Basic Information for New Parents

Julie Peasgood: Any new parent is desperate for help and advice on all issues to do with their baby. The lack of sleep, the crying and the need for reassurance that you’re doing the right thing by your child are all things that the fore-front of the parent’s mind. Help is at hand with the book ‘Baby Secrets’. The book’s authors Jo Tantum and Barbara Want are with me in the studio to talk about the book and to divulge what these baby secrets are. Welcome to you both, and I have to say welcome as well to Barbara’s twins Benedict and Joel. See I remember that because Benedict in blue. Hello boys! Barbara Want: You can say hello! Benedict: Hello! Joel: Hello! Julie Peasgood: Hello, and I guess you are going to be really, really good. Joel: Yes. Julie Peasgood: Yes! Excellent! Listen, congratulations to you both. I’ve had a look at ‘Baby Secrets’ got it right here, and I’m seriously impressed. It’s got so many tips. It’s a bit like a Bible, and my only criticism is, why wasn’t it around for me when I had my daughter. Tell us what’s in it, little bit about what’s in it? Barbara Want: Well, I think our key aim was to give mums all the basics that you need when you have a new baby, but in particular how to get a baby to sleep through the night because I was amazed when I had the boys how little information that was out there. I was given no information in hospital, no information from doctors, from GPs, from the health visitors, and I had no idea what I was doing. And then I met Jo and I suddenly realized there was a whole world out there of things that you could do which aren’t difficult. But it took; it needed someone to get the information out there so that other mothers could do the same thing. Julie Peasgood: So, you also helped Barbara, did you Jo? Jo Tantum: That’s right and I think the easiest thing was because I didn’t sort of dictate Barbara what to do and I sort of gave her options and we worked it out together and I think that’s what the beauty of the book is that it’s not telling you, you have to do this, you have to do this. It’s giving you a variety of ways to do it and if those don’t work this is how you get around of that. There is no other book that actually tells you if it goes wrong this is what you do it just sort of you know leaves a blank space normally. Julie Peasgood: Right! So where was the seed born of actually turning your obviously good relationship into -- and all these facts into the book. Can you remember the moment? Jo Tantum: Yeah, I think what happened several people had said to me you ought to write a book and mums that I had already worked with. Barbara said exactly the same thing, and then one evening we said well, you know, why don’t we do this and Barbara’s husband has already written two books. So we got his publishing agent around one evening and sort of chatted about and he said fantastic idea. Julie Peasgood: Correct! Jo Tantum: Let’s go for it, and then that’s how we went from there. Julie Peasgood: And obviously you are both highly qualified, I mean you are a mom of Benedict and Joel, and I know you’ve had 18 years experience. Jo Tantum: Yes! Julie Peasgood: A sleep specialist. Jo Tantum: That’s right, and twin specialist. Julie Tantum: Twin specialist and fantastic. Well, as I say I mean it’s not just full of all the secrets about getting children to sleep and things, I was really impressed with little things like the list of what to pack when you go into hospital and what to talk to a potential nanny about the right questions to ask. But obviously the biggest issue is getting your child to sleep. So, what’s the secret, what is the secret? Barbara Want: Well, Jo will give you the details of the secrets because they are hers. But I can tell you that when I have the boys I haven’t realized that they needed to learn that nighttime was dark and daytime was light, which sounds really obvious but I was so unclued up that I thought light was bad for them. So I kept them in the dark all day long with the curtains drawn. Julie Peasgood: Are you serious? Barbara Want: Yes, and six days later they got jaundice because they’d had no daylight, and then when nighttime came I thought they are going to be so scared of the dark so I put the light on all night. And that’s how clueless I was. But it made sense to me somehow exposing these little babies to the real world in the daylight seemed terrible cruel, and then at night I didn’t want them to like they are scared of the dark whereas in fact I learnt from Jo the babies love the dark. The dark is where they were for nine months in the womb. Julie Peasgood: Off course you have to think of that. Barbara Want: And they love it and unless you show them the day is different from night they’re never going to get their sleep patterns worked out. Julie Peasgood: Yeah! They are like living in the land of the midnight sun or so. Barbara Want: Yes, you can’t expect them to know. And people sometimes say, oh! Well, they are falling to the patterns naturally. But if I kept on doing what I am doing in doing they would never have learned. They’d have got completely confused. Julie Peasgood: Yeah! Barbara Want: They might go very, very tired. Julie Peasgood: So how long did it take you to put the situation right? Jo Tantum: Within the week, and I arrived we were getting the boys down. They were having the bath time; they were having the bottle with the lights low in their bedroom in the