Learning To Love

FA LEARNING TO LOVE 11/10/04 10:47 AM Page 1
LEARN I NG T O L O V E
I t may be one of the most natural processes, but becoming a parent
can be as daunting as it is rewarding. Having a baby changes
everything, and the biggest area of change for new parents is also one
of the least explored: how do you relate to this new person in your life?
Learning to Love explores the evolving relationship between mother,
father and baby.
Focusing on the first year of life, it looks at the emotional dimension
of becoming a parent, and offers an understanding of the baby’s
emotional needs.
Also examined are:
• key mental and emotional milestones in the first 12 months;
• parent’s changing relationship with each other as well as their baby;
• growth of both the traditional and non-traditional family unit; and
• case studies of common parenting dilemmas.
Based on infant observation, psychodynamic theory and personal
experience, Learning to Love is an informative, warm and engaging
book for the prospective and new parent.
L O R R AI N E R O SE
Lorraine Rose is a psychologist and analytical psychotherapist with 25 years
experience. She has worked extensively with mothers, fathers and babies,
and is the founding member of the Parent-Infant Foundation. She lives in
Sydney with her partner and has an adult daughter.
‘This book helps you find your own way of dealing with your baby
rather than telling you what to do. It made me more aware of the
bonding process that takes place between you and the baby.’
Alison Hunter, mother of Finn, five months
‘Learning to Love is an exceptionally helpful, insightful look

at the first year of a baby’s life. Illuminating … ’
Anne Manne, journalist and mother
LEARN I N G
PRESS
T OL O V E
L O R R AI N E R O SE
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LEAR N I N G
TOL OVE
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L E A RN I N G
TOLOVE
LORRAINE ROSE
The developing relationships

between mother, father and baby
during the first year
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First published 2000
by The Australian Council for Educational Research Ltd

347 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria, 3124
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright © 2000 Lorraine Rose
All rights reserved. Except under the conditions described in the

Copyright Act 1968 of Australia and subsequent amendments,
no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the written permission of the publishers.
Edited by Adrienne de Kretser

Cover and text design by Scooter Design
Typeset in 12/18 Granjon by Scooter Design
Printed by Shannon Books Pty Ltd
National Library of Australia

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Rose, Lorraine, 1944- .
Learning to love : the developing relationships between

mother, father and baby during the first year.
ISBN 0 86431 365 9.
1. Parenting - Australia. 2. Child rearing - Australia. 3.

Infants - Development. I. Title.
649.12205
LEARNING final pages FINAL 11/10/04 10:52 AM Page v
contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
Before the Birth 8
The Birth 30
The First Six Weeks 51
Six to Twelve Weeks 68
Three to Six Months 83
Six to Nine Months 100
Nine to Twelve Months 116
The Continuing Story 134
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preface
This book is for women and men who are at the point in
their lives and their partnerships of thinking about having
a baby. I would like to help them on the wonderful
rollercoaster ride of being a parent with all its joys,
exhilarations, sadness, frustrations and just plain hard
work. It is very worthwhile, and there are enormous
rewards for taking the ride.
Learning to Love seemed to emerge from the years of
time and effort that I put into trying to understand the early
developmental stages that we all go through. I have read
extensively about infant development and spent years
observing infants from birth, watching the development of
the relationship between mother and baby and the growing
relationship with the father. I have practised as a
psychologist for twenty-five years, and since the mid 1980s
have worked intensively with a number of people whose
early bonding process was disturbed. This area is something
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I have explored deeply, and although my knowledge and

experience remain imperfect I would like to share the main
features of my learning.
I also wrote this book because I would have liked it to
exist before I had my own child, so I could have read and
understood its concepts. It is my belief that if I had known
then much of what I do now I would have been a better
mother myself, and hence would have had a richer
experience in rearing my child. I wasn’t a bad parent, but
child-rearing could have been a more meaningful and
enjoyable experience for both me and my daughter. So
Learning to Love is also a book for my daughter, in the hope
that she may discover the fullness of the experience of
parenthood in a way that was not always possible for me.
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acknowledgements
I would like to thank many people for their contributions to

this book. All those engaged in the theoretical and research
areas of early development deserve recognition. Dr Averil
Earnshaw introduced me to the fascinating world of the
baby, for which I am very grateful. Norma Tracey and
Beulah Warren gave me invaluable feedback which
enriched the text. Kristen Daglish and Janice Di Giusto
assisted enormously with the editing process and helped to
get it done! Kylie McKellor, a young mother herself,
contributed greatly with her illustrations, scanned by Tully
Rosen. Finally, my Parent–Infant study group helped me
believe the project was worthwhile.
Thank you, all of you.
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introduction
T his book is about a process that takes place between a

mother, a father and a young baby. It attempts to
understand how relationships grow, and discusses what
happens in our earliest months when as new human beings
we attempt to come to grips with the world around us. It is
also about how we come to form attachments or turn away
from them, are disappointed or curious, and why this is so.
What has determined our choice? The early time in our
lives is important because it is then that our core
relationships are developed, and they influence the types of
relationship we will have in the future. We in turn pass on
these ways of relating to our children.
While the establishment of these relationships is often a
natural and unconscious process, I would like to try to make
sense of what occurs between mother, father and baby,
aiming for a greater understanding of what is involved.
The triangle exists even if there is only one parent bringing
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Learning to love
up the family, or if parents of the same sex are raising a

child. Same-sex parents grapple with the same
developmental tasks involved in rearing a child as do
parents of different sexes. The couple is the context into
which any child is born, since without that original pairing,
even if it is by test tube, no conception or birth can take
place. The birth of a little person requires certain things
that make this possible. The couple, whoever they are, also
need supports, be they parents, friends or relations.
Attempting to talk about these things is not an easy task,
as it involves matters that are normally not discussed. It will
require us to be emotionally involved in a way that can be
difficult to bear, as it brings up our past experiences.
Writing this book meant that I revisited treasured and
painful times from my own childhood and from when I
raised my child. Also, by giving a voice to the baby we can
sometimes begin to look differently at our own earlier
experiences. This can be helpful, but also difficult at times.
The book just touches the surface of our understanding
of how we learn to love. Much more could be said, and there
is much more to be said. I can only offer an introduction to
thinking about what is taking place in the emotional
development of the family, and the individual members of
that family. What I have to say is necessarily incomplete, but
hopefully will stimulate the thoughts and feelings which lie
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Introduction
at the heart of the journey into parenthood.

A birth is a wonderful opportunity, and being part of the
development of a new human being is an enormous
responsibility as well as an enriching journey. It is an
opportunity to revisit our childhood, with all its pleasure
and pain, and have the pleasure of being part of our child’s
development, which can be a source of very deep joy. It is a
time of reworking our own early experiences. It also offers
the possibility of discovering the world in a different way,
through the eyes of our child. Parenting offers the
opportunity to work through our own experiences, helpful
and unhelpful, and to make a fuller transition into our adult
selves. Being a parent means participating in a maturing
process.
Having a baby is a lot of hard work, both emotionally
and physically, but it would be a great loss for all concerned
if the baby became just another acquisition, another
commodity or a thing, rather than a little personality in
need of care and responsibility. As human beings we have a
deep need for intimacy and closeness – without them we
suffer a sense of estrangement from ourselves and others.
Having a baby is an opportunity for us as mothers and
fathers to gradually find the intimacy of a connection with
our baby, and is therefore a highly rewarding and mutually
nurturing experience.
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Learning to love
In attempting to clarify the learning tasks of the baby

and parents in the early years, and exploring how we learn
to love, we need to be open to aspects of ourselves that may
not get opened up in normal day-to-day life. These
elements have probably not been awakened to the same
extent until we have a baby. It is important to try to discuss
an issue that forms the basis of our lives as human beings—
learning to love. This means living with all the joy,
happiness, sadness, loss and richness that accompanies this
human capacity. Without the capacity to love we are only
empty shadows of who we can be. We are placed outside life
and cannot participate in the drama of living; without the
capacity to love we live without colour, variation and
vitality.
The process involved is the journey of empathy – the
‘being with’ someone else and understanding what it is to be
like them, not reacting to or acting upon but putting
ourselves in their shoes. It involves listening with our
hearts. Empathy is the means by which our humanity is
born. This is a very simple truth, but it is also complex.
Perhaps the best way to understand it is through an
example.
When she was a teenager my daughter was asked to take
care of a two-year-old and four-month-old baby for a week,
while their parents went on a holiday. Although my
4
Introduction
daughter knew the children well and was attached to them,

and they to her, I was not sure that the arrangement was a
good idea. However, she accepted the job. On the third
night, at about 2 a.m. I received a distressed phone call from
my daughter. Through her tears she said, ‘Please come, I
need your help’. It was obvious that she was holding the
baby, who was very upset.
When I arrived I found my daughter and the baby both
in tears, my daughter saying, ‘I can’t stand it any more.
Why is he doing this to me?’ Because she was sleep-
deprived, I told her to go to bed. I took the baby and began
walking around with him, trying to feel the meaning of his
pitiful cries. I then attempted to arrive at a deeper level of
understanding about what was happening. It became clear
that my daughter had received his communication ‘I can’t
stand it. Why is this happening to me?’ This was a direct
communication from the baby about how he was feeling,
but a further step needed to be taken.
Instead of just reacting, as I sometimes did as a mother,
a more responsive approach was to stay with the
communication long enough to find the meaning: the
further step was to realise that the baby was telling me in
the only way he could how he felt about the situation. He
was missing his mother (his main carer) and father, and
feeling the unbearable and painful incredulity of asking
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Learning to love
why and how they could do such a terrible thing as leaving

him. Why was this happening? The process of empathy
involves receiving the communication, feeling it,
experiencing it, thinking about it and finding some words
to make sense of it. Although I did not always do this for
my own child I did it for him – I know it is easier said than
done. As I walked the baby up and down I did try to find
words: ‘You poor little boy’, ‘You’re sad that mum has gone
away’, ‘You don’t know where she is or why she has gone,
poor Matthew’. As his crying began to abate I said that it
was going to be all right, that we would ring them in the
morning and let them know how upset he was.
The sad epilogue for this deeply attached four-month-
old boy was that his mother’s first comment was, ‘Why is he
so upset? He doesn’t really know who I am’. We don’t
always know how valuable and important we are.
However, Matthew’s parents did come home the next day
and he was reunited with them.
What do any of us need in order to become a personality
in our own right? What we all require, particularly in our
earliest years, are time, attention and reflective thought
about who we are. Unless someone attends to our likes,
dislikes and idiosyncrasies, and talks to us about who we
are, we will never find ourselves. Someone needs to be ‘in
tune’ with what is happening in our lives, and our needs
6
Introduction
and desires. This does not mean that all our wishes will be
fulfilled, but just having someone think about what is going
on for us is important. ‘Maternal reverie’ is the term most
often used to describe this process. It simply means someone
needs to be taking notice. This involves a certain amount of
routine and repetition, and much hard work, but it is what
begins to weave a web of safety and reliability that provides
the mental and emotional skin into which we can be born as
a personality.
Note: the plural ‘them’ and ‘their’ has been used when
speaking of the baby. While grammatically incorrect, it is an
attempt to be inclusive of both genders. I hope this is not too
disconcerting to the reader.
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before the birth
T he conception of a baby epitomises the paradox of life.

This creative act contains great joy and satisfaction
with the opportunity for a new start and a new life, but it
also involves the responsibility of facing up to many
psychological tasks. The double-edged nature of the
experience means that the opportunity for renewal is
intertwined with the pain and difficulty involved in that
renewal.
If we are going to create new life it will, paradoxically,
present us with its counterpart – death. As parents we are
faced almost immediately with questions: ‘How viable is
this foetus?’ ‘Will it live to full term?’ Mothers also face the
question of how they will survive the pregnancy and birth.
We face our mortality in a way that has not been confronted
before – the foetus puts us in touch with that question.
Suddenly life cannot be taken for granted in the way it
might have been before.
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Before the birth
Pa s t L o s s e s R e t u r n
This confrontation with life and death issues, with loss, also
puts us in touch with past losses which we have not worked
through. Such past losses re-emerged for me when I became
a parent. As a young teenager I had been deeply involved
with bringing up my younger brother, as my mother had
been very ill at the time of his birth. I played more of a
maternal than a sisterly role in the early period of his life
and a deep mutual bond had developed. When my mother
recovered I had to step back from the maternal role.
Looking back, I can see that I had not adequately dealt with
my grief and loss.
When my daughter was born, many years later, she
naturally had a very different personality from that of my
brother. However, I felt deep longings to return to that earlier
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Learning to love
relationship, and this initially impeded my bonding with

the baby I had just given birth to. A similar experience had
occurred to my mother.
I had never been able to understand my mother’s lack of
robustness, her frequent retreating to bed when we were
young. She would manage for a while, then life would
become too much for her and she couldn’t cope. There was
a feeling that someone should take over responsibility for
her life. Her fragility became more understandable when I
learnt that there had been a miscarriage prior to my
mother’s birth. As a result of losing that first child my
grandparents, particularly my grandfather, had been
inclined to wrap my mother in cotton wool. They
frequently said that she should be looked after, and should
never have to work.
My mother always reminded me of a beautiful china doll
that could easily shatter. Although small in stature and
appearing fragile my mother had many capabilities, all of
which remained untapped because of the notion of frailty
imposed on her because of the earlier death. The view that
she was not robust was related more to the previous loss
than to herself. It pervaded her life, and she lived in the
context of a social environment that supported such
restrictions.
Completing the grieving for previous losses allows us to
10
Before the birth
face the reality of the present birth of a new personality,

without the clouds of the past intruding. It makes space for
the new little person entering our lives, the one we don’t yet
know but are looking forward to meeting. We can begin to
imagine what they are like and about what changes they
will bring. This is an important part of a couple making the
transition from being a couple to being a family.
A startling example was a very gifted young woman
who came to see me for therapy. When we were together I
frequently sensed a dead baby in the room with us. Finally
I asked her to check whether there had been a lost twin or
a miscarriage before her birth. Her mother said that there
hadn’t been. However, my feeling persisted and after
questioning her mother for the third time the young
woman was told of the loss of a first-born son. This was a
great tragedy in a wealthy land-owning family, where a son
was traditionally considered the prized one who would take
over the dynasty from the father. Together we were able to
see that she had two personalities: she was her father’s right-
hand ‘man’, in terms of the property; and she was also a
completely different person, a soft and gentle artist
interested in sculpture.
REALITY INTRUDES
Allied to facing life and death anxieties is the fact that we
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Learning to love
come face to face with our own humanity, and begin to

understand realities. We have engaged in a wonderfully
creative act and created a new life, but very soon the mother
often gets morning sickness. Pregnancy has a way of
making itself felt. The hormonal imbalance usually means
that the mother feels both more placid and more tired.
Nature is attempting to get her to stop and take time, not
only in a physical way but also mentally and
psychologically. Some women do feel energised, but their
energy is often focussed on preparing for the baby.
Both parents need time to face the massive changes that
are taking place in their lives and in her body. Some women
can feel invaded by pregnancy: ‘Who is this intruder, this
alien who makes its presence so keenly felt?’ Reality cannot
be ignored and, together with facing our mortality, we
begin to understand the fact that we cannot be all things at
the one time, that choices are going to have to be made.
Busy lives can be rethought at this time to allow for the
new baby. A preoccupation with our baby-to-be is natural,
and we may have to reconsider what is possible and
impossible. Taking the time to enjoy this period is
important, but we must create that time. Unless we fully
acknowledge and enter into the experience of pregnancy we
risk missing out on the experience. Pregnancy can be a
meaningless and tedious exercise, or an important and
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Before the birth
valuable journey and accomplishment. The choice is ours.
Fat h e r ’ s Tr a n s i t i o n
The father-to-be also has a transition to make. Although a
vital participant in the process of conception, he can feel left
out of the process of pregnancy, the growing child and
his/her strong biological link to the mother. The mother’s
role is more obvious and it may be difficult for the father to
see the importance and value of his function and role. Yet
his roles as a support for the mother, and father of the baby,
are essential to the baby’s well-being.
One young man became very interested in his garden,

growing flowers and vegetables during his wife’s
pregnancy. Whenever we visited him and discussed the
coming birth he was keen for us to go outside and look at
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Learning to love
his accomplishments. This seemed to be his way of

expressing a feeling that he could grow things as well,
perhaps a tangible way in which he could show that he also
had nurturing capacities. The mother-to-be often receives a
great deal of attention as she becomes increasingly involved
with the child inside her. It is easy for the male partner to
feel unimportant, left out of the growing intimacy between
mother and child.
We must all be sensitive to this and reinforce the
importance of the father’s role as a support to his wife, and
the need of his child to have a father not just biologically but
psychologically. The baby needs two different parents, a
mother and a father – not two competing mothers or two
competing fathers – if they are to be adequately supported
in their development.
Preconceptions about the Baby

