Isis Johnson is a social worker and a parent educator with TrainingGrounds in New Orleans.
My experience with HUG has been amazing so far. As I was going through the HUG training I was amazed by the very simple things babies do to communicate with us that we often overlook or misinterpret. As a new parent it is easy to take things personally like your baby avoiding your gaze and thinking they don’t want to be bothered with you, but instead they are over stimulated and need a moment to calm down. Knowing this can help parents understand that they are not bothering their baby or doing anything wrong, their little one simply needs a break. The same can be said for helping parents understand the differences between active/light sleep and deep sleep, which has been a huge ‘aha’ moment for many of them. I know personally that I could have gotten better sleep with my newborn if I had this information at the time.
One of the wonderful things about HUG that I enjoy talking about with parents is that it is all very simple information that we probably haven't thought of because we were never exposed to the information. One of my HUG sessions was with a mother of three, her oldest being four and one of the things she mentioned was how you receive less information the more children you have. That really stood out to me because many programs that are designed to inform parents about their new babies are geared towards new first-time parents, when every child is a new person and parents should still be able to receive helpful resources if it is their first time or their fifth time. I look forward to continuing to enlighten mothers about what to expect with their new babies and give them the tools to help build a long-lasting relationship.