nursery. And then in the morning at 7 o’clock even if the boys weren’t awake the lights -- sort of you know we put the curtains up, and we’d go and say, good morning boys, and it was how morning started. And that’s how the babies learned how the daytime was full of bright lights; people talking to -- stimulation. They were working up for their feet in the daytime and they always have nappy change before their feed, whereas the nighttime it was quiet, it was dark, it was calm. Nobody spoke to them, and they weren’t working up their feet which is how they got to sleep through the night because they realized that they didn’t need to wake up for their feed, and so they just carried on sleeping. Julie Peasgood: So, basically what you did is establish a really strong routine. Jo Tantum: Exactly! Julie Peasgood: That seems to be the keyword of the solution. Doesn’t it? Of routine and I mean it’s funny because when my daughter was little I fed on demand because I thought routine feeding sounded strict, disciplinarian and I really, I didn’t even explore it which I realized was very arrogant. And the odd thing is I think it’s affected her through her whole life. She’s grown up now and I think the lack of routine has manifested in a negative way. She now can’t get to sleep often till the early hours of the morning, wakes up late and I think if only I’d changed and followed a routine instead of thinking why I must not be rigid. It’s fairer. Barbara Want: I do think there is a view that sounds rigid, and it really isn’t. I think it’s so kind to babies and children for the rest of their childhood to give them parameters and boundaries and structures so they know what’s happening. And I mean a baby doesn’t know when it wants to sleep, it really doesn’t. So you need to help baby sleep and the great thing is it does I think have an impact for life. I mean these too, they are not three in the bed and they still go to bed without any fuss. Julie Peasgood: Really? Barbara Want: They actually say, can I get to bed now please, when they get tired. Julie Peasgood: How good is that! Barbara Want: And they sleep through until 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning which is lovely. Julie Peasgood: Wow! Another problem I know that lots of mums face is what to do with the baby that cries incisively. What’s your sort of pearls of wisdom on that note, Jo? Jo Tantum: That was the one of the things that we really need to put in the book. There is actually a chapter, Why is my baby crying? And there are six points of the main reasons why babies cry. And it’s very easy because you go through the check-list. Now, two of the main reasons that babies cry is because they are hungry or they are tired. If they are hungry -- if they are on a set routine and our routines are very, very flexible 15 minutes either side. You can just have a look at the clock. Okay, well, baby fed an hour ago, so the baby doesn’t seem hungry. So, they must be tired, and there is also a list of how long babies can sort of stay awake before getting over-tired, and I think that’s the main reason. You make sure that you’ve got the baby down for sleep before it’s over-tired. Once a baby is over-tired that’s when the baby starts crying incessantly and that’s when you see mums that are walking around -- Julie Peasgood: Yes. Jo Tantum: -- shushing the baby, and because they can’t get sleep because the baby is over-tired and is just over-stimulated. Julie Peasgood: Yes. Jo Tantum: And it’s just saying, please, just help me get to sleep. If you get to the point before that all happens you know with the boys we just used to put them into the cart and walk away, and that was it. Barbara Want: I think people expect mums always to know why their baby is crying because -- keep baffling. You’ve got a routine, go work it out. Julie Peasgood: Yeah. At least you’ve got a routine and you know you’ve done your work and they are still crying so routine helps you? Doesn’t it? Jo Tantum: That’s right. Barbara Want: The amazing thing was I learned from Jo that babies don’t cry because – sorry, we are keeping you up. Babies don’t cry just because they are hungry, and too often it’s very easy if a baby is crying, to feed it because feeding will calm it. But actually you then don’t address the reason why the baby is crying, and once I’d worked out that you can go through Jo’s check-list. It was fantastic. I used to know what was happening. People would say, oh, you’re very confident and I’d say, well, it’s really simple. You work out why they are crying, there is five or six reasons and you can get that and that made me feel so-so confident, and with two little ones I really needed that. Julie Peasgood: Was your husband impressed? Barbara Want: Well, my husband had twins, boy girl twins 28 years ago, and he is the first to admit that he did somewhat muddle through and feed on demand, and he couldn’t believe the difference. He can’t remember much about the first time because he was awake most of the time because they didn’t sleep, but he really said the difference is extraordinary. Julie Peasgood: And obviously helps you both. You get your proper rest. Barbara Want: We could not survive otherwise. I don’t know how people do cope without sleep. I really, really couldn’t. It’s hard enough during the day with two kids or however many, but we couldn’t have done it otherwise. Julie Peasgood: What advice do you both have for mums who have either got two twins or two