Contented Baby and Contented Dementia

When we were pregnant with the Bean, I devoured Gina Ford’s The Contented Little Baby Book. Her unparalleled surety in her schedule was an anchor of sanity for me as a new parent.

A few months ago, I was recommended the book Contented Dementia by Oliver James. Aside from an apparent British obsession with the word contented,* I wanted to write about both of these tomes as they feel like bookends of my life right now.

A former maternity nurse, Ford’s book is all about schedules and regulating your child’s eating and sleeping to get everyone sleeping through the night as quickly and as painlessly as possible. I know this is a sticky parenting wicket – but it worked beautifully for us and I am still reaping the benefits. Every day, to this day, we have quiet time in our house after lunch. The children now play quietly, listen to stories, color, or, if truly zonked out, will nap in their rooms. This exhale in the middle of the day serves everyone as a small respite and a wonderful settle-ing and recharging time.

I feel way more contented knowing that I have that time to recharge and reset, and honestly most of the time the children wake me up from my nap. I want to give a shoutout to the humble nap. From my perspective it allows me to wake up early and do Amrit Vela goodness and then also not fall asleep at 7:30 every night.

Ford’s elaborate rules are designed to create a calm routine for the baby and toddler as they settle into the world and its mysteries (car seats are the worst!). This thread of calmness and rules applies at the end of cognitive life as well.

Clinical Psychologist James in his book gives very clear instructions on ways to interact with someone with dementia – then he breaks down each one with examples and cheerleading for following through. Not to be too glib about it, but these three rules when dealing with someone with dementia are life-changing:

1.     Don’t ask questions.

2.     Learn from them as the experts on their disability.

3.     Always agree with them on everything they say, never interrupting them.

The goal of those three directives is to maintain emotional equilibrium and ease for the demented individual in your life (looking at you Mom). For the caregiver, you get do so some fun acting for an afternoon. For the demented one, they spend time at peace and not rattled out of their fragile reality bubble. Contentment for everyone.

For me, as the monkey in the middle, it is interesting to contemplate ways these two books do or do not work for the other end of the spectrum. The structure of Mom’s well-run assisted living facility** means she has regular mealtimes – ie my mother is not forgetting to eat anymore. Hooray!

However, the 3 rules of Contented Dementia are not as applicable to child rearing. Unlike dementia – I feel like every answer I give to a child is in a form of a question.

“Momma, do you think this frog is poisonous?”

“What do you think? Does it have the bright markings of the poisonous frogs we saw in the zoo?”

But I do try to let the smalls lead as the expert on their childhood. Watching them for bodily clues as to how they are thinking and feeling. Thanking my stars I was introduced to Conscious Discipline early on in this adventure.

“Your body is telling me you are upset. I see that you are mad at Momma for using my big voice. I am sorry, I did not mean to scare you.”

As for agreeing with them on everything they say - there is a part of that in parenting. Sometimes it feels almost sad to burst a bubble of imagination and creativity – much more fun to go along, regardless of what we call reality.

“Momma! I am a dog right now and your job is to feed me!”

“Momma, crack an egg on my back!”

“Momma, I zipped up to the moon and then down to the bottom of the ocean and shot spears at the fish!”

“Could you get me a chainsaw when I am 14 or maybe 18? Please Momma.”

“Of course, my beloved, sounds like a great idea.”

Contentment all around.

* A British friend of mine, opines that “content” is so prevalent in the UK because “happy” is considered an audacious idea.

** I don’t think all facilities are this awesome, but I would like to give a huge shoutout to the Kendal model. You walk in and there is a library right there. Everyone wears name tags so you can say hello. The kindness is palatable.