Today I'm going to tell you what Lotte needed to be happy and how Sarah organised the last week with her daughter.
Last week I visited Sarah for her postnatal visit. Her baby was now five weeks old. Sarah had given birth in a flash, breastfeeding was going well and the baby was developing splendidly. So everything was actually fine with her and that's why I only had sporadic appointments to visit Sarah.
During this visit, however, I experienced a completely new image. I saw a Sarah who was only a shadow of her former self. She looked tired, haggard and completely cramped. Her nerves were simply shot.
Little Lotte was in her arms and asleep. At first glance, I couldn't see the reason for Sarah's poor condition. But I was soon to find out. As soon as I arrived in the living room, Sarah's story came spilling out. Her life had obviously changed completely since my last visit.
"For three weeks now," she told me, "Lotte has been screaming for hours on end. At first it was only in the evening. But now she also cries for hours during the day and at night."
Nothing could calm her down. Sarah told me this with absolute conviction, even though I had just seen little Lotte sleeping blissfully. She had to be carried up and down for hours. Her tummy is bloated when she cries and she tosses her head back and forth in my arms and rows her arms and legs so that Sarah has to hold her so that she doesn't fall off my arm, Sarah continues. Of course it's tiring. Of course Sarah is completely tense in the meantime.
"The sling," I ask cautiously, "isn't that any help at all?"
"No," Sarah assures her, "she'll shout a lot more." Apart from that, it would be impossible for her to tie the scarf properly if Lotte was so stiff.
Lotte was now five weeks old and Sarah has now endured this for over three weeks. She has certainly tried out a lot of things. I enquired about this before I wanted to see for myself.
Sarah's idea was that Lotte had a stomach ache. That was the obvious explanation for her. "Colic," her mother-in-law talked shop. That would be normal. Her son would have had the same back then. They would disappear after three months.
Sarah was little comforted by this. She hadn't even made it halfway through this time and just the thought of the coming weeks made Sarah feel desperate and powerless. Her mother-in-law's advice: "Just let her cry" was not a convincing alternative for Sarah. I agree with Sarah. "Letting the baby cry only teaches her that she is alone with her misery!" But keeping the baby quiet at all costs wasn't a solution either. Sarah couldn't stand it for much longer. She could clearly see that.
She had already tried everything to treat the abdominal pain: Caraway suppositories, abdominal massage with caraway oil, drops to promote digestion and drops for the intestinal flora. She dragged the baby around the flat in every conceivable position. "Nothing helped," Sarah assured me with tired eyes. The crying remained. Her next assumption was that her child had an allergy. Little by little, she cut out more and more foods. By now she was living on rusks and breastfeeding tea.
"No wonder she looks so emaciated," it flashed through my mind. I felt so sorry for Sarah at that moment. We really need to change the diet.
Sarah wants to help her baby. She is prepared to give everything so that Lotte is quiet and content. She has tried everything and no longer pays any attention to herself. Sarah was physically and mentally at the end of her tether. She was tired, exhausted and desperate. Her efforts had been unsuccessful. Lotte kept on screaming for hours.
In the meantime, Lotte had woken up, was hungry and was drinking from the breast. Her eyes were open and she couldn't drink as quickly as she wanted to. She actually wanted to look around her. Her drinking was therefore not particularly relaxed.
But, as I could see on the changing table: She had put on weight really well. I found no evidence of abdominal pain, no particular abnormalities. It was only when I got her dressed that I realised what Lotte's problem was: Lotte really doesn't like getting dressed. Her protest was clear. Her facial expressions spoke volumes. Her legs were wiggling wildly and there was no mistaking that she wasn't happy at that moment.
'You see,' Sarah said to me, 'she behaves exactly the same with you as she does with me. She drinks, she likes being undressed, she likes being massaged. But when I want to get her dressed again, she starts screaming for hours and a short time later she's writhing and squirming with stomach pains."
Sarah was absolutely right to recognise that. Lotte thinks it's stupid to be dressed. She screams and swallows air. Of course she then has these stomach aches. But it's not because of Sarah's food. Nor is it due to an allergy. She swallows endless amounts of air when she cries and gets herself into this vicious circle.
I've known Lotte since she was 16 weeks pregnant because Sarah regularly came to me for antenatal care.
Lotte was already a lively child during pregnancy. She was petite in the womb and had plenty of amniotic fluid. She used this for a lively, sporty life in her tummy. Sarah told me at the time that Lotte seemed to do somersaults, especially in the evenings. At the time, her belly was making waves over the movements of the growing baby.
Back then, Lotte enjoyed her sports lessons completely undisturbed. Today, she is squeezed into baby clothes. No wonder Lotte thinks evening classes are stupid. The baby protest seemed quite understandable to me. And this explanation also made sense to Sarah.
We had a new plan, which Sarah wanted to try straight away: Lotte should simply get her evening gym session back! And Sarah tried it out straight away. After breastfeeding in the evening, extensive naked time was now planned. Lotte was massaged all over her body, Lotte was bathed and Lotte was allowed to romp naked under the heat lamp for as long as she liked.
And Sarah promised me that she would finally eat normally again and take a nap to recharge her batteries for the evening.
And do you know what Sarah told me today after the evening experiment reduced Lotte's crying by hours?
Lotte has got a new safety system for the changing unit. Now she can also romp around comfortably during the day without a nappy. She can't fall off the changing table. She can't hurt herself. She can simply fulfil her desire for freedom under the radiant warmer. While Lotte enjoys her new freedom of movement, Sarah finally has break times to herself.
Sarah beams as she laughs and tells me how she has to bathe Lotte after these gymnastics lessons because it really gets her digestion going.
"If the solution was always this simple," it goes through my head. But Lotte was finally happy. Sarah was happy and much fitter. So at that moment, I was just happy with the two of them.
Sarah immediately had a new concern. Now she wants to take care of her physical fitness. Sure, Lotte gets exercise - Sarah now needs it too. We now have an appointment for postnatal gymnastics.
Would you also like to massage your baby? Here I'll show you how to do it.
And if you fancy Regression I'll meet up with you too.