During pregnancy we naturally wonder about the new
baby, what they will be like and how we will be as parents.
This is all part of preparing for the baby, as we experience
the joy of anticipating the birth. However, sometimes we
can develop such strong preconceptions about the baby that
we fail to allow for the new individual. We shape the baby
we want rather than allowing for the fact that the baby will
have their own personality.
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Before the birth
An example of a relationship where the child had no

meaning of his own was one involving an older man who
had enormous anxieties about having missed out on life. He
was unable to maintain relationships, had never married
and had no children. He was very unhappy with his life
and, although he had been outwardly successful and earned
a great deal of money, he felt lonely and in a vacuum. He
was the son of an upper-class European woman who had
married a public servant and felt aggrieved about having
‘lowered’ herself in class. When her son was conceived, she
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Learning to love
saw him as an opportunity for financial success: the family

would have money and somehow he would reinstate her
into her proper position in life. This was the path this young
man took. He followed his mother’s prescriptions, but felt
that he wasn’t living his own life. As he had become so
completely his mother’s idea of himself, he had little or no
concept of who he was.
A young priest was similarly treated. He was destined
from birth to be his mother’s ‘production’, who would be
given to God and would remain the mother’s favoured
child. He was to be the special, anointed one who was above
life and its vicissitudes. However, this left him remote,
removed from any ability to engage in ordinary human
living, unable to involve himself in any kind of emotional
dialogue. The mother had never ‘been with’ (empathised
with) her little boy to help him discover his emotional and
mental life and his wishes and desires about how to live his
life. She considered him only an extension of her own
wishes and desires and failed to take ‘him’ into account.
Engaging and Letting Go

Conception, pregnancy, birth and parenthood are all
strongly related to loss. We have a baby, a gift of life given
to us, but paradoxically it is also taken away. Each month of
the pregnancy is part of a developmental process that leads
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Before the birth
to birth and letting go. Right from the beginning each step
of the baby’s growth contains the seed of its growing up and
moving away from us. As parents we have to live with the
dilemma – how do we have and hold, engage and enter into
the relationship that will lead to a goodbye?
This difficulty is heightened if we plan that the baby
will, soon after birth, be left in long day-care: ‘Why get
involved when we will have to say goodbye very soon?’ If a
mother is aware of impending separation she may hold
back emotionally from her very young baby who is
forming, desiring and needing deep involvement with the
mother: ‘Why start when I won’t be following through? It’s
better not to get involved from the beginning than
experience the pain and the loss’. This is a sad state of affairs
for both sides of the relationship, because they are missing
out on something special.
On the other hand, a mother may get involved but
decide from the start not to let go. A friend working in the
area of disabilities, dealing with older parents who have
children of limited capacities born when the mother’s role
was defined by her motherhood, often hears the phrase ‘this
one was for me.’ In this scenario the child with the disability
becomes the compensatory one who will not have to be
relinquished, and is often held back from their real level of
ability and capacity.
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Learning to love
If we don’t face the reality of loss or take up the

challenge of involvement and its inherent risks, we miss
out. Being involved will challenge us, and will require a
level of maturity we haven’t acquired before. We need to
think of the developing baby as someone we are prepared to
make sacrifices for. We, and hopefully our support systems,
will discover an altruism that can put the baby’s needs,
when necessary, in front of our own.
G o i n g b e y o n d O u r s e lv e s
To truly enter the family the baby must be allowed to be
their own person who will be taken into account. This does
not mean that they take over, nor dominate our needs, but
instead become a part of the family triangle. Somehow the
needs of all three – father, mother and baby – must be
accommodated. The task is not easy and remains an
ongoing one. Alongside our renunciation of self lies the
possibility of experiencing true love, a love that is capable of
putting aside our needs for those of another when
appropriate. This does not mean martyrdom, but another
person’s need temporarily overriding our own. By
extending the boundaries of who we are and committing
ourselves to a ‘good’ beyond ourselves, our lives are
paradoxically enhanced. We experience the joy of loving
and being loved.
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Before the birth
Having a baby confronts us with the fact that we must

partner life, that we cannot make it happen our way, that
we are unable to control everything that happens to us. Our
bodies will respond to pregnancy in their individual ways,
we will find different aspects of the pregnancy difficult and
we will only be able to ‘go with’ what happens. We have
often worked for a number of years before becoming
pregnant, and established a clear sense of identity based on
that work. Having a baby calls on a very different capacity
in ourselves. Now we have to ‘go with’ what is occurring,
rather than directing or controlling it. This can be very
disconcerting, but it is the means by which we grow into
our new role and enhance our sense of self.
Our Identity is Challenged

The sheer reality of the pregnancy brings psychological
changes and the intrusion of thoughts and feelings about
the past. What was it like for us when we were young?
How did our parents parent? What kind of parents do we
want to be? What do we value from our own parenting?
What do we want to do differently? Our identity is
challenged: we are no longer only who we thought we were.
We are more than that: we are who we were, but we are also
parents in the making. The loss of our old identity must
shake up the territory known as ourselves, especially – but
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Learning to love
not only – for the mother. It is also true for the father. This
must create confusion and questioning, and bring up some
anxieties: ‘Can I do this?’ ‘Who am I now?’
This process creates the possibility of discovering new

and valuable aspects of ourselves. We can begin to discover
parts of ourselves that haven’t previously emerged but begin
to offer a fuller picture of who we are. Naturally we may
have some resistance to this change, and revert more
strongly to our former roles. The painfulness of a period of
20
Before the birth
unsureness and insecurity before we grow into our newly

expanded role isn’t easy to bear. However, missing this
phase of development means that it is much easier to also
miss out on life’s next offer of personal development.
Joining life and accepting its developmental challenges
involves the possibility of life offering more than we could
imagine. If we can let go into the experience, we join in the
adventure of life.
A m b i va l e n t Fe e l i n g s
Part of this process involves working through our
ambivalent feelings toward the growing baby, and the
relationship into which they have been conceived. Even the
most wanted baby is also not wanted, for all sorts of reasons.
Both partners will at some time ask, ‘What have I done?’
Anxieties about our ability to cope are bound to surface; the
necessary changes to our life are going to be resented. These
feelings are a normal part of the whole experience and can
be felt at the same time as pleasurable anticipation.
Old ambivalences towards our parents will arise, and the
baby will reactivate the mixed feelings about our own birth.
Experiencing ambivalent feelings puts us in touch with the
baby who was wanted and looked forward to, but also the
baby who was worried about and created anxieties and
uncertainties – who was both wanted and unwanted. It can
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Learning to love
be a painful blow to realise we were not simply the apple of

our parents’ eye, that our birth brought negativity as well as
hope. Perhaps for the first time we may begin to realise that
becoming a parent is not easy. This may mark the beginning
of understanding our parents’ thinking when they had us.
The purpose of discovering our ambivalence is not to rid
ourselves of it, but simply to become aware of it. Just like
the baby will feel later when facing the reality of life, we
will maintain two contradictory feelings that operate side
by side and have opposite intentions, but can nevertheless
co-exist. Holding deeply warm and loving feelings toward
the developing child and being fiercely attached to their
well-being does not preclude feelings of resentment or
wishing to turn the clock back: ‘I don’t want to go through
with this’, ‘I hate being pregnant’.
Both aspects have a place in the human dimension of
birth and pregnancy. In fact, denying the negative feelings
can be far more harmful – the reality of the situation is that
our feelings and thoughts will swing from deeply loving
feelings into deep anxieties, fears and resentments. To allow
ourselves the privilege of exploring these diverse and
contradictory states we need time to come to grips with
them and mull them over.
22
Before the birth
Ti m e a n d Wa i t i n g
During pregnancy we are face to face with the realities of
time and waiting. The realities of a nine-month pregnancy
show us there is nothing we can do to hurry the
physiological development of the foetus. Likewise with
psychological development. No matter how talented or
precocious we are in any area, our emotional and
psychological growth follows its own laws of maturation
and cannot be hurried. Working through the necessary
psychological tasks takes time, and there is no way of
avoiding this. Our current ‘hurry-up’ culture does not
support the notion of taking time to live through an
experience from the inside rather than riding roughshod
over it.
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Learning to love
Giving ourselves time for a review in which we uncover

our feelings, wishes and desires that surround our baby
decreases the amount of shock we will experience when the
birth comes. We take time to explore any new endeavour –
if we buy a new house we take time to look over and
compare a number before settling on one. With a new job
we allow time to orient ourselves and settle in. We should
also allow the mental and emotional time required to settle
into our new home of being a parent.
Former family patterns and unresolved conflicts will be
reactivated and require our attention. We can sort out old
patterns of relating with our families of origin. For
example, I had looked forward to the time when I would be
pregnant, but when it actually happened I was unprepared.
I attended university as a mature-age student, and
anticipated completing my studies before having a child.
My father died during my second year of study, and I
subsequently felt unwell. I was taking the contraceptive pill,
so attributed my nausea to my emotions about my father’s
death. When I finally consulted a doctor and my pregnancy
was confirmed I burst into tears. My expected ‘big moment
of joy’ didn’t happen – I could only cry. ‘Not now, I’m not
ready’, was my reaction.
For the next few days I burst into tears very easily and
retreated into myself. Given my upbringing, I felt doubts.
24
Before the birth
Would I be a good mother? My partner was completely

bewildered by my reaction. About five days later I got over
my initial feelings and, particularly after my morning
sickness eased, moved into a much more positive frame of
mind. There were deeply satisfying aspects of the
pregnancy. The calmness and containment that I felt were
deeply pleasurable and I continued my part-time
employment until I was six months into the pregnancy.
R e v i s i t i n g t h e Pa s t
All of us will revisit something of our past. That we have a
past is not a problem; that the past revisits us is to be
expected. What we can do is think about it rather than just
repeat patterns – think it through and make our own
choices rather than just bring the past into the new
generation. A mother whose mother was abandoned in
pregnancy may worry that she also may be abandoned. A
father whose father was unfaithful during the pregnancy
may also experience the desire for ‘freedom’ and wish to
run away from responsibility. Being aware of such feelings
enables us to reflect on them rather than simply accept or
enact them.
Joys can also be reactivated. Mother and daughter can
revive or reinvigorate their relationship as they begin to
share what it is like to become a mother. Father and son can
25
Learning to love
find a renewed sense of connection as their understanding

of each other expands. For all family members, a
connection can be enhanced by the fact of their shared
experience. In this process both sides have to allow a little
more space for the other. The mother needs to allow for and
accept her daughter’s new role, and the daughter to deepen
her appreciation of what her mother has accomplished, as
she faces the hugeness of the task in front of her. Obviously,
these transitions may not always go well and sometimes
cannot be negotiated.
Parents – the future grandparents – can feel great pride
and joy in seeing their children take over their role. They
can also be envious of and compete with their children’s
increasing abilities, which point out their own failing
powers. Mostly these feelings are resolved positively, but
often both aspects are felt to some degree. Mixed feelings
surround the birth of a baby. In some Asian cultures
mothers speak very negatively about their newborn: ‘Oh,
she is so ugly’, ‘What a terrible baby’, ‘No one will want this
one’, ‘What a disappointment’, ‘The gods must not be
pleased with us’. This is a means of frightening off the evil
and jealous spirits who may wish to take the baby away.
These spirits represent the part of us that cannot bear
others to have any happiness that perhaps we were unable
to have, and that therefore wish to spoil and destroy it – this
26
Before the birth
is openly acknowledged in such cultures. Mixed feelings

always exist, to a greater or lesser degree, when a baby is
announced and it is more helpful to acknowledge their
presence than to be unknowingly and unwittingly affected
by them.
Th e Fo e t u s
What of the foetus throughout this time? There is already
a growing relationship between the unborn baby and their
mother and father. The foetus’ intimate connection with
the mother’s physiological and psychological life means that
a feeling world surrounds the two of them. Perhaps the
foetus feels the mother’s ambivalence and shares her
excitement about the future, together with her anxiety.
What we do know is that the inner ear of the foetus is
completely developed by mid-pregnancy, and the foetus
responds to a wide variety of sounds. It seems reasonable to
assume that within the womb the foetus begins to attach to
the voice of their mother. We also know that the foetus is
surrounded by constant loud noises – the rhythmic sound of
the uterine blood supply punctuated by the noises of air
passing through the mother’s intestine. Loud noises outside
the womb reach the foetus who reacts to them. It has also
been shown that the foetus’ level of activity increases when
the mother is under emotional stress. If the stress is
27
Learning to love
prolonged there is a corresponding increase (up to ten times

the normal level) in foetal movement. With so much
happening physically, we can wonder about corresponding
mental and emotional states.
Conclusion
The pregnancy is a time of looking forward to and
preparing for the birth of a baby. It can be a time of very
positive sharing, if circumstances allow this. Being pregnant
can be a wonderful, mellow state where we become
preoccupied with our personal lives and gradually
withdraw from engagement in the outside world. The
wondering, thinking and preparing are all part of the
process of moving towards being a parent.
At the same time pregnancy brings a range of feelings
and challenges. Creating a life confronts us with the
possibility of loss of life. Although intensifying our
experiences and offering new and pleasurable ones, this
knowledge also brings anxieties. We remember past losses
in relationships as we accept that although we have created
a life we cannot possess it; we have been given a life to
nurture and develop, yet each step in that process involves
letting go.
Our sense of what is possible is challenged as we begin to
live within the limitations of pregnancy. If we are to face
28
Before the birth
reality, we cannot have it all. In fact our lives must change

and this wonderful event must have an impact on us. We
will need to partner life, to work with it rather than control
it, and to learn how to live with and accept time and wait
through the pregnancy in nature’s time.
This waiting time can be valuable in that it allows us to
confront old patterns that may be reactivated. Family
patterns from the past may re-emerge and may need to be
rethought. We should use the time to ask ourselves, ‘Is this
a pattern of relating, a way of behaving that I want to take
with me into the next generation, or is it something that I
would like to do differently?’ The joys and the
responsibilities have begun, as has our relationship with our
unborn child.
29
the birth
T his is a very special moment for mother, father and

baby – one that is full of joy and accomplishment.
However, the wonder is accompanied by feelings of shell-
shock and dislocation, since everything is so new. Here are
some thoughts and feelings from one mother just after the
birth of her baby:
I think about being a mother – I don’t actually feel like a
mother. I think it’s still very weird; it’s coming to the
reality of it all. I felt very happy … it’s a joy to have the
baby around and you see little things about him – it just
makes you feel so happy, and so happy to be part of that.
To think that you’re responsible for this little life, it’s really
incredible, it’s just a little miracle. And I’m definitely glad
we’ve had him … I think we will be very happy.
Another mother expressed the changes to herself and to
her life differently:
I get teary – it seems to be like every second day when I’m
30
The birth
just a bit teary and everything … it is so sort of new to me

… I’m not usually a teary person at all. And I was
thinking, ooh what is it, and you know, it is because I’m
not coping, and I’m thinking I’m doing all the right
things; it was just a completely new experience – the whole
thing – and you start thinking, I’m attached to this thing
forever!
O u r Fi r s t M e e t i n g
The birth is the moment of our first meeting with the new
baby and their first meeting with us. The rooting reflex
(when the baby seeks the nipple) is the physical
manifestation of this psychological fact. The baby has a
built-in reflex to meet their immediate partner, the mother,
and to suck; to work together in the task of survival and
development.
The support for this new couple is provided by the
father, who will protect and nurture the pair and gradually
assist them to join him in creating a family. He is an
intimate and necessary part of the process. The father’s
main role at this time is to help the mother and his baby link
together well and to protect them from disturbances that
could shatter the tentative bonds being established. This is a
very generous act, as the father is asked to step back and
help his newborn occupy a special and intimate place with
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Learning to love
his partner and support them becoming close to each other.

