One of the most interesting things about having a child when, like me, you already have others and when, like me, you work with babies and children and talk a lot about babies and children, is to see how hospital protocols work on a day-to-day basis in as far as attention and treatment of babies is concerned.
Each hospital is a world and what some will surely not do others, but there is one thing that left me quite perplexed, when the day after Guim was born, Miriam told me "I have already bathed him and I have done it". I thought it was being redundant because "of course you bathed it, who else?" And he told me that the roommate's daughter had been taken by the nurses to bathe her. To the nurse's offer to bathe Guim, she replied: "No, don't worry, if it's the third one, now I'm taking a shower ...", which is the polite way of saying "I already bathe my son, for that I am his mother, right?".
And I do not say it badly, nor because the nurses are going to do anything bad or anything good to the baby while they are taking it, it is simply that I stayed of stone because I could not understand the usefulness of someone taking your baby to bathe him.
Apparently it is something that is done in some hospitals: they take it to bathe it, they take it to weigh it, they take it for the pediatrician to visit, they take it to ... and the parents stay in the room waiting, like who Lend an object for a while.
I would like you to tell me if in the hospitals where you have given birth the nurses bathed your children, if they only did it the first day in front of you for you to learn or if they simply told you that “now is a good time to bathe it, do you need help?".
I would like you to comment because taking the child to do things to him is the first stone to undermine the confidence of the parents in his role as parents: "I take it to bathe it because I don't think you are capable of doing it well," a mother or father may think unconsciously. Then the days go by, you see yourself at home with your baby, you have to bathe him and a thousand doubts appear because you do not know if you are going to drown him, if you are going to have it too long to soak, if he cries because the water burns or is cold or if You hurt him by putting him in the bathtub. And at that moment you think: "If I were here that nurse so nice that I bathed him ...".
And so many parents (I put myself in an apocalyptic plan) continue with their relationship with the children thinking that someone will always know how to do things better than you and that someone will always have to act so that your child is well. If it is dirty, that the nurse bathes me, if it is bad, that the pediatrician heals me, if he eats badly, that they teach him in the nursery, if he misbehaves, that they educate him in school, if he is afraid, that A psychologist visits him, yes ... and so, the role of father and mother is reduced to giving your son a roof and being in "the good", because you never truly take the reins of fatherhood if you disappear in "the bad".
No, I already bathe him, for that I am his mother. I am his mother and I know how to do it. And if I don't know how to do it, explain to me how to do it better, but let me do it. If you take it with the pediatrician, I go. If you're going to do the heel test, I'm going. If you are going to weigh and measure it, I go. I go, because from the day I gave birth, I am and I will be his mother, for the good and the not so good (And if I can't go, Dad goes, he will also bathe him a few times in his life).
