Self-Swaddling for the Sad and Startled

By: JANA GREENE

I dream about babies a lot. At least a few times a week, there is a baby storyline in my slumber. I have two daughters by birth, who are now 29 and 32. I am not a spring chicken.

But in my dreams, I am a young mother. In keeping with the surreal element, the child is sort of an amalgam – a blend of both my daughters, but neither in particular.

My therapist and I suspect the baby – always a girl – is also representative of myself, and of my children. Whatever bizarre elements of dream-realm events that happen in my sleep, the theme is always the same: I MUST take care of this baby at all costs. I must save her from whatever crazy dream plot may come. Lots of silly storylines surface, but lots of dark ones too. Maybe I am keeping her safe from Keystone Cop capers. Maybe I am smuggling her out of a concentration camp.

Like I said, sometimes it’s heavy. Sometimes it’s scary. But that baby always makes it out okay.

So, I dreamt last night that this baby was a newborn, so fresh that her umbilicus was still attached. It was cold outside, and we were sitting on a park bench somewhere, and she was wet and crying. I lay her down and undress her to change her diaper, and she is doing that newborn thing where they fling their arms out wide in a startle.

She is afraid she is falling, and I am fastening her diaper with one hand, while trying to grasp her two tiny hands to her chest with my other, all the while cooing, “Shhhh, you’re not falling. I got you. You’re okay, little one! I love you!”

Pediatricians will tell you that this movement – called the Moro reflex – is just that…a reflex. As a matter of fact, it is used to determine that the baby is healthy and normal. If they do not startle, there might be a problem neurologically. Even baby primates do it.

But when my babies did it, it threw my instincts into overdrive. They were so sure (with their six days of lived experience,) that they were falling. We might as well have been a mother and baby chimp, so primal was the urge to make that baby feel safe. A baby in a startle reflex is a pitiful thing, as their little faces contort into something akin to panic.

But I could fix it, you see. Soothing words, a tight swaddle, offering the comfort of the breast – all things that I could do to make them feel safe. Honestly, it was the only time in my mothering life I felt like I knew what I was doing, and I haven’t felt that way since, and like I said – I’m no spring chicken.

This is the fourth dream I’ve had in a week’s time about the baby’s pitifully startling. And I’m sure that this particular incarnation of the baby is me. Because I have felt like I am falling for eight days now, since the election. I know many, many people who feel like they are living in a constant Moro reflex, feeling like we are falling. Except no one can assure us that no, we are actually safe. So we panic and flail.

And truthfully, it’s not just the political state of the country. I have felt flail-y for months, since The Diagnosis in June. I haven’t had time to recover from one startle before the next flail-worthy event. Family drama. Occasions for grieving. Never-ending health woes. Elections.

We need someone to grab our hands and hold them to our chests, so that we can know that – yes, it seems like the end of the world, but can you feel that beating? That’s your heart, and it’s still going, rhythmically and with regularity. We need someone to shush us gently so that we can hear our own breath, and know that we are still nourished by air, even as we feel as if we are falling.

So, this morning when I woke with the dream so fresh in my mind, I lay still for a good while. I could still feel the grasp of the tiny hands, so I asked myself what I could do to feel safe. I told myself soothing words. Words like…

You’re not falling, it only feels like it.

God’s got you.

I wrapped the blankets around me tight in cocoon of swaddled security. Feel the mattress beneath you, I told myself. I am on solid ground. I am warm and safe in this moment. I brought my own hands to my chest, where life keeps beating, in spite of the panic.

We must keep our littlest selves from falling. We must comfort her as if she is ours by birth, because she is, you see. We are birthing the best versions of ourselves, even as we startle. We know how to do this. We know how to nurture the whole wide world; it’s just our turn to be nurtured. We know what we’re doing, we’ve just been taught not to trust it.

May you feel grounded and comforted today, even if it’s by self-soothing. May your panic be calmed, and the things that bring your mind terror be tamed. Your fear of falling is an inborn instinct, but so is your ability to find comfort. No matter what storyline is thrown at you.

You’re okay, little one.

I love you.