When I look back on the birth of my own child I can see
that circumstances did not, at that time, help my baby and
me come together in this way. I had read about and
practised the breathing exercises, taken note of the various
stages of labour, and anticipated that my husband would be
with me throughout the labour. Life being what it is,
however, nothing went quite as expected.
On my last visit to my obstetrician before the birth, he said
that he was going on holidays and because I was so close to
term he would put me in hospital the following Tuesday and
induce the baby. I was taken aback and asked some questions
about induction, but was made to feel that I was worrying
unnecessarily. He had already made plans and in his view I
was adequately provided for. Having seen him throughout
32
The birth
my pregnancy it was hard to envisage finding another

obstetrician at that very late date, and I reluctantly agreed.
Once in the hospital I found I was not alone. My doctor
had four other patients all lined up for inductions. Not
having prepared for this contingency I began to feel a little
out of control of the birth, especially when I seemed to
rapidly move into an advanced stage of labour without
building up to it gradually. I had difficulty controlling my
breathing and, perhaps because of the difficulties, my
husband decided to leave temporarily. I felt panicky and in
deep pain, and was gasping for breath.
The nurses were extremely busy and I felt alone and
frightened. Many hours later I was taken to the delivery
room and almost immediately a pethidine mask was put on
my face. I had previously decided that I didn’t want drugs
but the sister insisted it would help. Just as my baby was
about to be born the obstetrician arrived and my husband
returned. They were introduced and began chatting
amiably to each other. With a lot of pushing and an
epidural, my daughter was born. She was shown to her
father then whisked away. I asked where she had gone, and
I think the nurse said she had gone to the next floor to be
weighed. I felt bereft: I hadn’t even had a chance to cuddle
my baby or nurse her, and now she was gone! Fortunately,
most hospitals do not behave this way today, but sometimes
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Learning to love
it is still difficult for staff to remember that the human

element is an important part of medical procedures.
Another painful memory is of a young European mother
who was not treated well by hospital staff because she did
not breastfeed her baby. There are many reasons for
mothers not to breastfeed. Sometimes new mothers need
distance from the intimacy of breastfeeding, allowing them
a safe space from which to gradually enter the mother–baby
relationship. It is up to each mother and baby to find their
way of being comfortable with each other. Bottlefed babies
can be well-loved and well-connected if they are held and
nursed and can gaze at their mother.
O u r Fi r s t S e p a r at i o n
With birth, a huge milestone is passed. It is the first major
separation that mother and baby have to face, and the first
separation that needs to be worked through. Towards the
end of pregnancy the mother feels impatient to move on.
Her body is cumbersome and progressively less mobile, and
it is natural to reach a point of wanting to work with the
baby to bring them into the world.
If possible we should help in every way to allow the birth
to happen in a natural way, mother and baby working
together with dad’s support. Circumstances will not always
be what we want but we can try to make the best of them,
34
The birth
remembering what is important in the situation and doing

our best to achieve that. Facilitating the bond between
mother and baby should be the central focus of any birth.
Being as drug-free as possible allows the natural euphoria of
childbirth to be experienced, and this can be an important
part of mother and baby getting together.
In terms of emotional development it is the
mother–baby bond, with support from the father who in
turn develops his own intimate relationship with the baby,
that forms the basis for all our subsequent relationships.
This is the means by which we as children develop a sense
of self. The mother–baby world expands when the baby is
introduced to the father by the mother, and to other
siblings. Throughout our life the strength and character of
these relationships will influence how we relate to other
individuals and groups.
Clinical studies, infant research and observational
studies of children from birth have helped us to understand
better what is occurring between the mother and baby. The
understanding is a matter of piecing together what is
happening for both sides, an imaginative exercise of
wondering, ‘tuning in’ and ‘being with’ what is taking
place. What must it be like to be the baby in this situation?
What must it be like to be the mother/father in this
situation?
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Learning to love
This is the journey of empathy, putting ourselves in

someone else’s shoes. It is also about the making of a human
being with human sensibilities, the ability to care, to
wonder, to feel with and for another. Taking this journey
can also provoke feelings that we have long put aside, and
we may resist letting the journey unfold even as we are
simultaneously willing to take it.
‘Being with’ the Baby

For nine months the foetus has grown and developed inside
the mother, inside a sac of fluid that has (under normal
circumstances) remained at a steady temperature. The
experience of hot and cold is alien to the foetus – they are
used to a warm and constant temperature to which they are
perfectly adapted. Around that fluid are the firm walls of
the uterus which provide a safe container within which the
foetus can swim around, change position and stretch. The
uterus provides a safe boundary, preventing a sense of being
lost and a feeling of ‘I don’t know where I am’.
Food intake is also constant. The automatic process of
nutrients being passed to the foetus through the umbilical
cord means hunger is not experienced. The foetus does not
know the difference between full and empty, since the
supply of nutrients is always there. Also, the foetus’ senses
are adapted to a low level of light and noise. As the foetus
36
The birth
does not live in a gaseous medium they don’t breathe – their

developing lung capacity comes into use only when they are
born.
In normal circumstances, the birth process begins with
the mutual labour of baby and mother. Having matured,
the foetus feels ready to leave their cocooned and protective
environment and fulfil their potential outside. No doubt the
newborn is pleased with this achievement, but there are
many hazards to face. First, the newborn has to breathe.
This is no mean feat, since all their air passages have to be
cleared. After taking the first breath a kaleidoscope of new
experiences confronts the baby. Nothing now is automatic,
nothing known, nothing predictable – all is different.
Having breathed, the baby may wish to open their eyes,
usually seeing light that is stronger than that to which they
have been accustomed. Sounds are also much louder. For
the first time the baby is going to experience the sensation
of hot and cold air hitting the sense receptors on their skin.
In the face of such sensory experiences the baby may
wonder where their warm and safe place is gone – indeed
they feel lost, without boundaries and without the safe,
containing uterine walls: ‘Where do I begin and where do I
end?’
Losing the enveloping arms of the uterus that provided
constant protection shows the baby their vulnerability and
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Learning to love
helplessness, hence their need for holding in the parents’

secure arms, firm wrapping and being held in the mind of
the parents. Without support, the baby experiences a sense
of what has been called ‘nameless dread’: ‘Can I make it
now that I am living outside the womb?’, ‘Will I be able to
bear being "out there"?’ In the starkest form of dread the
baby wonders, ‘Will I live or will I die?’ Having
experienced birth, the infant now faces the possibility of
death. No wonder babies cry – and little wonder we are
highly anxious about our offspring in the early months.
In time, reliable responses from the parents can serve to
lessen the baby’s anxieties and help them develop a sense of
trust in the world and their carers, a trust that what they
need will usually be provided. This is not an easy task.
Food, that previously was constantly available, becomes an
‘on/off’ phenomenon. The breast or bottle provides comfort
and relief. Although pleasurable it is also hard work – the
baby doesn’t get anything for nothing any more! At the end
of the feed, when feeling good, the source of comfort goes
away. This coming and going creates worries and anxieties.
It also provides the basis of learning and growth, in the
paradoxical way of the human condition. The baby begins
to wonder, ‘Where has that source of food come from?’
‘Why did it go away?’ ‘Who does it belong to?’ ‘When will
it come back?’
38
The birth
Newborn babies are unable to feed themselves. Not

being able to gain nourishment independently means they
are totally dependent on the thing/breast/person that comes
and goes. With its arrival there is a sense of security: it is
warm, has arms to hold firmly, provides milk that can fill
the empty stomach. But the baby has to work for it, to suck.
They also have to wait between feeding times.
It is possible that thinking begins to takes place in the
absence of the mother. The baby naturally begins to wonder
about how the world works as they adapt to living outside
the womb. Like us, the baby needs time to understand how
everything operates on the outside. We shouldn’t avoid the
problem by leaving the baby permanently attached to
mother’s breast, but understand and help them to come to
grips with the new and vastly different world.
The baby’s main form of communication at this time is to
let us know what they are feeling. Just as we know when our
partner or friend is feeling good or unhappy, we get to know
the ‘feeling tone’ of the baby. We begin to know whether
they are content or hungry, need holding or are sleepy.
Feelings of bewilderment, distress, frustration, rage, terror
and joy will all be shared as the baby’s way of making their
experiences understood. The mother can feel overwhelmed
at times but that is also part of the communication that the
baby is making – that is how they feel.
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Learning to love
In this early stage it is important for someone to be in

touch with the baby’s feelings and to identify with them by
wondering about what the baby might be going through.
Someone needs to be preoccupied with and attentive to the
baby’s nuances. This reverie acts as a ‘mental skin’ which
holds the parts of the baby’s personality together and
prevents the very early anxiety of falling apart, or feeling
unheld. With very limited capacity for thought and little
memory, the baby needs time to build up a picture of their
main carer and to then establish a relationship.
If, however, the baby is allowed to be overwhelmed by
inexplicable feelings, too often they will either cut off from
these feelings or remain in a disintegrated or confused state.
If we, as a result of our own experiences, are afraid to
40
The birth
confront that level of helplessness in ourselves we may

attack or be unresponsive to the baby because they provoke
our own feelings of vulnerability. The vulnerability of the
baby is both deeply engaging and hard to bear at times.
Babies have individual ways of communicating their
likes and dislikes. We have to observe and take notice, so
that gradually we can determine if our baby likes to be
tightly wrapped or not, or which is the most comfortable
way for them to feed. We have to take the time to find out
what suits our baby.
‘Being with’ the Mother

Not only the baby has an exciting but difficult journey at
birth. The mother has also been through a trauma and she
will need to talk through her birth experience, in detail, many
times. Her partner and family can help by listening and
taking an interest in reliving the experience with her. Other
mothers in the hospital mostly feel the same, and they should
take the opportunity to exchange experiences. Leaving
hospital within a couple of days can mean that mothers miss
the opportunity to work through the birth experience; talking
it through is a necessary and important thing to do. The birth
experience can preoccupy the mother if it isn’t resolved, and
can get in the way of her ‘meeting’ her new baby.
Because of her heightened sensitivity the mother also
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Learning to love
needs an unusual degree of protection and support and this

is an important role and function for her partner. A woman
I knew was placed in a two-bed room in the hospital with a
highly agitated drug addict. The drug-addicted mother was
disruptive, which was not only hard on the staff but very
disturbing to the other mother who needed to focus her
attention on herself, her baby and her relationship.
Someone, ideally her partner or, failing that, the hospital
staff, should have recognised her need for protection and
safety at such a vulnerable time. Leaving the new couple
exposed at such an important time is not helpful.
Disruptions should be kept to a minimum. A friend was
told of a relative’s death, just after giving birth. News of this
nature can be given later, when the mother and baby’s grasp
on life is stronger and less tenuous.
42
The birth
The mother’s mind and body are very open, vulnerable

and receptive. These are adaptive mechanisms that allow
her to be attuned to her baby and in the state of maternal
preoccupation necessary for the baby’s well-being. Her
heightened sensitivity will help her relate to the baby’s
needs, and the baby needs the mother to intuit what they
may need or want. Both have to make allowances in this
‘getting-to-know-you’ phase. With good support from her
partner the mother can ‘let go’ into her relationship with her
baby and ‘go with’ the rhythm that they establish together.
Likewise, mother and father need time to get to know
each other in a different way. The mother will need her
partner to support her mothering, to encourage her in her
‘job’ and be sensitive to her more vulnerable state of mind.
The getting-to-know-you phase is not automatic or instant.
Just like any new relationship, it takes time to adjust to each
other and learn what the other is like.
‘ B e i n g w i t h ’ t h e Fat h e r
The mother has to realise that carrying the baby for the
duration of the pregnancy gives her a headstart in forming
a connection with her baby. The father needs a little more
time to come to grips with the reality of what has happened
and, while excited about the birth, he needs time to find
his way of relating to the baby. Fathers often recall their
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Learning to love
childhood experiences and reflect on how they would like

to relate to their child as they grow. As one father put it:
It is difficult for me to know how to be a father – my
father was a very busy man. He felt it was the right thing
to be spending time doing his work and was often not at
home so I don’t really have a good model for what it
means to be a father. Also I am the youngest and I’ve never
been in a situation where there’s been a baby around.
To another father it was a time to review how he wanted
to relate to his child and how he would like to be a father,
compared to the fathering he received:
Basically we had a good upbringing, although I wasn’t all
that close to my dad. One thing we didn’t do was talk
about things very much, and I would like that to be
different – that we could discuss things more.
Often fathers can feel confused about their role at this
time and can feel left out of the intimacy between their
partner and their baby. Talking about his wife and baby,
one father said:
My wife wasn’t feeling confident about her ability to be
able to feed the baby, and I was trying to tell her that she
was doing really well. The first day she was feeding the
baby was very difficult. The baby’s learning how to do it,
and mum’s learning how to do it, and the father feels as
useful as pockets on a singlet.
44
The birth
Most wish for and support the developing relationship,

but are unsure of their role in the new family. Often, while
the mothers are engrossed with the new baby, the fathers
carry the worry about the family’s future, particularly in
relation to financial concerns. Fathers often bear the
responsibility of being the sole breadwinner and, even if the
role is only temporary, it can be stressful.
C o m m u n i c at i n g w i t h E a c h O t h e r
The most important way in which the baby communicates
is by sharing their feelings with the mother for her to
understand and articulate. It is important for the new
parents to work out not only what their own feelings are at
this time, but also the feelings the baby is communicating.
In the early weeks the baby’s vulnerability and fragility
will be very apparent and the mother’s hypersensitivity will
assist her in empathising with her baby and sensing what is
going on. The baby’s helplessness and vulnerability will be
reflected in the mother’s care and handling. Feeling the
vulnerability does not mean that we should treat the baby as
if they are about to break, like a piece of china, at any
moment. The baby needs to know that they will be gently
but firmly handled. Being handled too preciously will
reinforce the baby’s anxiety: it is important to let the baby
feel confident that we have some idea of what we are doing.
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Learning to love
However, we must remember that a baby is not a sack of

potatoes, unaware, unfeeling and lacking in consciousness.
A nurse actually told me that it didn’t really matter what I
did to my baby for the first six weeks because she was ‘Like
a vegetable, just feed and clean it and don’t worry!’ It is
important to follow a middle path of gentle but firm
handling, remembering that babies are quite resilient.
Even at this early time the baby’s characteristics can
become evident, and potential patterns in the relationship
between mother and child can emerge. I was intimately
involved with a couple having their first child. On my first
visit to the hospital the mother, June, was clearly delighted
with the birth of her son, Michael. June was wearing shorts
and a t-shirt because she preferred to be dressed rather than
wear a nightgown during the day. She told me details of the
birth and showed me a bruise on the side of Michael’s face.
46
The birth
June’s comment was, ‘He didn’t want to come out, even

with the caesar’.
Looking back now, I can see that even early on there was
tension between June and Michael, due to their different
personalities. Such differences are bound to occur between
mother and baby, as they do in all partnerships. June was
anxious to get on with life and immediately dressed in her
normal clothes: baby Michael hadn’t really wanted to come
out! June attempted to bridge the birth separation by
linking her before-and-after experiences with Michael. She
commented that:
It is interesting seeing the things he did inside, on the
outside. Like when he shudders, I used to feel him do that
inside. Also the hiccups and certain kicks and movements,
I see him do them and think, ‘That’s what he used to do’.
June also created links to his father by talking to Michael
about how good his father was at pacifying him, and how
good it was going to be when they were home together.
E v e ry o n e i s O v e r w h e l m e d
The mother, like her baby, naturally feels overwhelmed by
all that has happened to her. She needs time and space to
process these events, and further anxieties can only add to
the overload. However, busy hospital wards are not always
easy places to create a peaceful environment. A few days
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Learning to love
after the birth, hormones make many mothers feel quite

teary. This is normal, and may be an expression of the loss
of the union between mother and baby when the baby was
in the womb.
The hospital system may create a problem of who ‘owns’
the baby – the parents or the hospital staff. A few days after
my daughter’s birth I walked past the nursery between
feeds. In those days babies were only given to the mother
every four hours, for a feed. I heard my baby crying quite
loudly and in a great deal of distress. I told the sister that it
was my baby who was crying and asked if I could pick her
up – only to be told that she would be delivered at the usual
time for her feed and that I couldn’t go into the nursery
area. I remember saying, dumbfounded, ‘But it’s my baby
and she’s upset.’ I was refused access and in my sensitive
state soon started crying. I felt powerless, standing there in
my dressing-gown and slippers and feeling that I had no
rights. This would be much less likely to happen today, yet
in some ways elements of the problem still exist.
If a mother has a baby who needs more care due to
medical difficulties she will need to ‘fight’ within herself to
remain the main person in her baby’s life. It is easy to feel
that you have created enough of a problem by not
producing a perfect child, and hand over responsibility for
the baby’s care to the nursery and medical staff. Staff may
48
The birth
unconsciously imply that they can care for the baby better
than we can. However there is no one who can better
provide the emotional connection than the parents, and all
concerned need to remember that this bond should remain
paramount.
The moment of birth is a special moment. There is
probably no other time for parents and baby as full of
creativity for all concerned, as when a new life comes into
the world. However, the other side to this magic is the
trauma of change and loss that both mother and baby feel.
They will need the warm acceptance of the father and other
support people to help them deal with this event. This
moment of creativity, like life, cannot be perfect. No one
can be the perfect mother, father or baby. As always in life,
events and circumstances that we cannot control will come
into play, but we can do our best, within the limitations in
which we operate, to make the meeting as special as
possible.
Conclusion
The birth is the point of meeting, a coming together of the
mother, baby and father, and it is this meeting that should
take centre stage. The mother–baby partnership requires the
father to protect and keep them safe from intrusion and
harm, since they are particularly vulnerable at this time. All
49
Learning to love
parties have had a major life experience: it is important to

wonder about the mother’s experience and what she has been
through; what the baby has experienced and the changes that
they will have to negotiate as a result of the birth; and how
all of this has affected the father. There is a lot to be
processed. The mother, father and baby need support from
others – grandparents, extended family and friends – to help
them respond to their new world. Support from others is a
necessity.
50
the first six weeks
H aving faced the enormous changes of birth, how does

