By Jim Hagarty
2000
Today’s Practical Pointers For Panicking Parents focus on the task of injecting nourishment into the very young.
Feeding a baby solid food is not a job for the easily discouraged. It takes patience, persistence and above all, the ability to duck quickly.
Not many people there are who possess all these virtues but they are the kinds of strengths that will eventually develop in those committed to the task of filling an infant’s unfillable stomach. Faced with the grim alternative – hours of non-stop shrieks of agony – most parents decide to do a bit of overnight character building, something they’ve been putting off for the past few decades.
Patience, most of all, is the number one quality desired in a baby-feeder because mysteriously, at mealtime, things that couldn’t possibly be of interest to any human being, whether newborn or 90-year-old, suddenly become utterly fascinating.
The dangling thread from a loose button on Daddy’s 10-year-old faded cotton dress shirt with the rip in the breast pocket turns into THE MOST AMAZING THING when pureed prunes on a spoon are trying to force their way into a baby’s reluctant mouth. Following the inspection of the thread, there’s Daddy’s greying sideburns, the end of the strap holding the baby in the high chair, the inside of Daddy’s nose and the fly walking across the kitchen ceiling that must be closely examined. Failure, by the impatient parent, to wait out these delays in the action will bring about screaming fits, profuse spitting and even wetting of pants not to mention some very bad behaviour on the baby’s part too.
Like a golfer carefully studying the lay of the land approaching
the green before making his all-important chip shot, a baby-feeder must not rush into the situation, poking an overflowing spoon in the direction of the central opening on the infant’s face. There are questions that need to be asked and answered. Is the mouth clamped shut tighter than the hatch on a nuclear submarine? Have the child’s eyes caught sight of the goo he’s being expected to accept into his gob? Are the baby’s lips pursed in a sort of pre-launch position, signalling that anything which dares to land on them will soon be shooting that fly off the ceiling?
If any of these conditions exist, of course, there is only one possible solution: GET OUT OF THE HOUSE! If this is not possible, then the only thing the anxious parent can do is resort to methods of distraction, such as calling the baby’s attention to things that don’t really exist. “Is that Momma I hear comin’ up the steps?” Dad might enquire in a hopeful tone, though, at the moment, Momma’s far away at Discount Don’s Giant Truckload Diaper Sale trying to work out a deal to trade the hatchback for a few more weeks’ worth of lifesaving baby pooper scoopers. When the baby turns quickly in the direction of the phantom Momma, mouth agape at the prospect of seeing someone who isn’t trying to force unpleasant glop into him, the successful baby-feeder will plunge the spoon in and out of that opening faster than a wiley mouse grabbing cheese from a set trap.
And this is where persistence pays off. Where Daddy might be able to wolf down a four-course meal during the two-minute commercial between Ain’t Life a Hoot? and the Six O’Clock International Round The Globe World Report, Baby is in no such hurry to see lovely footage of the 47 victims of the latest bus bombing in some insane country on the other side of the planet. On the contrary, his schedule till bedtime is simple: 1. Play with ball; 2. Play with ball; 3. Play with ball. So you can see, he simply doesn’t understand what the rush is all about.
A baby will eat, eventually, with special emphasis on the eventual part. One night, he may give up the stalling tactics after two minutes, the next night, after 10.
But sooner or later, the impenetrable stockade known as Fort Baby will fall, so long as the siege of the overflowing spoon isn’t commenced before its time.
However, on those rare occasions when, for whatever mysterious baby reasons, the drawbridge fails to lower, this is the only option for the bewildered parent: DUCK, FOR THE LOVE OF MIKE, DUCK!!! Because trying to stuff food into an unwilling baby is like trying to change the blade on a lawnmower while its running. Somebody’s going to get hurt and it won’t be the miniature gaffer strapped, appropriately, like a dangerous offender, in his little padded high chair.
When the pears start ricocheting off your ear lobes and you can’t breathe for the barley mash caking over your nostrils, it’s time to move on to the next agenda item.
Play with ball.
