Child Raising Birth to 1 Year

Raising your child In Arms- The continuum Concept
Introduction

Bond with your child. When a baby needs something, that is what they need, and they need it right away. Wear your baby. Baby Wearing is a traditional method that allows the child to be with the mother while she goes about her daily routines. Children are born with innate expectations programmed into their DNA. These expectations bring fulfillment and joy to the parents and the child.

Young immature humans need physical warmth and contact. After a child is born, he is entirely helpless in the world. After birth, a child is in the fourth trimester of development. He or she needs to be held in an energetic and physical womb in the outer world so that he feels bonded and secure about life. Not giving this, to a young child, even for just a few short moments, causes an infant great pain. Through the gaze of his mother the infant sees himself. His mother is his world. When the mother leaves, the world of the infant is gone, and he is left floating in a vast space. Almost universally, Indigenous cultures raise children so that their mother is always near by, and therefore the infants world and sense of safety never becomes broken or threatened. In this case, infants have what they need in life, warmth, contact, nurturance and safety. They can trust life. This love becomes encoded in the way they see the world, and as adults, they will see a world full of love, warmth, and nurturance. This contrasts sharply with our Western child raising practices, in which children are abandoned by not being fed often or fully by their mothers, and instead are being fed synthetic foods and rather than being held they lay senselessly in cribs, or strollers. As adults people raised in this manner, see the world in the same way, full of people who cannot be trusted, and lacking in warmth and nurturance. These people have an excuse to use people as a means to an end and to ignore their humanity. Just as these people as infants, were not held and loved as a human needs to be. Collectively as a culture we posses this same sense of lack and disconnection, so we destroy what nurtures us and gives us life, we destroy the earth. We create War and inflict violence in the world. Most of this in the modern time is done for someone to have more money or power. Most of this rage and violence against other humans and our planet, may have come from a childhood in which the infant, rather than having his needs met, was treated in an inhumane way.

In the introduction of this paper, we discussed that the Western way of parenting does not create fulfillment. When the continuum concept is followed out of a positive intention, then the Mother is truly fulfilled with her experience of motherhood. In giving of herself freely to her child, she finds one of the most satisfying and divine fulfillments that life can offer. Also, in following the continuum method, the Mother never needs to worry about how her child is doing, or if her child is safe and cared for, because she is there with them and knows intimately their needs.

Understanding the Continuum Concept

“ Jean Liedloff, an American writer, spent two and a half years deep in the South American jungle with Stone Age Indians. The experience demolished her Western preconceptions of how we should live and led her to a radically different view of what human nature really is. She offers a new understanding of how we have lost much of our natural well-being and shows us practical ways to regain it for our children and for ourselves.”

Time of Rest and Bonding

Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding is an opportunity to bond with your child and feel pleasurable contact with them. Many infants, if their natural needs are responded to, want to eat as often as every fifteen minutes.

Natural Infant Hygiene
This essential means, having your child not wear diapers.

Baby Wearing
Michelle: “One of the most enjoyable aspects of mothering has been holding my baby close to me in a sling, everywhere I go.”

Circumcision
“Worldwide prevalence:   The U.S. is the only country in the world that routinely circumcises most of its male infants for non-religious reasons. Over 80% of the world's males are intact.

Pre-Mature Baby Care

Car Seats