the baby and new family deal with the upheaval to
their lives in the first six weeks? Perhaps the best response
to this question is to live through it. It is a time to just
experience whatever is happening rather than trying to
control events. The new family members all need time to
sort things out, and all that can be done is to live through
the chaos and not shortcut the process of getting to know
each other. It is best not to panic or rush things. Endurance
is the main ingredient. We may not know how things will
work out, but they do work out eventually if we hang in
there.
There are two main areas of learning. First, mother,
father and baby need to work together to ease the baby into
becoming aware that they now live outside the womb.
Mother and father also need to adjust to their new lives.
Second, the baby comes into the world ready and able to
51
Learning to love
help their parents know what they need and want. The
baby will also respond to the changes taking place by
beginning to divide the world into experiences that they
like or don’t like. A discussion of these two areas forms the
basis of this chapter.
I must admit that when my baby was newly born I had
an intense desire to protect her from all difficulty and
distress. Although this attitude was useful in the very early
weeks, as she grew it became increasingly unadaptive and
unhelpful in assisting her to cope with a world where all
things are not instant and not always as we might want
them to be. A more useful attitude would have been to
acknowledge the difficulties my baby was having, while
helping her to gradually find her place in the new world
into which she had been born.
S e p a r at i n g f r o m t h e Wo m b
Being a newborn does not mean there is a little person yet,
in the usual sense of the word. It is more like being full of
sensations. Experiences from outside the baby, for example
how they are picked up, and from inside, such as hunger
pains and colic, are constantly affecting the newborn, who
has very few mechanisms for dealing with these
‘intrusions’. The newborn looks to their mother to help
regulate sleeping, feeding and waking cycles. Much of the
52
The first six weeks
relationship centres on those activities, as the baby offers

subtle cues as to what they want. During this early time the
arms and the lap of the mother act almost as an extension of
the womb, and there is still little differentiation between
mother and baby. Where mother begins and ends, and baby
begins and ends, is not always clear.
This process – of being in a place where the arms and the
lap are like the outside womb, and a sense of being separate
from the womb is gradually introduced – needs to be
handled with great sensitivity and care. All babies, like all
mothers, have to deal with the fact of their physical
separateness, and babies need to be ‘let down’ gradually into
this reality.
It is true that the baby is gradually developing in terms
of their capacity to relate. If the mother or parents can
identify with what it must be like to be the baby, to think
and reflect on the baby’s position, the baby will gradually be
drawn into the relationship with their parents. A baby’s
natural instinct is to seek contact, and they are drawn to the
human form and to the human face as a means of making
this connection.
Initially, in order to survive, the baby has to respond to
the world in terms of internal needs and will therefore look
to the parents for what they need to ensure their survival.
The parents’ reliability, consistency and care are important
53
Learning to love
aspects here. Therefore, the baby responds to the mother in

terms of her functions. At the same time the baby will
respond to the mother’s voice and smell, and seek continual
contact with her as the one who carried the baby inside the
womb.
Th e B a b y g i v e s C u e s
While the baby is becoming acquainted with how the world
works, they are also well-equipped to enter into a two-
person relationship and are very much attuned to forming
that relationship with their carers. The baby is able to give
very good cues to the parents about what they need.
Establishing this secure relationship will be the baby’s aim
at this time, and they will signal when they are tired,
hungry or in need of holding. The baby will also connect
through finding and holding the gaze of the mother. This is
an important way in which the baby feels grounded and
held. Holding the gaze is like feeling that they are in the
‘grip’ of the mother and therefore are secure and safe.
When the baby’s survival is assured they will be able to
enter into the type of relationship where a real meeting
takes place and a two-way partnership is established.
As mothers, we can sometimes feel overwhelmed by the
baby seeking to have their needs met and, particularly if our
own needs have not been adequately responded to, we may
54
The first six weeks
think of the baby as only taking from us. We may be

disappointed that the new baby cannot give us what we
missed out on and are still waiting for. We may feel related
to as a ‘thing’, like a cow, when in fact the baby just wants
to stay alive. This is a necessary stage of development for the
baby, which we need to understand and respond to. It is
through the mother that the baby will learn that they exist,
are alive and are fundamentally ‘acceptable’ and lovable.
A woman came to see me, highly successful in her area
of expertise but with a chaotic personal life, seeking therapy
to help get her life together. Over time changes took place,
her life on the personal level began to improve and she
established a good ongoing relationship. There was still,
however a sense of underlying deadness and flatness to her.
We referred to this state as ‘going into her coffin’. Although
much had been explored we reached even further back into
55
Learning to love
her childhood, and found that as a baby she had not been
responded to. In her early weeks and months she had been
treated as a lump of flesh only, not someone with potential
to think and feel.
Her mother had obviously held the attitude that a baby
was like a vegetable and hence regarded her new baby as a
lump of something that was not quite human. The result
was a lack of emotional passion in this lovely young woman.
By exploring her early states of mind we were able to bring
alive her baby self, and with it her ability to deeply engage
in life, and her relationship with me and her new partner.
H o l d i n g t h e B a b y ’ s Fe e l i n g s
If the baby is initially seeking the parents as partners in
responding to their needs and only gradually comes into a
relationship with them, how do they develop a sense of
being someone? How does the baby begin to feel that their
experiences are being held together, rather than out of
control and continually assaulting them? This usually takes
place through the mother, who by her preoccupation and
attentive, reflective care gradually enables the baby to feel
secure and held; the baby is experiencing the world but is
not overwhelmed by it.
The mother, through her maternal reverie, forms a
mental skin around the stream of sensations that is her
56
The first six weeks
baby. When experiences escalate, both pleasurable and

unpleasurable, someone needs to be there to help the baby
deal with the high level of stimulation or anxiety. By
knowing about the baby’s feelings the mother helps to make
them more bearable. Because the baby sees that their
mother knows and understands the feelings, they become
less overwhelming and part of normal life for the baby.
It is at this stage that mother and baby, with father’s
support, are trying to deal with the questions of ‘Where do
things come from?’ and ‘Who are you and who am I?’ A
sneeze, a large bowel movement or a door banging can
startle a little baby. It is the mother’s function to address what
is happening and show the baby the cause of their reaction.
In this way the mother can help make sense of the world for
the baby. Through this process the baby is able to feel centred
by the mother: ‘You got a fright when you sneezed’.
B e g i n n i n g a n d E n d i n g Fe e d s
In a similar way, it is possible to assist the baby to make
transitions. At the beginning and the end of a feed we can
watch for signals so that we know when to connect the baby
to the breast and when they are finished. As the baby is
gradually more awake at these times we can talk to them
about these transitions in a soothing way.
It is easier to understand the depth of a baby’s distress if,
57
Learning to love
for example, we realise that seeing the breast move away at

the end of a feed can be like losing ourselves. If the ‘little
separations’ such as ending a feed, going to sleep or
finishing a bath can be talked through soothingly the baby
will feel less threatened by what they may otherwise feel to
be abrupt and meaningless changes that are forced upon
them, rather than something they are prepared for.
June, the mother of baby Michael, used another way of
soothing transitions. She spent many of the early days at
home taking Michael for long walks, in a baby sling. This
made Michael content and seemed to re-create a sense of
connection with the womb, giving him time to adjust to his
new life outside the womb.
‘Soft’ and ‘Hard’ Experiences

In the face of new stimuli the baby will begin to attempt to
structure the world by dividing their experiences into ‘soft’
and ‘hard’ ones. Soft experiences are the warm, holding,
feeding ones, when the baby feels ‘held’ both mentally and
emotionally. Hard experiences may be being unwrapped
and having a nappy changed, needing to be bathed, being
put down to sleep, or experiencing discomfort and pain.
These experiences force the baby to realise that they now
live outside the womb. Gradually, as adjustments are made,
the newborn faces the new reality.
58
The first six weeks
Soft experiences such as holding and feeding enable the

baby to again feel ‘at one’ with the mother, and hard
experiences emphasise the fact that the baby is now a
separate being. Both aspects are important if the baby is to
develop. In the early weeks we endeavour to be
sympathetic, empathising with the baby’s position and
minimising major stresses and disruptions, but the baby is
also involved in a learning process that requires our support
and help. An example is having a bath. For many babies the
initial experience of being unwrapped and immersed in
water can be distressing. Without the blankets that hold
them firmly and the clothes that keep them warm, the
unwrapped baby can feel exposed and highly vulnerable.
The enveloping walls of the uterus which provided a sense
of security have gone.
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Learning to love
Even if they find baths upsetting, however, we don’t

decide never to give a baby a bath in order to prevent them
experiencing distress. To assist the baby we may initially
speak soothingly and reassuringly, and may make the bath
brief. Accommodation is made but the task is not
abandoned and quite frequently, within a week or so, the
baby can relax enough to discover that the experience can be
a joyful one. The baby is not told ‘You have to do this for
your own good so you might as well get used to it’ nor ‘You
poor thing, you don’t like that so we won’t do it any more’.
A middle path – helping the baby through a difficult

learning experience – seems to offer parent and baby the
best hope of mutual satisfaction from working at their task
of developing a partnership.
What happens if there are not enough soft or hard
60
The first six weeks
experiences? Without enough soft experiences – comfort,

warmth, feeding, physical holding, attention to needs and
psychological holding – what must it be like for the baby?
The baby will feel insecure, tense and left alone to cope with
the fact that their mother/father/carer is not sufficiently
available. The fact that they receive inadequate care is
beyond their capacity to understand, so they turn against
themselves rather than face the psychological truth. If
someone doesn’t pick the baby up often enough the baby
may think that it is because they aren’t liked, don’t smell
right or are ugly or stupid. Whatever it is, the baby will
blame themselves for the lack of soft experiences.
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Learning to love
Some babies will develop a muscular armour, holding

their body tensely in response to the lack of arms into which
they can sink their floppy bodies. In the absence of being
held, they will do the holding. Of course we must
remember that babies vary in their normal degree of
relaxation. Some babies are born relaxed, while others take
longer and need more encouragement to feel at home in the
world.
Women who find this phase of motherhood hard often
have difficult histories themselves – their mothers were
unable to provide for them emotionally. It is a community
responsibility to see that mothers or carers are adequately
supported to achieve their task, or they are being asked to
do the impossible.
If not enough hard experiences occur the baby can’t
make the psychological transition from the womb to the
outside world. In a psychological sense, it becomes difficult
for the baby to find their own identity and personality, and
they can forever feel dependent on another to get by in the
world. As we have noted before, at birth and in the early
weeks the mother is in a heightened state of sensitivity to
her baby, and the baby continues to experience themselves
as part of the mother. Both mother and baby feel that
without the other, something is missing. In this way there
remains a sense that they are still united.
62
The first six weeks
Gradually and with good care inside the mental and

emotional womb that the mother provides, the baby faces
reality and psychological integrations begin to take place. A
little person begins to form. If this does not occur the baby
remains overconnected to the mother. In this state there is a
sense of oneness with the mother, and there is little in the
way of psychological life that belongs to the baby. The birth
of their personality is less able to take place. If a mother was
not helped to separate from her own mother, she must
think carefully about how she can help this process occur
with her own baby.
Need for Outside Support

All mothers need support and help because a baby is such
an enormous responsibility. The most important support
hopefully comes from the father, and from family and
friends. Mothers can only give support to their baby if their
own needs are met. As mothers we need to mobilise
whatever support we can – it is important to learn to accept
help.
Having help is not just a luxury but a necessity, which
enables us to be there for our baby. Being there for them
requires someone being there for us. In some cultures
family members provide all meals and perform all
household duties for the first six weeks after birth, to enable
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Learning to love
the mother to concentrate on her relationship with her

baby.
Although this doesn’t usually happen in Australia, the
need is the same. The mother will need a supportive
environment so that she can stay in touch with her
heightened sensitive state. Being an understanding mother
requires an understanding partner, and the new family
needs support if they are to fulfil the demands of their new
life.
In these early weeks it is important for the father to
acknowledge the woman’s mothering and help her feel
comfortable and competent in her new role. It is helpful if
he can let her know that her efforts are valued. This is even
more important in a society that doesn’t place much value
on her important task. The father also needs support to deal
with the changes in his life. Fathers also struggle as the
world outside the family continues to make demands and
makes little allowance for their new life.
The first six weeks were not easy for June, Michael and
Nick, the father. On my first visit to their home after the
birth June greeted me with:
This is our Jekyll and Hyde. I got fed up with him the
other night and said to Nick, ‘Here you are, you have him’.
Then on Sunday night Nick was trying to settle him from
11.30 p.m. to l a.m. and eventually came in and said, ‘Here
64
The first six weeks
you are, you have him’. The first few nights were awful.
He cried a lot of the time and the worst thing is you don’t
know what is wrong with them.
Michael was not a content, sleepy newborn able to ease
his parents into parenthood. Many babies are sleepy in the
first few weeks then gradually cry more around three
weeks when some realisation of their separateness starts to
dawn. Others cry in the first weeks in response to the birth,
then gradually settle. The rupture of birth had clearly
disturbed Michael, who because of the Caesarean section
hadn’t been able to trigger his birth in his time, and he
needed a lot of reassurance. Michael’s anxiety about his
survival was strong and he required constant interaction.
June then realised that it was time to change Michael’s
nappy. As soon as June put him on the floor, Michael cried.
June said, ‘Come on, it’s not as bad as all that’, but Michael
tensed his body and continued protesting. When June had
finished changing the nappy she picked him up, saying,
‘Come on little fellow’, and although the crying eased it
didn’t stop. After cleaning his eyes (he had ‘sticky eye’) June
put him to her breast. Michael sucked immediately, firmly
and quietly, and his fretfulness evaporated. June said:
It’s like magic. you know. I think if he could he would just
hang on to me for the whole time he is fretful. He could sit
on the breast for the whole four hours of his disturbed
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Learning to love
time, but you couldn’t do that. One thing that does soothe
him is his bath. Nick or I go and sit with him in the water
and he is immediately quiet. That lasts about l5 minutes,
then we pace the floor.
After about a twenty-minute feed on that breast June
said, ‘That’s about enough there, I think’, and gently
removed Michael and began rubbing his back. How to end
feeds, and later limiting solids, was an issue between
Michael and June: June felt that he had had enough and
Michael always wanted more. This was an important issue
for them to work out.
Conclusion
The first six weeks are a challenging time. Mother and baby
are highly attuned to each other and parents have the
difficult task of protecting and acting sensitively towards
their newborn, and at the same time easing the baby
towards the full realisation of separateness from the mother.
The mother’s ability to understand what the baby is
experiencing, and her thoughtful care, will gradually give
her baby a psychological skin into which a psychological self
can be born. Physical birth is separate from psychological
birth, which comes later.
In the beginning the baby will gradually try to organise
their world in an attempt to make it more manageable. At
66
The first six weeks
this stage mum, dad and baby are all attempting to move
from feeling overwhelmed to a more manageable situation.
That is about all that can be achieved at this time and too-
early interventions, such as organising sleep patterns, are
not necessarily helpful. It is important for the baby and
mother to find their own rhythm and follow that for the
time being. Being spoilt is not really an issue at this early
stage. What is important is that there are many feelings on
all sides to be processed and understood.
67
six to twelve weeks
B y this age the baby well and truly recognises their

parents and will smile in response to consistent care.
Father, mother and baby are getting to know each other a
little better and the mutual recognition is acknowledged on
all sides. The chaotic world that existed just after the birth
becomes a little less chaotic. Although they are still finding
their way, some more organisation and routine is usually
possible.
Babies love the rhythm of a routine, which helps them to
locate who they are. Not a routine that is rigidly applied but
one that takes them into account and is shaped by their
needs, but at the same time is predictable and reliable. This
helps them feel that the new world is a little more
manageable, as they struggle to sort out how it works.
Th e Fa l l i n g - i n - L ov e P h a s e
In this period there is an intensification of the relationship
68
Six to twelve weeks
between mother, father and baby, who begin to ‘fall in love’

with each other. A lot of eye-to-eye contact is sought on
both sides, and smiling increases in a way that is responsive
and infectious. Babies begin to ‘coo’ and engage mothers in
imitating them. This is a wonderfully social time.
While falling in love, the parents and baby naturally feel

the intense highs and lows and ups and downs of that
experience. The world can be complete one minute and fall
apart the next. As one mother put it:
You notice your life a lot more when you have a baby. It
has meaning to it – you feel depressed, you feel happy, you
feel wonderful when they smile, you have so many more
emotions that you are aware of, more than you did before.
It’s hard to believe that a baby does that. You are so aware
of everything that goes on around you and you are so
protective.
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Learning to love
I never thought that I would be so protective, and I

never thought I would feel so much for a child, even
though I still feel really tired and really weak for some
reason and it’s a real effort to get up to him.
When he smiles his whole face lights up and it makes
everything worth it; the tiredness, the late nights, the
feeding and the grumpiness, it makes it all worthwhile.
You have your down times too, when he cries and you
can’t settle him and you think, ‘What did I do this for?’
Your moods do swing, they swing a lot.
Another mother was surprised about how well things
had gone:
I think in the beginning I didn’t really know how I would
feel about motherhood and babyhood, but I would say to
anyone that I would recommend it. Even the bits that I
thought would be really dreadful haven’t been that bad.
I’ve just enjoyed it, and I would recommend it to anyone.
The early distinction between soft and hard experiences
is now clearer for the baby. They build an idea of a mother
who soothes or a mother who can’t fix everything, and as
mothers we are both. We supply what they need so that they
feel secure and comforted, but at other times we cannot
make everything better even though we want to.
A real mother, as opposed to the non-existent ideal one,
is one who understands often enough what her baby needs.
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Six to twelve weeks
This means that the baby is fed when hungry, put to sleep
when tired, left alone to look at something of interest, and
responded to and held when needing comfort. These are
critical experiences which create the baby’s basic trust in the
parents and a sense that the world is a good place.
‘Good Enough’ Mothering