children? How to share their time and look after all of them best and evenly? Jo Tantum: I think put them into a routine as soon as possible. Julie Peasgood: Alright! Jo Tantum: I think also that helps the team work of the mum and dad role because I think dads get left out quite a lot and they have no idea about what they’re supposed to be doing next, and usually it’s the wrong thing. I think when you’ve got a routine and I think Nick, Barbara’s husband will look great. Is that he knew what he was supposed to be doing? So he could get the bottles ready and say here you go, here’s the bottles. Barbara Want: It’s great for dads. I’ve had dads say, the good thing is, when I come home I know what to do. My partner doesn’t have to say, oh, this is what you do know and it makes dad’s feeling controlled which several dads don’t when there is a young baby. Julie Peasgood: Yes, because otherwise they feel spare and the wife is stressing and it’s just like oh, I’ll back off. Jo Tantum: Yeah, that’s right and also I think for siblings as well. If you’ve got older children in the family and a new baby arrives, now there are older siblings are going to be extremely jealous of the baby because the baby turns the whole hazards like that and the baby is a focus of the whole family. Mums drained, dads drained, and whereas if the baby is in a routine you can actually say to the older sibling, listen, at 3 o’clock the baby is going to go for an hour’s nap. We can just do a jigsaw or we can -- decent thing that you want to do and they know that it’s set time during the daytime it’s just them and the parents looking after them. So that makes them -- and also if they go to bed the babies go to bed at 7 o’clock at night and then it’s the older sibling gets sort of an hour after the baby is going to bed to bond with the parents, to have bedtime stories for growing up and this makes them feel extremely important. That’s really a huge thing that the book does as well is that it includes the siblings and the fathers and all the rest of the family. Julie Peasgood: So the structure that you advocate benefits across the board really. Barbara Want: The structure can sound a strange word when you are talking about babies, but we all live within structures. How would we feel as adults or the children if we got up in the morning and had no idea what was happening and we had a bit here and then half an hour I took it late, we had another bit and we didn’t know when we are going to sleep, we didn’t know when we are going to bed. It’s really hard. I would hate that if I went to work and I have no idea what was happening and where my next meal was coming from, and babies are the same. It’s just bringing them into the real world that they live in. Julie Peasgood: Can any child be helped by a routine? Are there any other failures? Jo Tantum: No, not at all, and I mean I’ve had phone calls from parents, six months old set of twins. I went to see mum. She’d got a two-year-old as well and she didn’t know what to do. Babies just screaming all day, at nighttime they are waking up nine times each during the nighttime and she said I just don’t know what to do, and I haven’t seen my husband in the evening for the last six months. And I went in, put the babies into a nighttime routine and I got the babies sleeping through the night by doing space soothing which is where it’s a minute-by-minute technique. You let the babies cry for one minute and then you go in and you settle them. Then you go out and you give them the chance to settle themselves. Two minutes later you go in again. So it’s up to five minutes and each time you can go in sooner. It’s the control crying I found was very, very difficult on parents leaving a baby to scream for 10, 15, 20 minutes is too long for a baby. One minute at a time I think most parents can cope with. And by the end of it the babies were completely changed during the daytime because they had strict -- the routine has strict to sleep and strict to eating times, and third night the babies were put down on a half past seven, and that was it, and she came in crying and she said to me, thank you so much, and I said, what’s the problem? She said, the first time in six months I’ve actually sat down and eaten a meal with my husband from beginning to end with having to run down the stairs and then go to bed by 9 o’clock and take the baby into bed with me because I can’t do anymore. Julie Peasgood: How fantastic! Jo Tantum: So, I mean things that can change people’s life’s around. Julie Peasgood: Transform your whole life. What age does the book ‘Baby Secrets’ go up to? Jo Tantum: It goes up to around sort of six or nine months, I mean you could -- to a year. We didn’t really want to include sort of weaning because I think the first thing that we wanted to do was do the routine and the sleep. So it’s from birth up to sort of six to nine months. So, I mean that’s the very beginning of -- because if you change it around in the first six to nine months you are getting right in those six to nine months, then you’ll have a lifetime of bliss of children waking up at 8 o’clock in the morning rather than having three-year-olds, in your bed at 2:00, 4:00, 6:00 in the morning. Julie Peasgood: Thank you so much for joining me, Jo, Barbara, and boys. I wish you the greatest of luck. I think ‘Baby Secrets’ is a good size. It’s a Bible in itself and I wish you lots of luck. Barbara Want: Thank you! Jo Tantum: Thank you!