From immediately after birth to roughly 18 months of age, the baby’s vitality and focus for need-gratification is centered in and around her mouth. The unfolding drama of this time revolves around the baby’s expression of need; her reaching out and taking in of physical and emotional nourishment. Her arms and hands, her skin and, most importantly of all, her mouth are exquisitely alive centers of awareness that pleasurably connect her to a nourishing world. While the baby is still vulnerable and dependent, many cultures advocate breast-feeding on demand and co-sleeping. The baby is seldom put down and remains in near- permanent physical contact with a loving parent or older sibling, at least until she shows signs of wanting to crawl and walk.
Beyond the mechanical and nutritional advantages of breastfeeding are the psychological and emotional benefits, the spiritual or energetic nourishment that comes from loving, warm contact between breast and mouth. Sadly, a baby bottle cannot replicate the comfort and uniqueness of mother-child attenuation which comes from direct flesh and skin intimacy.
Under the right circumstances, breastfeeding floods the baby with a blissful sense of wholeness and completeness. A stream of pleasurable sensations pulsates throughout her body whenever her powerful sucking reflex is met with what she naturally longs for. A repository of serenity and contentment is thus established deep within the mind-body of the infant, and is available for access later in life. If this unique mother-child bond is provided according to the baby’s need-cues rather than the robotic exigencies of modern day schedules, a dense layer of emotional security and contentment is installed, leading the child to think of the world as a friendly, nurturing and abundant place.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that, around the world, the average age of complete weaning (defined as the total cessation of breastfeeding) exceeds 4 years! In Breastfeeding, A Guide for Medical Professionals (1985), Ruth A. Lawrence puts this figure at 4.2 years. It is evident that breastfeeding affords a vital psychological sustenance that goes on long after it is nutritionally essential. Our surprisingly early weaning standards certainly warrant revision. Our Western predilection for premature rupturing of the oral mother-child connection introduces an unnecessary, and often traumatic, element of struggle and heartache into the weaning process. Fortunately, we are starting to move in the right direction. There is a growing acceptance of demand feeding and later weaning (two years plus is recommended) and there is increased professional support from lactation consultants, breast feeding counselors, etc.
Optimal Developmental Experience:
At this time, parents (particularly the mother) who feel generally well supported in their lives, and who have been adequately nurtured themselves, will be capable of spontaneous and empathic responses to their baby’s physical, emotional and spiritual needs. Ideally, the baby is breastfed on demand, with attention paid to the spiritual and emotional mother-child connection, as well as material nourishment. This includes the tenderness conveyed through holding, and the eye-contact that communicates the pleasure of mothering. Contrary to the fast-track trends in modern child care in the West, this is not the time for the child to learn about independence. The baby should sleep very close to, or in bed with, the parents at this stage, staying connected to them through scent, sound and touch.
If listened to, infants issue very clear indications of their readiness to begin flirting with autonomy. They reach for the ground so that they can feel themselves against the earth. They look away from their mother to the mystery and allure of distant objects. They move their limbs in early attempts to self-propel, then crawl and walk. Yet for the most part, they still want to be inside or near their mother’s orbit. Our task as parents is to release our babies according to their need, rather than to expel them according to ours. In the meantime, touching, holding and body contact are still needed frequently, and the baby benefits from being carried in a sling or otherwise on the body. Typically, babies who are given this kind of environment tend to be more placid and content, as long as their parents are relatively unstressed in their giving.
If an infant at the ‘oral’ stage of development is allowed the occasional comfort-suckle at the breast until she naturally self-weans (usually much later than Western custom demands), the next level of psychological independence will develop naturally from an even stronger base of emotional equanimity.
Developmental Task:
The child at this time is trying to learn that it is OK to need, to reach out interpersonally and to ask for what she wants. At a core level, she is also learning about deserving, and the joy of receiving. What can be imprinted during this stage is that satisfaction and fulfillment are a birthright, always worth pursuing vigorously. Our capacity for genuine interpersonal care, giving, and generosity reflects the degree to which our passage through this time was favorable. True independence, as opposed to defensive self-reliance, can only spring from satiation of dependency needs.