The idea of ‘good enough’ mothering is important. The
term recognises that empathising with the baby won’t
happen all the time, but if it happens enough of the time all
will go well. Enough ‘in tune’ parenting means that the
growing baby will be able to deal with some situations
where they are not getting the gratification they want, can
wait for what they need or can manage when their need is
only partially met. This capacity develops from having been
responded to sufficiently.
The baby still needs their mother to be someone who
will help to regulate their volatile emotional states and
allow them to adjust to the world. The illusion that the
breast or the mother can provide all satisfaction is gradually
reviewed by both mother and baby, who both begin to work
with reality. At first, when complete satisfaction isn’t
possible the bottom falls out of the baby’s world. The world
is either all good or all bad. These extreme states are like
two separate entities to the baby, which gives us some idea
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Learning to love
of the absoluteness of their experiences. When things are

good, the baby is comfortable and their tummy is full they
are blissed out, all is well and there are no clouds on the
horizon. When the baby has to wait or is frustrated or
distressed, the whole world goes wrong and all good
experiences seem to be forgotten.
The reality is that the mother is not the total source of

good that she and the baby might want her to be, and
neither is she the bad person she sometimes feels if all does
not go well. Mothers are ordinary human beings who are
doing their best. Both gradually come to this realisation,
rather than considering mothers as people who should fulfil
unrealistic expectations. The baby too becomes their own
little self with an individual personality – they are not just
the sum of the expectations placed upon them.
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Six to twelve weeks
We can enjoy the idealisation of our baby as they totally

depend on us to satisfy their needs, but gradually we help
them face the reality of who we are and what we can and
can’t do. The utter trust and reliance of our baby can be
enjoyed in this phase at the same time as gradually letting
them live in the world as it is. Equally, their sometimes
questioning eye when unwell, hurt or frustrated touches
our own helplessness. We cannot protect the baby from pain
and cure all situations for them. We need to understand the
way they view the world, but not accept that world view as
if that is the way things really are.
O t h e r Way s o f R e l at i n g
Gradually the baby will learn not to regard the breast as the
sole source of satisfaction, holding and security. Looking at
the mother and hearing her voice will act as a reassuring
mechanism. This is an important developmental shift – the
physical holding is important, especially in the early weeks,
and continues to be so, but additional ways of connecting
are a necessary part of the baby’s development.
The emphasis can shift during this time from relying
upon physical holding to being thought about by the
mother, being looked at and talked to by a mother who
wants to get to know her baby and find out what kind of
person they are. We need to help our baby learn that a
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Learning to love
relationship involves the physical space between them and

us, as well as being physically held. It also involves the fact
that we can remember each other when one is absent, and
the relationship continues. The relationship doesn’t
disappear if mum goes out to the laundry to soak a nappy!
If we become over-involved with our baby the
deprivation can be more in the direction of not letting them
experience the absent breast or mother. One of a baby’s
earliest lessons is that the breast is not an extension of
themselves, but that it belongs to the mother. If the breast is
readily offered at the baby’s first sign of frustration the baby
will not be able to learn who they are and who the mother
is. To bring the baby gently into reality the mother must be
both the good provider and the one who takes away. By
connecting the one who provides gratification with the one
who deprives or frustrates at times, we are connecting the
baby to reality. Connecting experiences to their source is
part of bringing the baby into the world.
Fat h e r b e c o m e s m o r e A c t i v e
The father’s role here is very important. He needs to have a
more active presence with the mother and baby as well as
continuing to support and protect them, thereby enabling a
good transition from inside to outside. The father has a role
in supporting the mother’s deep involvement with her baby
74
Six to twelve weeks
while helping her not to be lost in the baby. The father

needs to be introduced and included by the mother, as the
new family begins to emerge.
During this period of six to twelve weeks after birth

fathers begin to find their feet, feeling a more integrated
part of the emerging family and less on the outside of the
mother–baby partnership. The comments of one father
show him changing as a result of the birth:
Things have been going well between Rose and myself in
the past week. In fact we’ve really drawn a lot closer.
We’ve had some good talks, and I’ve definitely broken
down a few barriers and I’m more open and honest about
feelings. Babies do that to you. I’m not afraid to criticise
her and to say there are some changes that maybe I don’t
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Learning to love
like or she could do better. I was always afraid to do that

because I thought she was very fragile in her self-esteem. I
think things will get even better. Now I realise there are
problems and there are things to be worked out; this is not
the perfect marriage but when you deal with the problems
you love each other a lot more.
Another father also found that having a baby changed him:
Our little daughter continues to grow into a very likeable
little person. The baby is affecting us as a couple. It just
draws us closer together. I can see how it could drive a
wedge between a man and a woman. The man feels that
he’s come off second-best, which is silly, but you know it
doesn’t work rationally at times. We don’t have many
blues and don’t get upset around the baby. I am not
agitated at her crying as I sometimes was with the previous
children; I think I must be happier and older and more
temperate. My immediate concern is to stabilise us
financially.
I n t e n s i t y o f Fe e l i n g
Intense feelings in the mother, father and baby are part of
the picture at this time. There are wonderful moments as
intense bonding takes place and mother, father and baby
fall in love with each other. This is a delightful and
rewarding time for all. However there are, at the same time,
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Six to twelve weeks
difficult times which require constancy and commitment

from the parents.
For June, Nick and Michael, their fortunes waxed and
waned at this time. Good periods occurred: ‘We had a lovely
morning playing and laughing on the bed. He was really
lovely’. Michael now enjoyed his bath, and kicked and
splashed. June said, ‘I went to the cot the other day and as
soon as he saw me his face lit up with a wonderful smile’ and
‘For the first time the other day he stopped sucking in the
middle of a feed, looked at me and gave me a big grin’.
Michael was beginning to coo and at times interplay took
place between him and June that was intense, reciprocal and
loving.
Between these good periods a lot of hard work took
place. Michael was often hard to ‘find’ or connect to, and
June spent a lot of time endeavouring to make contact with
him. She would speak soothingly and lovingly, but Michael
would look past her or at her neck. Although placed in a
position that allowed good eye contact during
breastfeeding, Michael did not always take advantage of it.
At nine weeks June began to rub Michael’s stomach and
chest after feeding, saying, ‘What is that all about, little
one? Got a little wind? You can’t still be hungry’, in a very
caring tone while looking directly at him, but Michael still
gazed at the wall and increased the volume of his cry.
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Learning to love
Possibly he didn’t want to face the fact of a mother who

‘takes it away’, who finishes a feed, but that aspect of
mothering is important to learn. Finally June said, ‘Maybe
you’re just bored’, picked him up and stood him in front of
her, between her legs. He put his head back and looked
from one side to the other, but at such an angle that he
managed to avoid eye contact. June kept gazing at him and
said, ‘We know you’re a strong boy’, as he firmly pushed his
feet against her, still looking around.
Th e I s s u e o f L i m i t s
In this six- to twelve-week period June grappled with a lot of
self-doubt. She struggled, like all of us, with the issue of
limits. Michael seemed to be feeding constantly and never
wanted to be apart from the breast. Feeding wasn’t just
related to his need for nourishment, it was a source of
constant comfort and reassurance. June wondered how she
could help him cope with times apart from her and how she
could manage some life of her own, including time with
Nick.
At seven weeks June commented:
He is gradually better behaved although I feed him a lot in
the afternoons. All he wants to do is suck, sometimes for
one-and-a-half hours. It is not a feed, just a comfort suck. I
think maybe he needs it. He can’t be too spoiled at this stage.
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Six to twelve weeks
Yet June’s uneasiness about Michael’s use of the breast

prompted her to add, ‘How long does it take for them to get
the idea of all of you and not just parts’? While young,
Michael did seem possessive of the breast to the extent of
believing that it was his. The issue of ‘You don’t really
know whether to let them gradually cope with more
frustration or give them what they want’ worried June, who
was given conflicting advice by her doctor and obstetrician.
The issue of limits is a difficult one for all parents.
By nine weeks June decided:
Nick and I want to have a civilised meal in the evening,
I’m tired of one or the other of us pacing the floor and
eating in shifts. I’ve given him the dummy and if he cries
I go back every five minutes to pat him and put the
dummy back. We’ve only done it two nights. It’s hard but
I think we’re winning.
By ten weeks June was attempting to be firmer during
the day:
He hasn’t been sleeping much during the day but this time
he has had a good couple of hours, with a bit of
encouragement from me. The pram gets rocked if he stirs
and I seem to have had a win. Otherwise he just wants his
mother all day.
Weeks ten to eleven seemed like a breakthrough. June
was finding caring for Michael very rewarding and some of
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Learning to love
their struggles, although not resolved, were lessening. A

feed at ten weeks demonstrates the compromise that had
been reached: ‘You ready now? Here it is’ – and June lifted
her blouse and offered her breast. Michael latched on
quickly and sucked rapidly, actually gulping. June said,
‘Listen to that, you’re gulping a bit mate. Steady on’. Soon
he quietened and June said:
He does seem more secure now. He used to hang on really
tightly to my finger before while he fed, now he is much
more relaxed. He seems to want a lot but he is responding
to being put down at night. The other thing is he is very
clearly getting to know what he wants, you don’t realise
how much they become their own little person.
Like all parents we will at times feel frustrated, angry
and annoyed at our baby. Sometimes we will ask, ‘Why are
you doing this to me?’ Usually we are doing the best we can.
Our sleep is disturbed and our resources are low at times,
and we seem to be trapped in a relentless cycle that we can’t
see our way out of. These are all natural reactions to the
demands of the situation, and many parents have moments
when they wish to shake a child or throw them out the
window, when they feel helpless in the face of their never-
ending bundle of needs.
I remember thinking at times that if only I could deep-
freeze the baby for a while, get things to stop long enough
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Six to twelve weeks
to give me time out, then I would be able to collect myself,

settle down and start again, a little more refreshed and
revived. We don’t, of course, have this luxury – we can only
keep doing the best we can. Wanting ‘time out’ is a normal
feeling experienced by almost all parents. At such times we
acknowledge the feelings and get on with the job!
If the baby comes to associate their needs with distress
and inadequacy rather than well-being and satisfaction,
they will prematurely shift the emphasis from their own
needs to those of their mother, before they are ready to do
so. The mother will become the focus and the baby will
attune themselves to her, losing the connection to their sense
of self. The baby will try to fit into the mother’s
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Learning to love
environment in order to work out how and what they can

do to get their needs met. The baby has to begin to ‘do’
things. Just ‘being’ is no longer possible.
Conclusion
Generally, this period is one of intensifying the relationships
between mother, father and baby—everyone is getting
more involved and able to enjoy each other. Of course there
are ups and downs, but mostly we muddle through. We do
not fulfil the magical view of ourselves or of our baby in this
period of development, making their world perfect and
protecting them from all pain and development; neither do
we fulfil our own or their worst anxieties of deserting them,
being heartless and unthinking. We are somewhere
between these two positions—we attempt to protect and
help them most of the time, while assisting them to deal
with the natural frustrations and difficulties of life. In time,
we learn that we are all human beings with strengths and
weaknesses, endearing traits and annoying faults. In fact, as
we begin to grow and live as a new family we get to know
each other more as we really are, and real love is born.
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three to six months
An ‘I’ Emerges
D uring this time the baby is learning a lot, mostly

involving their increased capacity to relate more
closely with others. By now it is usually clearer to the baby
that they live outside the womb. Some sense of ‘I’ has
emerged and their recognition of mother and father is well-
established. With the clearer ‘I’ comes another shift in the
baby which affects all the relationships in the family. In this
period, the baby begins to take more control of their
relating. Just by averting their gaze they can let mum and
dad know that they don’t want something. The baby’s
capacity to be an engaging interactive partner with their
parents has evolved further.
Parents respond to this by letting the infant take more
initiative. They let the baby set up the social interaction and
respond when their baby has had enough. While mum
helped to regulate them as a little baby, the baby has now
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Learning to love
developed cues that regulate their desired level and amount

of social interaction, using their gaze. They can now look
away, shut their eyes, stare past people and become glassy-
eyed, as well as getting the contact they want by smiling and
vocalising. This is an effective range of behaviours that help
them communicate with their parents and carers. Now
both sides can work together in a more shared way and
relate to each other more fully.
‘ Ta l k i n g ’ t o E a c h O t h e r
As parents this is the period of our ‘baby talk’ and ‘baby
faces’, when we happily change our way of relating to the
baby and simplify our language and facial expressions. The
higher voice tone is one to which babies naturally relate,
and we speak slowly and in an exaggerated way. Each side
of the relationship elicits from the other the behaviours that
are wanted at this time. Both enter the ‘play’ which is
focused on face-to-face interactions with the baby.
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Three to six months
During this time the baby, rather than just moulding

into mother as they did previously, begins to strain against
the mother’s body, pushing away in order to have a better
look at her. They begin to pull at the mother’s hair, nose and
ears, and put food in her mouth. The baby also wants to
physically explore their mother’s face in addition to looking
at it. In the early weeks the general outline of mother was
important; now, the specific features are important. The
baby also begins to look for differences in faces, especially
between the mother and father.
There is a lot happening for the baby at this time on
every level. During this period they begin to roll over, are
introduced to solid foods, gradually strengthen their back
and begin to sit up, and their teeth begin to come through
gums. All these biological milestones are accompanied by
psychological milestones.
L o o k i n g I n t e n t ly
Babies at this stage begin to ‘take notice’ in a more complex
way. They are interested in the relationships around them.
They want to observe the person who is speaking, then
follow through to the person who answers. They watch as
mothers and fathers bring cups to their lips and carefully
watch them eating. It is during these times, when they seem
to look intently at their parents, siblings and grandparents,
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Learning to love
that they are trying to work out the complexity of the

relationships in their world.
A good illustration of this process is a visit I made to a
young family when their son, Damien, was just over four
months. The father, William, was sitting with Damien on
his knee; Damien was looking up at him with a lovely smile.
Julie, the mother, asked if I would like a cup of tea. Damien
turned his head at the sound of her voice and on locating her
gave her a big smile and gurgled. William commented,
‘He’s such a happy baby’. Julie asked if I would like to hold
Damien and I gladly accepted. As he was passed to me,
Damien gazed at me as if to say ‘I’ve seen you before’ (which
he had) and gave me a big smile. Once on my lap he looked
around to locate dad and mum again, then back to me.
When the baby was first born their main interests were
survival and their need to link with their mother. They
focused on being latched to the breast, held securely, helped
to deal with their transition into the new world and shown
how it works. Now that the baby knows that their survival
is assured they become more aware of the nuances around
them. At first the world seemed to involve only the baby
and mother, and the baby’s tasks were to work out who is
me and who is she, and where each begins and ends.
As the baby begins to sit up they notice other kinds of
relationships that have to be incorporated and understood.
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Three to six months
This shift is accompanied by frequent periods of returning

to mother and enjoying her in an exclusive twosome of
social play, ‘talking’ and gazing. These revisits to the
partnerships with mother are very important for the baby.
Fat h e r i n t h e Fo r e g r o u n d
Until now the father, although present, has to some extent
been in the background for the baby. Now he is a more
noticeable figure who has to be integrated into the picture.
The baby has to move from its twosome to a threesome at
times and enter into the triangular family relationship. This
greater engagement enriches the baby’s life. Because they
are full of curiosity to find out about the world, and wish to
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Learning to love
explore and make sense of what is happening around them,

the baby is usually happy to make the transition. The
engagement occurs gradually and in small steps.
The baby is now eating solids, not just soft, flowing,
warm liquid. They have to chew and swallow harder food.
The introduction of solids means the beginning of the
weaning process, even if breastfeeding continues. It
foreshadows the move away from reliance on the breast and
mother, and signals an entrance into a broader world.
The breast may remain as a source of satisfaction and
comfort but the range of activities that comfort the baby
increases. Just the mother’s or father’s voice, a smile of
encouragement, a cuddle or a look can soothe. Many babies
embrace the introduction of solids, others find it more
difficult, but all babies face the conflicting feelings involved
in such a move. The baby may feel that it has ‘lost’ from the
change from being the centre of mother’s attention to
becoming one of the family, but the gains are many.
Taking their place as a member of a group is a change
for the baby. With all change, we do not know when we
face it what the outcome will be. It is the same for the baby.
The loss can be experienced as moving from a special and
privileged position with mum to realising that they are not
the only one in mother’s life. Yet all the gains of the shift are
there to be experienced. This realisation, or the lack of it,
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Three to six months
can be played out in various ways.

