newborn–who otherwise can’t really roll over–can roll himself toward her. They may need some help nursing here and there, but they know how to suck. For seven-or-so-pound, comma-shaped beings, they have pretty amazing abilities to figure out what they need to do, and do it.

So why do their parents, upon having children, seem to lose all instinct?

Oh, I know we don’t forgo all our instincts as adult human beings after we give birth. We know, the vast majority of us, to respond to a baby’s cry with food and/or comfort, for example. But when it comes to ongoing baby- and childcare, too many parents conveniently forget their instincts in favor of relying on experts, or products, to tell them what to do.

It’s not hard to see why. The sheer preponderance of stuff you can use to help you figure out your baby and decide what to do next can make even the smartest (and certainly the most well-meaning) parents feel they need all kinds of help. With all the stuff out there, I’m saying, it’s easy to feel you’re starting from absolute zero when you’re handed your baby for the first time.

Here are just a few examples.

• You can hire people to plan your baby’s arrival, in much the same way you can hire a wedding planner to aid you in hosting your nuptial celebrations. I read an Associated Press article, by Caryn Rousseau, on the phenomenon, and just now went to look for it on Google. The story was picked up by just about every news outlet in the country, so here’s just one example, from the Chicago Tribune.
• You can buy (or register for, so someone else can buy it for you) a baby-monitor-like device that helps you keep track of feeding amounts and times, wet and dirty diapers, and so on. The device is cleverly called the Itzbeen (as it, “it’s been 2 hours since Tyler’s diaper was changed…” because why go by the time-honored butt-sniff?). Buy at your own peril.
• You can download a mobile phone app that aims to decode your baby’s cry for you. I’m trying hard to imagine this one: your infant is wailing, so you ask your phone if it thinks it’s a hungry cry or an I’m tired cry? Seriously?

Back in the old-media days, it was all about the What to Expect When You’re Expecting series of books. I have, or had, more than one of these, and to be honest, there’s some good info in them, but the tone is–at least to my ears–so patronizing, so infantalizing. It’s like you get pregnant and poof, you forget how to use your higher brain. You forget that you have instincts.

I tend to think the pile-on of stuff serves not only to separate parents from their money (not to mention space in their homes), but also to separate them from their inborn common sense.

What’s your opinion? How much stuff did you use to help you navigate babycare?

Oh, and as promised, here’s little Nico, expressing his instinct  with an open-mouthed cry, which I prefer to believe means, “Where’s Aunt Denise?!”):