The Main Wounding Experiences:
When a baby of this age is left alone to cry for extended periods, and is refused the holding and attention that she is calling for, this has profound, long term consequences for her emotional make-up. She deeply absorbs the message that she mustn’t ask for what she wants or needs, her impulses to reach out collapse and she becomes resigned. She is not yet equipped to cope with delayed gratification, and therefore experiences rigidly scheduled feeding, early weaning and ‘controlled-crying’ as abandonment and neglect. At the other end of the scale, over-anxious and over-indulgent parenting disturbs her natural serenity, interrupting her need to express her accumulated emotional stress. The middle road consists of being guided by the baby’s cues, letting her take the lead.
Emotional Function and Core Beliefs:
Core beliefs arising from injurious experiences at this time include:
- I must do it alone.
I must show that I don’t need anyone or anything.
I don’t deserve love, I am not lovable.
I am lovable only if I don’t have emotional needs.
I am only lovable when I am ‘giving’.
Others’ needs are more important than mine.
My happiness depends on being liked by others.
Core beliefs arising from positive experiences during this stage include:
- I have a right to have, and to express, my needs and wants.
Life nourishes me.
Life is plentiful and abundant, and I deserve life’s generosity.
I am free and fulfilled enough to care for others.
Others have a right to their needs too.
These are the emotional foundations underpinning the capacity to be appropriately assertive, and to be direct, rather than manipulative or seductive.
The fulfillment of these developmental needs is the well from which we can later draw a natural generosity of spirit. Full gratification of infantile need gives us the capacity to be genuinely respectful of others’ needs and limits; to gracefully let go when someone says “no” to us. The organic strength that enables us to sustain disappointments and to cope with the fact that we don’t always get what we want, springs from early childhood satisfaction, not from premature, enforced ‘independence’.
Initiative, self-motivation, emotional stamina and endurance, patience - all these qualities are fostered when the optimal conditions are encountered at this second stage of development. True independence, as opposed to defensive self-reliance (”I don’t need anyone”) is, paradoxically, the product of dependency having been embraced. Emotional independence enables us to care deeply for ourselves. It empowers us to reach out to others for intimate connection but also allows us to let them go at the appropriate time.
Potential Adult Manifestation of Injury:
When our needs go unanswered at the ‘oral stage’ of development, we are left stuck in dependency, living as if waiting for mother to show up, sub-consciously longing for the lost bliss of unity at the breast. We ’suck’ at and cling to relationships, food, alcohol, drugs, tobacco, gambling or material goods. We feel as if life owes us, either waiting passively for things to change or impatiently grasping at life. Unfulfilled at the core, we remain ’suckers’; gullible to the seductive wiles of PR machinations, merchandising campaigns and ‘charismatic’ individuals. An individual whose needs of the heart are essentially met is less susceptible later in life to co-dependent relationships, idolatry and addictions. A healthy passage through this time contributes toward a healthy skepticism later. One is not so easily fooled, and will be more perspicacious in relationships.
Our co-dependent clinging in relationships provides no contentment, so we blame each other for our personal dissatisfaction. We fantasize romantic notions of a ‘true love’ which will last forever, a fanciful and symbiotic union that will meet all our needs for love and understanding. Thus, we harbor unrealistic expectations of one another. Alternatively, we convince ourselves that we don’t need anyone and collapse with exhaustion or bitterness. The unsatiated grow up to become insatiable. The breathless greed that afflicts our civilization is no more than the cry of an emotionally malnourished baby disguised in adult garb.
About the Author...
Robin Grille is a Sydney-based psychologist in private practice. His new book: ‘Parenting for a Peaceful World’ is available at: our-emotional-health.com
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