With June, Nick and Michael an important
developmental step took place when the baby finally
acknowledged the presence of the family cat, Ginger, who
had put a lot of effort into seeking recognition from
Michael. In June’s words, Ginger was ‘like an older sibling
waiting to be noticed’. As I was meeting June regularly she
decided to more actively introduce Michael to me. It was
not easy for Michael to think of relinquishing his twosome.
He frequently stared at me and appeared to take me in, but
only on rare occasions would he smile at me. Many babies
are excited about their growing sense of other people in their
world however acknowledging me was a major issue for
Michael.
This ‘intruder’ issue increased towards the six-month
mark. At five-and-a-half months June said, ‘I went to that
meeting and left him with my parents, and you know he
was a little horror. He wouldn’t share me with anyone’. She
looked at Michael and said:
Yes, that’s right. I told you that at the time. You know as
soon as I left he was fine, whereas before that he had been
screaming and carrying on. I suppose it is the stage where
they get to know who mum is and don’t want to share.
I suppose he will learn. He is going to have to.
When attempting to move from the twosome to a
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Learning to love
threesome the baby can sometimes view the father as a

competitor and a threat, asking ‘Is he on my side or does he
in fact take away her time and attention that I want so very
much to have?’ Fathers must be careful not to get drawn
into a competition within the family. The father needs to
acknowledge the competitive feelings being aroused at
times in the baby and in himself, but not react to them. At
other times, of course, the baby is only too happy to have
dad’s attention – and the mother may feel resentful that she
does all the hard work and he gets the good times!
M i x e d Fe e l i n g s i n R e l at i o n s h i p s
The point is that at times the baby is going to have mixed
feelings about their father as much as they have mixed
feelings about their mother. Relationships are made up of
such feelings, and reconciling them is a long and difficult
process. It requires a lengthy process of reconciliation to
understand that ‘Dad does take away some time and
attention from mum but he is also on my side and works
with mum to help me grow up’.
Mothers can sometimes become so lost in their twosome
with the baby that they find it hard to allow the baby to
move on and develop. Such mothers may begin to exclude
the father and set up a damaging pattern of mother and
baby versus father, or they may be oblivious of the father,
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Three to six months
rather than including him and establishing a family. An

important developmental step can be taken if the father
intervenes to claim partnership with the mother, and his
fatherhood of the child. The reality of who are the parents
and who is the child is something that both parents must
impart to the child. After the first few months of the
mother’s sensitive preoccupation with the baby’s needs, the
father needs to help the mother return to her adult
relationship in a way that includes the baby. All have a
place, but the places have to be worked for.
In marriages based on mutual interests and
companionship it can be hard to include the baby. The baby
may be viewed as someone who disrupts the companionable
marriage and interferes with the parents’ activities. There
may be resentment that that era has passed. What is
happening, however, is that everyone is finding a new way
to be together, that includes the new member of the family.
Within the new family there are potential rewards for
everyone.
M o t h e r G i v e s a n d Ta k e s Away
At this time the baby not only has to expand their
relationship to the world, but also has conflicting feelings in
regard to their mother. As mentioned in the last chapter, the
baby has two concepts of mother which seem at odds with
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Learning to love
one another: ‘How can it be that this wonderful mother

who makes me feel secure, full, comforted, and is the
delight of my life, is also the mother who takes away what
I need? How can she give her time and attention to others?’
These views must be reconciled: the baby loves the
responsive mother and is not happy with the one who is not
always preoccupied with them. This often begins to show in
various ways in the baby’s relationship with the mother. For
example, one breast may be greatly preferred to the other—
one is good, the other is not so good. If the baby has sore
gums or teeth coming through, or breastfeeds are being
reduced, they may bite the nipple. Like all of us, a baby may
love to hate the one they love!
The emergence of the capacity to love and enjoy, and to

show clearly what they don’t like, is an advance in the
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Three to six months
baby’s ability to relate. Being in a relationship involves both

positive and negative feelings. Acknowledgment that they
may co-exist is the measure of being able to enter a
relationship. It is the beginning of the baby’s journey into a
more complex world with more subtle ranges of feeling.
This process was very clear with June and Michael. As
six months drew near, June reduced his breastfeeds to three
a day, ten minutes a side. This naturally provoked a strong
reaction, as Michael particularly liked his feeding time.
June said, ‘Actually we aren’t the best of friends at the
moment. I think he has turned off mum a bit, he doesn’t
think mum is so wonderful’. Michael had been forced to
realise that his mother was not only a provider, but someone
who also took away his comforter. It is important for the
mother to ‘take the heat’ of the situation and not blame the
baby for being difficult.
Both parties are facing a difficult time and it is best if
they can go through it together. June later commented, ‘It
was hard to drop the fourth feed last week. Michael didn’t
like it and found it hard. It would have been easy to go back
to it because I found I was missing it too.’ June began to
suffer her own form of weaning and talked of her feelings
of re-creating the younger Michael:
Last night I woke with a strong feeling that Michael was
in bed with us. A little later Nick came to bed and as he
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got in I was half-awake and said, ‘Careful, you might

squash him’. It’s funny to have those feelings.
The baby’s capacity for a greater range of feelings,
including negative, towards their parents is a sharing for
the baby. Someone needs to know about these feelings and
be prepared to accept them, because the baby wants them to
be understood. It is important to understand the baby’s
dilemma and allow them to express both sets of feelings
without fear of abandonment. We all face this dilemma, but
this is the first time the baby is dealing with such complex
issues as ‘Can you feel deeply attached to and also upset
with the same person?’
With so much learning taking place the baby has many

moments of being serious and thoughtful as they try to
combine their experiences to form a picture of the world.
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Three to six months
These quiet times are important for the baby, and a time
when the baby can be left alone to do their own ‘thinking’
without interference from us.
I n t e n s e ly L ov i n g a n d S t o r m y
During this phase an important transition has been taking
place for mum, dad and baby. The baby begins to be capable
of a deeper personal connection to the parents and will
naturally seek that level of connection. It is a time for
establishing a deeper involvement in relationships. This is a
special time, which can be very rewarding for the parents
and can herald the beginning of deeply passionate and
intensely loving feelings together with stormy passages.
Like all love affairs, it can feel like a rollercoaster ride. The
baby literally reaches out in order to be known at a more
complex level, and there is much delight for all concerned
when that reaching gains a response.
Deep disappointment may occur if the engagement does
not take place. Such disappointment is not surprising –
many of us have tried to connect more deeply to another
human being, only to feel some rejection. The reaction is
one of feeling deeply wounded and in a state of hurt and
confusion. We may also be reluctant to attempt another
engagement. However, it is important to overcome our
anxieties about being close and fearing loss or rejection in
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order to engage more fully with our baby.

Knowing about these feelings can help us to identify
what it might be like for the baby if their greater capacity
for involvement is not responded to. If ignored, the baby’s
focus turns inwards rather than towards other people, and
their potential for full engagement and participation in life
may not be realised. Sadness and pain are felt by father,
mother and baby. If the baby’s efforts to reach out are met,
they are very blessed to have their spontaneous, warm and
open self accepted and welcomed by other human beings.
Many of the issues that the parents faced during the
pregnancy now recur, but this time they are lessons that the
baby needs to understand. The baby’s sense of oneness with
mother is challenged as they move from being the centre of
mum’s attention to being part of the family, while
frequently re-engaging with her. The baby starts to realise
that there are limitations in life, to notice what other people
can do and, naturally, to experience some frustration with
this state of affairs. Gradually the baby also realises that
mother is not without limitations. She can’t supply all needs
and can’t always make the world as the baby wants it.
The baby has to let go of their short history and change
from being a newborn to being an older baby who is
moving more actively into a relationship with their mother.
For the first time the baby is being asked to relinquish a
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Three to six months
previous view of the world, and move into a more realistic

one that involves mother and baby working as partners, not
just mother being involved on the baby’s behalf.
Wo r k i n g To g e t h e r
The partnership, not just mother and father’s attention to
the baby, becomes the central focus. By entering into the
relationship the baby will have to play their part and fulfil
their own role and function. A small incident between June
and Michael illustrates this growing ability. Michael began
to squirm (he was at the breast but had wind) and June said,
‘I can hear that’. Michael pulled off the nipple and June
said, ‘You need to get rid of that, Michael. I can’t do it for
you, that’s your work’. She sat him up, saying, ‘Let it go’.
With growth, the baby begins to learn about waiting.
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With the introduction of solids the baby may have to watch

and wait while their food is prepared, rather than receive
the instant gratification of milk from the breast. As the baby
faces reality they realise that things take time – for example,
changing a nappy. At this time, when Michael was being
dressed, there was a sense of him learning to wait for June
while working with her to assist with the nappy change.
June was helping by talking to him, ‘Okay, this foot. Now
the other one, up with your bum, there you are. That hand,
now the other one, there you go’, synchronised with her
actions. Then she fastened Michael’s clothes as he looked
contentedly at her.
When I try to recall my own feelings during this period
I realise that they were very complex and not easy to
analyse. My memories include feeling a lot of sadness
without really knowing why. I think that there was a
natural weaning process occurring, for which both my
daughter and I needed to grieve. There always seemed to be
new stages of development which were interesting and
exciting, but I often felt that no sooner did I begin to get the
feel of a phase than the next would start. I always felt left
behind, as if I were trying to catch up to my baby. The
constancy of being a mother is very demanding at times,
even though the task is worthwhile.
I also feared losing my own identity to the baby in
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Three to six months
particular and domesticity in general. I was still studying

and hence did not have a secure sense of my future in the
outside world. For some reason it felt as if I would always
be in the position of providing total care for the baby. I had
little sense of how short the time would really be before my
daughter left her baby state and began to grow up. My lack
of accurate perspective made it hard at times to relax and
enjoy the moment. We can lose a very special time if, for
whatever reason, we cannot be emotionally available to our
baby.
Conclusion
From three to six months an enormous amount of
development occurs and there is a great deal of pleasure in
being part of that. Babies become more aware of their self
and can no longer be regarded as newborn. They are
finding out about partnerships and beginning to work with
their parents in the task of bringing them up. Their feelings
take on many colours, shapes and sizes, and the complexity
of the world they enter enriches their capacity to relate.
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six to nine months
I n this phase further development takes place. Gradually

the baby discovers that there are other minds besides
their own. The most exciting part is the fact that the baby
can look to see if the mother is sharing their mental and
emotional states. Mother and baby, and dad and baby, can
now try to discover if they are thinking or feeling the same
thing or different things. This means that there is a lot of
cross-checking between the baby and the parents, to find
out what the others are thinking. The result is an even
greater connection.
Social interaction now focuses on playing together. The
baby has developed hand–eye and hand-to-hand
coordination and can hold things much better. The parents
and baby can play together, usually with a toy.
A delicate balance is being achieved when we as parents
play with our child—how to be part of the play but allow
our baby to know what they are interested in. At the same
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Six to nine months
time, the baby is looking to us to join them and add our

delight and encouragement to the interaction. How to be
part of our child’s play, not direct or overcontrol it, but
sufficiently involved to help the baby remain interested in
their exploration, is a delicate balance.
I n t e r p l ay A f f e c t s B o t h
The baby gradually begins to live in the real world, if they
are helped to do so. They learn that their actions have
implications. The baby begins to realise that there is an
interplay between them and their mother or father, which
affects both. Mum is not a manufactured mother but a real
mother who gets tired. The baby begins to understand that
she has good days and bad days, and is a human being who
has to struggle to do things, just as the baby does.
Gradually baby and parents can become more alike in the
sense of being more able to be themselves, having limitations
and making a mutual effort at the relationships. The
beginnings of identification occur when one can identify with
the other. An early form of appreciation or ‘being glad you
are around’ can be expressed by babies towards their parents.
Babies at this stage can be distressed by their mother’s
distress, and may be crestfallen if mother is cross and short-
tempered. Parents and baby affect each other in the normal
way that human beings have an impact on each other.
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Baby’s Growing Perspective

Being able to sit up and gain mobility enlarges the baby’s
perspective. They discover that their parents may be upset
for all sorts of reasons, that they are not solely responsible
for their parents’ moods and actions. The baby will notice
that even if they want dinner something may happen to
delay it – the phone may ring, or a sibling may hurt
themselves and need attention.
In this way, although there is a wait to endure, the baby
realises that mum’s and dad’s actions and reactions are not
all involved with them. This is a source of relief and reduces
the baby’s anxiety. The baby is not the cause of everything
that happens in the world, and is not the only one
responsible for mum’s and dad’s happiness. People aren’t
just out to make life difficult, other things can and do
happen. As parents we can facilitate this understanding by
linking cause and effect for our little ones.
This transition to understanding a wider context implies
a high level of achievement by the baby. Being aware that
they are part of a family and understanding why things
happen the way they do, requires a high degree of
functioning. We all know individuals who have never
achieved this level of development. It is vital to take our
baby through these processes, to decipher for them the
various feeling states and to make mental connections. This
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Six to nine months
is of great importance for their later adjustment to the

world.
The two-way process of communication at this time was
very clear when Damien was eight and a half months. His
mother Julie let me in, and when I walked into the lounge
room Damien was pulling himself up on a chair. When I
said hello he started babbling. He then crawled away and
played peek-a-boo with me before becoming interested in
some toys. Julie guided him to press the button on a toy fish
so that it would say, ‘Hello. I’m a fish’ – Damien grinned
and looked at his mother. Damien pulled himself up, held
on to the couch and moved along it before flopping onto his
bottom again. He pulled himself back up on the couch, said
‘Ah’ in a loud voice and pulled at his pants a couple of times.
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Julie asked, ‘Have you done a poo?’ and checked his nappy,
telling me, ‘This is the latest thing – he pulls at his pants and
whinges when he wants his nappy changed’.
Julie said, ‘Come on, mister’ and took Damien to the
bedroom. I could hear him cry and when they returned
Julie commented that he now protested about nappy-
changing, which he had never done before. She placed
Damien on my knee, saying, ‘You sit there while I wash my
hands’. Damien watched her go into the kitchen, looked at
me, babbled, then smiled at me. When Julie returned he
wriggled and I let him slide to the floor. He pulled himself
up and clapped his hands. Damien then sat down and
played with two rings. He crawled away with them, then
sat and yawned. Julie said, ‘You might have a nap soon’,
then told me that ‘I’m finding it hard to get things done
now because he wants company’.
Each side of the relationship is letting the other know
what they are thinking and feeling in a very natural and
ordinary way. The communication flow is constant and
easy, and both enjoy the exchange. Each ‘tells’ the other
what is going on and the messages are received on both
sides. Interplay is taking place.
Being human means being subject to a range of feelings
that forms part of the human condition. Through their
relationship with the mother the baby can begin to enter
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Six to nine months
this complex emotional world. Although the baby’s

experience of these feelings is naturally different from that
of adults, they can experience a wide range of feelings in a
less mature but nevertheless real way.
More Subtle Understanding

If the baby is capable of entering into the human condition
and begins to experience a wider range of feeling, we have
to become correspondingly more subtle in the ways in
which we understand our baby. A necessary distinction is to
help the baby decide whether more is better. It is important
for us as parents to try to recognise where our baby is
operating from, acknowledge their state of being and
respond appropriately. The baby will be demanding at
times, and we must ascertain whether genuine need is being
expressed. Like all of us, the baby will experience
dissatisfaction but all needs cannnot be met. As parents we
have to learn to meet reasonable needs and refuse to indulge
unreasonable ones.
This is easy to say and difficult to practise, but it is
something we need to grapple with as parents. Mothers
who always give in to their babies don’t help them to sort
out their real needs – their constant responding leaves little
room for the baby to find and express their need. Being a
martyr to our baby sets up a sense of dissatisfaction, of
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‘nothing is ever enough’. An uncomfortable feeling can

enter the relationship if one side gives control to the other
and the real partnership is lost.
Reconciling conflicting feelings also occurs during this
time. When Michael was six months old his first tooth
arrived. June said, ‘Poor thing, he has been weepy and his
nose has been running slightly’. The tooth had just come
through and as June prepared to feed Michael he stared at
her breast and showed some distress. Michael may have
been trying to work out where the pain was coming from.
The tooth was accompanied by more obvious aggression
from Michael. The following week June reported:
He has bitten me twice in the last week, both times drawing
blood. One nipple is quite sore. Feeding is not as relaxing as
it used to be. One more time Michael and you will be on the
bottle sooner than you think…It would be a shame, really,
because I think we both get something from it.
A g g r e s s i v e Fe e l i n g s
Babies may begin to feel uncomfortable about their more
aggressive feelings towards mum or dad. For this reason it
is better to understand these feelings, tolerate them and let
the baby know that such feelings are normal. In this way
the feelings are made more manageable. If they aren’t
recognised the baby is left with an intensity and level of
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Six to nine months
feeling that they don’t know how to deal with.

