Debbie Stuard is a parent educator in Humble, Texas and shares her HUG Your Baby story.
My experience with the HUG Your Baby curriculum was surprisingly better than I thought. The ladies I serve were receptive and did not blow off the teaching as I presumed they might. They especially liked learning about Signs of Over-Stimulation and finding out that sometimes the baby just needs to rest (and not be passed around like a frisbee as often loving family members sometimes do).
Jo's mother, Elizabeth, is expecting again, and was anxious to share this information with her family. Just as adults sometimes need space and quiet time, I learned that babies also do. I found it amazing that there is a still/deep sleep and an active sleep. Remembering that with five kids we would whisper while the baby slept for fear of complete turbulence in the household is the baby woke up.
The terminologies Ready Zone, Resting and Rebooting Zone sound as if talking about a computer. However, the break down by HUG Your Baby makes perfect sense. These are tiny little people with sensors. When one understands the rationale behind these terms, we can all become better listeners, discerners, mothers /caregivers. We can be the catalyst to a never-ending change in understanding our babies. HUG Your Baby taught me that even though our little ones cannot yet utter a word, we can learn how to listen.