As many mothers would know, babies don’t always cry for obvious reasons. Sometimes they just cry. But how do you cope when you are tired, your baby is crying and you don’t know what to do?
Pinky McKay, a well-known writer/editor for many publications including the Gymbaroo magazine, The Age and many of her own child and baby care publications, was amazed at numerous letters she received after her first book, Parenting By Heart, was published. "I had a letter from a woman who said that she was so grateful that someone had given her permission to respond to her baby and I thought, ‘Oh, poor lady’," remembers McKay. "But the letters kept coming - they haven’t stopped - and the issues were around crying and sleeping. I think people feel a lot of embarrassment, a lack of confidence, around their babies because their babies aren’t doing what’s expected."
McKay says that she felt there was a real need for a book that would answer these questions and give some support to parents who were struggling with crying babies. And so McKay got in touch with her publisher and 100 Ways to Calm the Crying was born.
This time, however, McKay was interested in relaying a lot of the personal stories that mothers, and fathers, told her during the writing of the book. "People can relate to experiences when they are told by real people," explains McKay of her choice to replicate these stories in her book. "And mothers are really happy to tell their stories. I felt really very privileged that they were quite so candid." Rather than using these stories as padding, McKay felt they should be an integral part of the book, being keen to show ordinary mums that they are not alone in how they are feeling and what they are experiencing.
"It’s very good because it [the stories] shows that anyone can feel these feelings," states McKay. "There are health professionals in there who say, ‘I didn’t know what to do with my baby’ and that’s pretty comforting for mothers. It must take away a lot of those feelings of guilt or incompetence to hear that other people feel the same as they do."
McKay is all for taking away the guilt and the feelings of incompetence that seem to besiege mothers today. "I think there’s an increasing number of women talking about motherhood being really, really hard," muses McKay. "I don’t know that a generation ago people would have thought that." McKay is also saddened that so many modern mothers appear to have so little support despite the huge volume of information available about parenting. She believes that this is part of the reason so many mothers are feeling isolated when they have babies. "I guess our mothers would have also had more support. There would have been a neighbour at home that you could have met with for a cup of tea and say ‘hey, can you hold my baby?’" says McKay. "I know that when I had my older children there where other mothers at home. It was more a community. Whereas now, it’s often the case that there’s no one home in your street and if you have worked right up to when you had the baby, often you don’t even know your neighbours. There’s a real lack of practical support for parents. There’s information there, but it’s probably information overload. But for hands on practical support, it’s not there."
With the concept of practical support firmly in mind, McKay made sure that 100 Ways to Calm the Crying was as accessible as possible, and so far feedback has shown that parents do indeed find it an easy and enjoyable read. McKay believes that the key to parenting is simply listening to natural instincts and doing what feels right – and remembering to support mothers in their choices of raising their children. "Be gentle on yourself and be a bit more natural and just go with the flow," recommends McKay. "If the baby quietens down because you rock it, well that’s OK. You don’t have to feel as if you are creating a monster, you don’t have to stick to the rules. There is nothing wrong, as long as you listen to the baby. As long as you are being loving and caring for the baby then everything is adaptable."
However, having said that, McKay does acknowledge that a crying baby can wear even the most experienced, confident of mothers down eventually. But here again McKay stresses the importance of not feeling a failure if the baby does cry – after all, crying is only natural. "But I guess we all have that hang up about crying. People always try to stop people crying. And crying babies do upset parents," concedes McKay. "After all, [crying’s] nature’s way of getting parents’ to respond to their babies!"