The new level of aggressiveness in Michael was difficult
for June to label in the early stages, although she could do it
later. On one occasion, Michael pulled a toy lamb towards
him and rammed it backwards and forwards a couple of
times very aggressively, while June spoke about how much
Michael liked wheels. June’s response seemed to ignore the
angry quality of Michael’s action, which perhaps expressed
his anger at the fact that his breastfeeds were being reduced
by his mother. Anger seemed an understandable reaction as
the feeding had been so important and enjoyable for
Michael.
N e g o t i at i n g w i t h t h e B a b y
Negotiating with the baby is important at this time. It is not
a time to dominate or control, but to take both sides into
account and negotiate through the situation. Difficult
situations, such as shopping and long car trips, need to be
thought about in advance. At this time parents have to
develop a greater and more complex level of attunement
with the baby, as they try to work out the various shifts and
moods in the growing relationship. The baby will soon also
be doing their part by working hard to determine what is
happening for their parents.
This process can be a very healing one for us if we accept
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Learning to love
and acknowledge negative feelings, rather than see them as

something to disown or feel ashamed of. It is also an
opportunity to show the baby our understanding that they
have all sorts of feelings, that this is normal, and that we as
parents are able to deal with such feelings. By knowing
about them we can understand and contain them rather
than be a victim of them.
The negotiating can involve elements of being able to
repair things. An important development is the idea of
reparation. The word implies that although things go
wrong in relationships, and events can make one party
unhappy with another, matters are not irretrievable. It is
important for the baby to learn that although they are
sometimes grumpy or upset their parents and the
relationship survive these states. Likewise, mum or dad
might have a bad day or feel their own worries or concerns,
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Six to nine months
but can pick up the threads of the relationship and recover.

In this way a certain robustness is acquired, a mutual
confidence that the difficult times can be survived.
Fru s t r at i o n a n d t h e B a b y
During this time the baby’s frustration may be intensified
by their increasing knowledge of others and their
achievements. The more aware baby sees what others can
do and begins to wish they were able to do likewise. This is
a source of frustration but also of inspiration, and provokes
the baby’s development. One day they will grow up and be
able to do things too. It is common at this time to see little
ones mimic the actions of parents in play, as they endeavour
to copy their parents’ ways of being.
With the baby’s growing hope that in time they will be
able to perform the actions of those around them comes a
feeling of ‘losing the wind in their sails’. As the baby tries
out more and more behaviours, they will at times feel
frustrated—that there is no point, they will never be able to
succeed, why should they bother, it is all too hard. If we
remember these feelings ourselves it will be easier to
identify with the baby rather than be irritated and annoyed.
We can encourage their endeavours and help them through
their discouraged times. By identifying these feelings we
facilitate the baby’s next step—to acquire more skills, and
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feel success and satisfaction in their growing capacity.
‘ B e i n g l i k e ’ t h e Pa r e n t s
If all has gone reasonably well in the previous months of
development, the baby will seek to be like their parents or
siblings. This is different from becoming the parent. This
‘being like’ rather resembles ‘looking up to’, the beginnings
of admiration. The baby is pleased with and values their
parents and wishes to be like them. They also want to please
and make their parents happy.
With their increased mobility the baby’s curiosity and

delight in the world is increased. Every exploration away
from mum or dad is accompanied by a return to ‘check
back’ to see if the parents are still there. This is an important
part of the exploration process. Another aspect of checking
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Six to nine months
to see that the parent is there is wanting to share the

experience: ‘Do mum and dad enjoy this discovery with
me?’ The desire to share what they are doing is very
important, and to check mum and dad’s response is very
interesting to the baby.
This shift involves partial resolution of the problem of
the intruder, discussed in the last chapter – in this phase it is
more commonly known as ‘stranger anxiety’. Having made
a deeper and more personal commitment to their mother,
the baby naturally wants to remain with the one to whom
they are so attached. But it is not just a matter of the baby
letting go of their mother. They must do that, but they must
also let someone else in.
Letting in New Experiences

This means that the baby can feel possessive when someone
threatens their twosome. As the saying goes, two is
company but three is a crowd. In most cases the baby’s
curiosity about new people helps overcome their other
feelings, and although they may initially hold back from an
encounter with a ‘stranger’ they are also immensely
interested and study new people from the safety of their
connection with mum. This was evident in Michael and
June’s relationship, where letting in new experiences and
new people was a major issue.
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June had difficulty realising that as a third person I

broke up their couple. Michael was often very unfriendly
towards me at this time, which June interpreted as him
being worried that he would be abandoned. This was part
of the issue but there was a further component: Michael felt
a strong desire to maintain the twosome. I was an outsider
who threatened to take mum’s attention and force Michael
to realise that he was not the only one in her life.
With Michael’s reluctance to develop and his constant
desire to re-create their togetherness this ‘oversight’ caused
a disturbance between them. One day, having given
Michael a drink from a cup, June sat him on her lap facing
outwards and said, ‘How about you look at Lorraine?’
Michael immediately turned around to see where she was.
June told him, ‘I’m still here. I haven’t gone away’, and said
to me, ‘He’s been a real mummy’s boy all the time he’s been
sick, which is understandable I suppose. Dad’s all right but
if I’m around it has to be mum’. She said to Michael, ‘It’s
okay, it is only Lorraine’, as Michael began to look at me.
The longer he looked the more his face fell. He began to
cry, turning his face towards his mother to bury his head
against her.
June picked him up and asked, ‘What’s the matter? It’s
okay’. She tried to jolly him by blowing kisses against his
cheek. Michael was still unhappy and June said, ‘You’re
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Six to nine months
miserable, aren’t you? You want to stand on your feet’. She

held him under his arms and he kicked up and down a
little, but remained unhappy. June asked, ‘Do you want a
cuddle?’ and held him against her chest, saying, ‘You poor
boy’. Michael rubbed his face against her shoulder for a
moment then began to get distressed again. June said, ‘Let’s
try you with some of your toys’, and gave him a soft ball
which Michael tried to bite.
As the situation escalated I felt quite unwelcome.
Michael would look at me and cry, then back to June and
cry, or at least stare and look very unhappy. June herself
appeared to need support as Michael expressed the strength
of his antagonism to the loss of some feeds and my
intrusion. June commented, ‘If he is like this with you I
don’t know how he is going to go with a babysitter when I
go back to work’.
At the end of our time together June and I were able to
discuss what had happened at this time. June acknowledged
that she had let me ‘take the heat’ of Michael’s more
aggressive feelings. When she had another baby, June
observed that ‘I did it with David’, meaning that she
handled his more negative feelings herself.
N at u r a l P o s s e s s i v e Fe e l i n g s
June was genuinely eager for Michael to enjoy the world
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and attempted to connect him with neighbours and friends,

to no avail. One day we went for a walk together and
chatted to an elderly neighbour, who spoke to Michael and
attempted to win a smile. Michael wouldn’t look at him and
just frowned, and soon after began to whimper.
Michael did attempt to show me his possessive feelings
towards June but they were hard for June to acknowledge.
We all feel possessive towards the one we love. However,
June interpreted his feelings as fear of abandonment only,
rather than as possessiveness and a desire to have her to
himself. When Michael clung to her after my arrival, June
pointed out, ‘You were playing happily with your toys
earlier. I’m not going to leave you now, you know’. Michael
consistently interrupted June’s efforts to talk with me. He
tried to climb onto her knee, and June asked ‘You want to
get up?’ When she picked him up she blew a raspberry on
his neck, but he held his head above her shoulder and
burrowed in, almost forcing June to get her head out of the
way. Michael appeared to want to put his feelings into
June’s head so that she would understand what he was
going through. Perhaps he just needed someone to
understand how difficult it is to share!
Conclusion
At this time, if helped to do so, the baby will be introduced
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Six to nine months
to a deeper layer of complexity in terms of feelings. Early

introductions to what will later become gratitude,
forgiveness, aggressiveness, guilt, hope, despair, admiration,
envy and frustration will all enter the picture, as the baby
moves further into a relationship with their parents. To be
in touch with the baby is to be in touch with the beginnings
of this range of feelings. Possessiveness and jealousy will
naturally occur as the baby makes their transition from the
world of two to the world of three and the beyond. Such
feelings require recognition and understanding. The
movement from two to three is accompanied by a continual
return to the twosome, where the baby rediscovers
themselves and enjoys the interplay with their mother. This
returning to the twosome is a source of joy and satisfaction
for the baby and mother. The baby, when part of a
threesome, has achieved a wonderful milestone in
becoming a more complex little being.
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nine to twelve months
T he period from nine to twelve months is related to

movement, both physical and psychological. During
this time the baby will usually begin to crawl, stand up and
take their first steps. The baby moves away from the
mother because of their growing mobility, but this also
means that they can move towards mother and father.
Again, as parents we are asked to see two sides of a
seemingly contradictory picture: we must support the
child’s growing capacity to move away from us, while being
there and catering for their need to return to us. We are
asked to take the mature position of bearing our seeming
rejection due to the baby’s greater mobility, and at the same
time allowing for their continuing need for dependence and
safety. We also experience great joy in seeing our baby
become more independent.
Parallel with their physical development is the further
change in the baby’s perspective of the world. The baby now
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Nine to twelve months
focuses on the meaning of an exchange between themselves

and mum and dad. Moving about has given them a different
perspective on the world, and the idea that others share – or
don’t share – the same perspective can become clearer.
S h a r i n g Th o u g h t s a n d Fe e l i n g s
Around nine months the baby will not only look in the
direction their parents point, but after discovering what
they think mum or dad are indicating they check back to
find out whether they are looking at the correct object.
They are deliberately attempting to find out whether both
sides are sharing the same event. This means that their
attention is shared.
This also takes place at the emotional level. The baby can
now check whether their mother or father is sharing their
excitement, is worried, curious or upset. Babies of this age
become intensely interested in what their mother is
thinking, and they can experience and be aware of their
parent’s empathy. Now they can share their thoughts and
feelings, which opens a deeper dimension. It is possible to
say that they are capable of checking whether what is going
on in their mind is the same as what is going on in their
parent’s mind. The next step is for this to be communicated,
without words. There can now be a ‘we’, something going
on between them and mum and dad.
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Mothers also show a capacity to tune into these deeper

emotional states at this time. This involves more than
imitation. Mothers tune in to the baby in order to join their
play. Having empathised with the baby’s feelings to create a
sense of sharing, the mother then adds a variation of the
game. The mother lets the baby know she understands the
original game and remains attuned to her baby; the
variation is mum adding to the game.
D e p e n d e n c e a n d S e p a r at e n e s s
During this period, the need for both dependence and
separateness is quite intense. The nine-month-old baby may
cling to their mother in the presence of strangers and very
new situations. However, their reactions can vary. The baby
may retreat from strangers but show intense curiosity from
the safe position of holding onto their mother’s clothes, and
gradually come forward if supported to do so. Some may cry
but respond to soothing responses from mother or father.
Parents can help their child to negotiate new situations.
The baby now faces situations which are familiar and
unfamiliar, safe and unsafe, new and interesting or
worrying and overwhelming. Hence, although they want to
explore new experiences and rejoice in their greater
physical capacities and new-found freedom, they also worry
about this new world. Actually, the parents and baby share
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these concerns. Will things be too much for the baby?

Setting limits becomes relevant because with greater
mobility the baby can hurt themselves. The feeling of safety
engendered by the parents’ presence makes it possible for
the baby to deal with their new experiences in the world.
Real negotiation between parents and baby begins.
At first the mother and father actively created a mental
space for understanding their newborn and had to intuit
their needs, but now they must negotiate with the baby’s
growing individuality. Although the parents remain
responsible for the baby and their longer-term interests,
they must allow growing space for negotiating everyday
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Learning to love
interactions. Mother or father may need to discuss the fact

of a pending nappy change and get the baby’s co-operation,
rather than just performing the task. Feeding may need to
be more negotiable and options provided, for example, a
baby may be spoonfed but given their own spoon as well,
finger food can be given, or the baby may be helped to feed
themselves.
B e i n g To g e t h e r a n d A p a r t
On the other hand, the baby’s greater freedom creates more
space for the mother to re-establish some of her interests
and develop a space where they are together, but
preoccupied with their own thoughts and interests. Being
together but in their own personal space is an important
developmental aspect of the phase from nine to twelve
months. The baby may exhibit intense preoccupation with
the world and seemingly forget all else, but retains a need to
‘touch base’ with their mother and father.
Both aspects are essential in this developmental phase.
Because psychological space has become so important to
babies, they need to explore the world in their own way. It can
be intrusive if parents want to be constantly ‘in’ on what the
child is doing and to continue to direct or control their actions.
Being in the presence of parents who are engaged in
their own conversation or activities, while the baby is
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preoccupied with and interested in their own world, is an

important step for the growing baby. To have something of
their own and hold onto that in the presence of people who
are engaged with each other, is important for the
development of the baby’s sense of self. It means that they
have something that does not get lost or is unimportant.
The baby’s world is thus acknowledged as valuable in its
own right, and the baby is therefore important on their
terms and not only when engaged in the adult world.
I n t e r e s t i n Fa m i l i a r O b j e c t s
Now that they are moving around by crawling then
walking, the baby’s interest in the mother spills over to
familiar objects. The bottle, a blanket, toys—all may
become objects of affection and interest. However, the baby
needs to repeatedly return to mother to re-establish their
relationship, as she remains an important home base. The
baby will crawl to their mother, pull themselves up on her
leg, touch her in other ways, or just lean against her.
This ‘refuelling’ can help the baby to perk up and return
to exploring, and again become absorbed in their own
world. It can also be done at a distance—the mother and
baby may often look over and check to see what the other is
doing. Simply speaking can be another way of making
contact in the situation. This refreshing of the relationship
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is helpful if it is done on the baby’s terms, when they

indicate their need for it.
Checking and Exploring

This involves a push and pull of feelings. The baby wants to
explore and do their own thing, but they don’t like to lose
sight of their mother. If she leaves the room they may stare
sadly at the space she left. Having found greater intimacy it
is hard to give it away, as we all know. The returning to
mum or checking to see her is also intended to find out
whether she has understood what they have been interested
in. As well as checking their mother the baby wants to share
their explorations with her.
An example of this occurred when Damien was almost
ten months old. A rainbow lorikeet landed on the balcony
outside the kitchen where Damien had just finished
breakfast. His mother said, ‘Look, Damien, a beautiful
birdie’. Damien smiled as he saw the bird, then waved his
arms about. His mother asked if he would like to get out of
his high chair to go and see the birdie. Damien smiled and
shook his head as she lifted him down, then he crawled
towards the balcony where the bird was. He kept stopping
and looking back to check his mum, and finally pointed up
at the place where the bird had perched. By that time it had
flown away.
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In this phase, unlike earlier phases, parents must be able

to receive from the child. The baby may wish feed their
parents, to show the parents something they have found, or
offer them something the baby owns. A greater sense of
reciprocity begins to enter the relationship. The parents’
needs can also be articulated. Saying things such as, ‘I’ll cut
up your apple when I’ve poured my tea’ is appropriate. This
helps to establish a two-way relationship, and the baby
begins to realise the growing possibility of identifying with
someone else’s needs. Everyone can be taken into account.
Differing needs do not have to mean competition, or that
one has everything and another misses out. There is room
for all.
Learning to Learn
If we observe the baby’s growing mobility we can also see
that they are learning to learn. In learning to crawl the baby
first sways backwards and forwards on their hands and
knees, then crawls. After a while the baby will pull
themselves up on chairs and couches and practise standing
up. Finally the baby will take their first tentative steps and
walk, falling down many times, but getting up again and
having another go. This trial-and-error learning and
practising, which involves a few steps forward then a few
steps back, is a normal part of the process of the baby
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Learning to love
learning how to learn. As parents we need to attend to this

