‘You can come in through the back door later, if you like.’ I read the message in an email just before setting off. Not long afterwards, I drive onto the grounds of a beautiful farmhouse in the heart of the Frisian countryside. Remembering the email, I continue around the back and park the car.
For a moment, I take the time to enjoy the view, the smell of the countryside and the sound of the cows in the barn nearby. What a special place to grow up.
The ‘back door’ turns out to be at the side of the house and takes me past the barns, storage areas and utility room before I gradually reach the warm, beating heart of the farmhouse.
‘I’m in the front room!’ I hear someone call softly as I enter the kitchen.
I follow the voice and find the mother lying on the sofa with a sleeping Elsie on her chest.
‘Sometimes this is the only way I can get her to sleep,’ she whispers. ‘There’s coffee in the thermos and I think there’s some ontbijtkoek in the kitchen.’
I return with two steaming mugs of coffee and a slice of Dutch spiced breakfast cake and sit down beside her. For a while, we simply enjoy our coffee together in peace.
I always allow plenty of time for a home visit, so that I can adapt to whatever is most important at that particular moment. Sometimes that means feeding, sleeping or crying. Sometimes it simply means making sure a mother finally gets to drink her coffee while it is still hot.
Elsie’s birth was a stressful experience for both mother and baby. After labour had initially progressed well, Elsie’s heart rate suddenly began to drop with every contraction during the pushing stage. When it took increasingly longer to recover, the decision was made to perform a Caesarean section.
‘Everything happened so quickly,’ her mother tells me. ‘I blinked and I was in the operating theatre. I blinked again and suddenly there was this very blue, silent baby.’
The medical team had to work hard to help Elsie get started. Fortunately, they succeeded, but she had to be taken straight to the neonatal unit.
‘She was so quiet when they took her away. When I saw her again later, there was suddenly this little girl screaming at the top of her lungs, red with the effort. The contrast was enormous. It almost felt as though she was a different baby.’
Six weeks have now passed. On the table is a leaflet about safe sleep. They have tried all the recommendations, yet Elsie still hardly manages to sleep in her own cot.
‘Could it be,’ I ask carefully, ‘that safe sleep for Elsie is about more than simply having a safe sleep environment? That perhaps it is also about feeling safe?’
Her mother looks at me.
‘Do you think she doesn’t feel safe with me?’
‘No,’ I say immediately. ‘Quite the opposite. Her arrival into this world was overwhelming. That experience may have affected how safe the world feels to her. When you are experiencing a lot of tension, surrendering to sleep can be difficult. But look at how relaxed she is lying with you now. You are her safe haven, her calm, her familiar place. She loves being close to you. Perhaps that is exactly why she can sleep when she is with you.’
I see her shoulders relax.
‘Think about yourself,’ I continue. ‘If you don’t feel safe, or if your partner is away for the night, you may sleep differently too. Or perhaps you don’t. And this certainly doesn’t mean you are destined to have her sleeping on you forever. We can gradually help Elsie discover that her cot is a safe place too, and that you will be there whenever she needs you.’
Together, we make a plan. Small steps, with careful consideration for safety, closeness and what is realistic for them at this particular moment.
A week later, we speak again.
‘I find it so remarkable,’ her mother tells me, ‘that Elsie really does relax when I tell her I’m there for her. She now occasionally manages to sleep in her own cot. I’m so proud of her when she does. And secretly, I also enjoy the contact naps we still have, precisely because I know that one day they will come to an end.’
Mirjam Boven is a paediatric nurse specialising in infant care, a baby massage instructor and babywearing consultant. She worked for 20 years as a nurse in labour and maternity wards and now works at Wolkom midwifery practice in Drachten, the Netherlands.