process of ‘learning how to learn’.
Like all the baby’s learning so far, this period involves
constantly revisiting the concepts to be understood.
Learning any new task involves accepting the principles of
learning, and understanding these principles is itself an
important lesson for later periods of learning – basically, the
rest of our lives.
First, in order to learn we need to face our uncertainty.
The impetus for learning is that we do not already know, so
to acquire any new skill or gain a greater psychological
understanding we have to face that fact. The reality is that
we don’t know how to do something, or we fail to
comprehend something. Facing our limitations can lead to
feelings of humiliation and shame, but we should instead
view it as a natural part of the process of learning and
knowing. To ‘not know’ is the necessary starting-point for
learning. If we don’t deal with the state of uncertainty, the
‘not knowing’, learning cannot occur. We can try to fudge it
or cover up, or even attempt to copy someone who does
know, but without facing the gap in our knowledge we will
never learn what we don’t know.
The same is true for the baby. The baby’s lack of
knowing may make us feel their vulnerability as they enter
the world. We can find it hard to sometimes let them feel
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their unpreparedness. We need to step back and let the baby

feel their way through their uncertainty to finding their
own way of handling a situation. Always protecting the
baby from feeling vulnerable, and from feeling fear and
anxiety, is not helpful. Being able to feel vulnerable but
pressing ahead and finding a way through is a great
confidence-booster for the baby.
A second aspect of learning is that it does not always

proceed smoothly. The process of learning may involve
gradually understanding the idea, then losing it and finding
it again. With time, the process becomes easier. Learning
will entail a few steps forwards then some backwards. This
is how we build our skills. Some of us may be quicker than
others, but all learning has to be taken step by step. By
understanding the processes involved in learning we can
understand better the processes that are taking place for the
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Learning to love
baby as they gradually develop motor and verbal skills, and

put together the complex world of relationships around
them.
It is important for the baby to understand that we learn
in small steps. Understanding that they can proceed only in
steps, not leaps, helps to reduce the baby’s anxiety and
impatience, particularly if they are in a hurry to move on.
Throughout their first year of life they are on a steep
learning curve and extra pressure, in terms of pressing more
tasks on them, needs to be minimised. Just assisting the
baby to grow, and helping them to understand how their
growth and learning proceeds, is important enough.
Practice is a third aspect of learning. Repetition is an
intrinsic part of learning and without it we do not
consolidate our learning. The development of capabilities
requires learning, relearning and further practice, as we can
rarely, if ever, learn immediately. In the early phase of
learning we cannot always produce our new skills at will.
We have to wait for a suitable time to attempt to reproduce
our new-found capacity, rather than just expecting it to
happen. With practice, it gets easier to reproduce what we
have been learning.
It is helpful for the baby to practise new skills and most
do so automatically. It is important, however, that the baby
not become a showpiece or a performing monkey who has
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to show off their latest ‘tricks’ in order to get attention. Of

course the baby needs admiring parents, grandparents and
siblings to notice and acknowledge their recently acquired
skills, but they should be noticed and acknowledged in a
setting where the skills occur naturally. In this way
accomplishments can be viewed as the baby’s achievements
by their own efforts, not as a way of satisfying or amusing
family and friends.
Fourth, the trial-and-error nature of learning should be
recognised. The complexity of learning a new skill or idea
means that it will sometimes be accompanied by confusion
and mistakes. Making errors is intrinsic to learning. It is
part of the learning process, as it enables us to learn how to
deal with obstacles to learning and gives us a new
perspective on the skills or ideas we are trying to come to
grips with. Mistakes are not due to stupidity or laziness.
They are most likely to occur in the early phases of learning,
when we are unfamiliar with the new skill, or from fatigue
if we are practising new skills over and over. If we make a
mistake we should go back to a point where the skills are
more familiar and easily mastered, rather than try to push
through the difficulties.
We may be overly demanding of our baby when a lot of
learning is happening, and find it difficult if the baby
returns to an earlier phase. Most babies return to earlier
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Learning to love
behaviours at different times and this should be taken into

account. On the other hand, we can unwittingly deny our
baby the opportunity to develop if we don’t leave them to
find their own way to explore the world and experience
their own developmental push.
If our own parents criticised us we may find it hard to
tolerate our baby’s mistakes and inadequacies. Quite often
babies, particularly first babies, carry the load of proving
our worth to the world. A normal baby who goes through
the ordinary trial-and-error process may seem inadequate.
They are expected to progress rapidly, rather than just be an
ordinary baby who is proceeding normally through the
stages of development.
Finally, learning proceeds most readily when only a
manageable amount is expected at once. A certain amount
of challenge is necessary for development but too much
change and growth too quickly can be overwhelming. The
best conditions involve a certain level of security together
with challenges which stretch our known capacities. For
example, babies who walk early may not speak early;
conversely, those who speak early may walk later. We need
to accept this variation in the baby.
Overwhelming the baby in the interests of maximising
their learning potential can be unhelpful. Attending to and
supporting them through each of the normal stages of
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development is required, and this is what establishes the

best basis for later development. Allowing normal
developmental processes to progress in their own way and
their own time is the best help we can offer the baby if we
want them to achieve their full potential.
While it is important to facilitate the baby’s learning and
to understand the process of learning, as parents we have to
be careful that the baby’s capacity to learn does not become
the main point of interest. The most important focus is the
relationship between us and the baby. Whether the baby
learns slowly or quickly, needs assistance, wants someone
nearby or likes to do things on their own is less important
than the kind of relationship that they are developing with
us and their siblings.
Th e D e v e l o p i n g C a p a c i t y t o R e l at e
Whether our child is highly verbal or physically skilful or
has a wonderful memory, remains secondary to who they
are as a little person. This can be difficult to remember if we
have unrealised dreams and expectations of our own and
would love the child to fulfil them. We all have hopes and
dreams for our children, but our main responsibility is to
equip them for life in terms of their capacity for
relationships with others and their sense of belonging in the
community in which they live. This is the greatest gift that
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Learning to love
we can offer them. If their capacity to relate to other human

beings is attended to, all the rest will fall into place.
At this point it will be good to see how Nick, June and
Michael are going at the end of their first year as a new
family. Between nine and twelve months of age it seemed
that Michael made some gains and that some working-
through had taken place. June was less overwhelmed, and
began to see Michael more clearly. She told me that the
previous Saturday he had been drinking from his bottle and
that he pulled the teat with his teeth so often and so hard
that the milk came out and went everywhere. ‘He can be
vicious’, she said. Acknowledging that Michael had such
natural feelings made life easier for him and June, and that
ease showed in their relationship.
In addition, my presence was being handled in a way
that made me feel less intrusive. One day I heard Michael
130
protesting when I entered the kitchen. Michael was at

June’s feet and she was just finishing the dishes. June said to
him, ‘Is someone coming into your house?’ He turned away
and burrowed into June, who asked, ‘Michael, aren’t you
going to say hello to Lorraine?’ She waited then said,
reading Michael’s personality accurately, ‘No kisses and
cuddles for Lorraine’. This seemed to help Michael, who
looked at me while putting his finger in his mouth. June
had clearly identified the problem and my entrance into
their home had been bridged.
Ginger the cat had likewise found a place in Michael’s
mind at last. I noticed Ginger walk past Michael, who
watched him and smiled excitedly. The world was finally
opening up for Michael and not all of it was bad! June,
Michael and I were out the front of the house one day and
Michael went over to the garden and began to play with the
dirt. June held him by one arm as he opened and closed his
hand in the dirt. Michael then found a stone, which he
began scratching as if to see whether there was something
inside it. He seemed quite engrossed. On this occasion
Michael didn’t have to ‘stick’ to June and keep them as a
twosome; he was engrossed in the world as she stood nearby
talking to me.
June was particularly delighted on another occasion
when we were in the garden. Michael took a handful of dirt
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Learning to love
and a couple of times went to put it in his mouth. However,

when June asked him to stop he did, which she
acknowledged with ‘Good boy’. This marked a major
accomplishment for Michael—it demonstrated a shift in
their relationship from preoccupation with himself to
recognising June and her role. It was a nice moment to
witness because it seemed to indicate that a true
parent–child relationship was taking place and June was
very pleased. Nick had also developed a strong bond with
Michael and they spent very pleasurable times together.
However, the vicissitudes of life impinged on Michael as
they do on us all. Michael had become very attached to a
shawl that he had from birth, and he loved to swathe
himself in it. Rusty, his bear, was also a great friend and
could never be left behind. Without Rusty there was no
possibility of sleep. These important attachments reflected
Michael’s growing capacity to relate and form deep
attachments. Unfortunately, Rusty was left in a motel
where they stayed overnight while on the way to visit
Nick’s family. The loss caused great distress, and the next
night Michael cried from 2.30 a.m. to 6 a.m. He adjusted to
his loss slowly over the next few days. On the return
journey Rusty was picked up, but when he was
reintroduced to Michael was treated with great disdain.
Michael was obviously very angry that Rusty had ‘gone
132
away’! Much later Michael was able to reaccept Rusty, but

never with the same intensity of feeling.
Conclusion
A whole new world of relationships has opened up for the
baby by the end of their first year and a lot of feelings and
understandings have to be taken on board. To know our
baby we need to be able to understand how they feel, how
they develop and learn, what they might be thinking and
when they might need to be left alone. This is a huge task,
but no more or less than is required in any relationship of
depth. Having been understood, the baby can understand
and manage their own feelings and know about the feelings
of others. This equips them to take this capacity and the
ability to empathise into other relationships. This process of
being in touch with the self and with others is enriching
both for us and for the child, and forms a wonderful basis
for the continuing development of relationships in the years
ahead.
133
the continuing story
A ll the issues that surfaced during the first year will

have to be revisited. In fact, the second year is an
important time that both consolidates and expands the
child’s development. Moving on from a preoccupation with
their mother, the emerging toddler begins a love affair with
the world. On a physical level this is manifested in the child
beginning to walk.
This new relationship to the world does not mean that
mum and dad are not important. As the child concentrates
on practising and mastering skills and is exhilarated by their
discoveries, they may seem to be less interested in us.
However, there is a strong desire to return to their parents
and share their skills and discoveries. We need to be available
to receive things, to look at objects and share discoveries.
Although twelve months’ maternity leave was a positive
development in terms of recognising the needs of the baby
and their relationships with their parents, it seems to have
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The continuing story
had the psychological effect of implying that by the end of

their first year the baby no longer has intense dependency
needs and can be left quite easily. In fact, leaving the baby
still requires considerable thought and care. We must be
around sufficiently to meet the dependency needs of the
growing and more mobile baby in a different way. We need
to be present enough so that the baby feels secure to move
away from us and return to us in their own time. This means
that they can go and explore their world – perhaps the next
room, or the garden – and return to us when they want.
Exploring and Returning

The mobile child runs off in order to validate their idea that
their parents will want to catch them and swoop them up
into their arms. Their elation at running away and being
caught is related to the fact that they can escape mum or dad
yet return to that security. They are preoccupied with the
dual task of how to be with their mother or carer, and how
to be without her. In their mother’s absence they will recall
her and bring her to mind.
At fifteen to eighteen months infants develop a further
skill in their relationships with mum and dad. They can
now draw on a lot of accumulated information about
themselves and the world. They can think, ‘I remember
what happened the last time I wanted to play that game.
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Learning to love
Maybe if I do that again mum/dad might play with me’.

They can draw on their memory to help them do what they
want in the world.
By eighteen months the baby is a toddler, more aware
and making greater use of their physical separateness.
Alongside this development comes a return to earlier
behaviours, which is a response to their increased realisation
that they are their own little self and different from their
parents. Like all major steps in life, this is both exciting and
scary. The toddler begins to express greater frustration and
have a greater need for us to be present. They want to share
all their experiences with their parents and become very
dependent on our approval.
B e i n g Q u i e t ly Ava i l a b l e
The emotional availability of the parents is critical at this
time. Ambivalence is strong and it is our love and acceptance
of the toddler that helps them reconcile their feelings of love
and hate, of wanting to grow up and wanting to stay
attached. Toddlers begin to function at a much higher level,
learning to speak and using play to work things out. They
can now symbolise and act out issues that trouble them.
They also become aware that the mother’s wishes are not
always identical with their own, so they feel less ‘on top of
the world’. All is not always well for the toddler.
136
The continuing story
Two characteristic patterns of toddlers are ‘shadowing’

and ‘darting’. Toddlers shadow their mother by watching
and following her every move. Difficulties can arise if the
mother leaves them, and clinging behaviour can re-emerge.
When they dart away from her, they want to be reunited by
being swept up into the parent’s arms. Their wish is to be
reunited with the loved one, and at the same time not be
engulfed or have their separateness taken away.
The toddler’s demand for their mother’s constant
involvement can seem contradictory. They are more
independent than they were at the end of the first year, and
want to be so, yet they are also more insistent about sharing
every aspect of their life. Although they may be able to
realise that that even if their mother is absent the
relationship continues, this knowledge is not always
sufficient to reassure the toddler when they are missing
their mother.
For the mother and father the demands of the toddler
can be very trying. What is difficult for the child is the
growing acceptance of their separateness. Everyone can
find this time difficult! Gradually and painfully the toddler
lets go of the delusion of their central position, often
through dramatic fights or tantrums. Nearly all children
express their growing sense of self, and their recognition of
their littleness, through rapid mood swings and tantrums.
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Learning to love
If we can be quietly available to share the toddler’s

adventurous exploits, by playfully responding to their
games and understanding their ambivalences, the child
begins to internalise their relationship with us and verbal
communication begins to take over. The toddler can better
see the world as it is rather than how they might want it to
be. Predictable emotional involvement from the parents
facilitates the unfolding of the toddler’s thought processes.
The unique way in which they approach the world becomes
apparent. Their constant questioning is one way of testing
reality and finding out how the world works.
By the age of two the toddler may face the birth of a
sibling. This is a major event, as their position as the baby is
taken away. The toddler’s curiosity is also aroused: ‘How
does this happen?’ Frank responses to questions and
138
Before the birth
involving the toddler in the pregnancy can help them feel

part of the new experience. The new pregnancy, however,
may wound their sense of self: ‘How come they wanted
another one when they had me?’ In time, the benefits of
confronting such questions and thoughts become apparent,
but there can be a temporary sense of displacement as the
toddler rethinks the world to see how they fit in.
Th e O n g o i n g C o m m i t m e n t
Being a parent is a continuing story. We need to draw on
different capacities in ourselves at different times, as we
move from empathy to firmness in response to the needs of
each situation. To do the task well we need support and
help from grandparents, friends and the community.
Although we have the major role in bringing up our
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Learning to love
children, it is also a shared task. Perhaps long day-care

centres could become family support centres that help
parents deal with babies and older children, as well as
giving us some time for our own work or needs.
Perhaps we should view our involvement with the baby
as engagement in their creation, both physical and
psychological. The baby has to be partnered by parents and
this means being met, welcomed, helped and attended to if
they are to truly come alive. Having been welcomed into
the family the baby becomes part of the family. Without us,
and left to their own devices or to impersonal care, this
process cannot take place.
140
Before the birth
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Learning to love
142
Before the birth
143

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FA LEARNING TO LOVE 11/10/04 10:47 AM Page 1

‘Learning to Love is an exceptionally helpful, insightful look

The developing relationships

First published 2000

by The Australian Council for Educational Research Ltd

Copyright © 2000 Lorraine Rose

All rights reserved. Except under the conditions described in the

Edited by Adrienne de Kretser

National Library of Australia

Rose, Lorraine, 1944- .

Learning to love : the developing relationships between

ISBN 0 86431 365 9.

1. Parenting - Australia. 2. Child rearing - Australia. 3.

I have explored deeply, and although my knowledge and

I would like to thank many people for their contributions to

T his book is about a process that takes place between a

up the family, or if parents of the same sex are raising a

at the heart of the journey into parenthood.

In attempting to clarify the learning tasks of the baby

daughter knew the children well and was attached to them,

why and how they could do such a terrible thing as leaving

before the birth

T he conception of a baby epitomises the paradox of life.

Before the birth

relationship, and this initially impeded my bonding with

Before the birth

face the reality of the present birth of a new personality,

come face to face with our own humanity, and begin to

Before the birth

valuable journey and accomplishment. The choice is ours.

One young man became very interested in his garden,

his accomplishments. This seemed to be his way of

Preconceptions about the Baby

Before the birth

An example of a relationship where the child had no

saw him as an opportunity for financial success: the family

Engaging and Letting Go

Before the birth

If we don’t face the reality of loss or take up the

Before the birth

Having a baby confronts us with the fact that we must

Our Identity is Challenged

This process creates the possibility of discovering new

Before the birth

unsureness and insecurity before we grow into our newly

be a painful blow to realise we were not simply the apple of

Before the birth

Giving ourselves time for a review in which we uncover

Before the birth

Would I be a good mother? My partner was completely

find a renewed sense of connection as their understanding

Before the birth

is openly acknowledged in such cultures. Mixed feelings

prolonged there is a corresponding increase (up to ten times

Before the birth

reality, we cannot have it all. In fact our lives must change

T his is a very special moment for mother, father and

just a bit teary and everything … it is so sort of new to me

his partner and support them becoming close to each other.

my pregnancy it was hard to envisage finding another

it is still difficult for staff to remember that the human

remembering what is important in the situation and doing

This is the journey of empathy, putting ourselves in