JediWright.com

Children surely have been born designed with multiple survival mechanisms, though many pale in comparison to what know and are used to from most creatures in the animal kingdom.

Lee is no exception and as his father and a new parent, it’s pretty powerful to watch and experience the reactions to his mechanisms.

Top three survival instincts noted to date:

1. Cuteness!

Babies are generally cute and again, Lee is no exception. He gets so much attention, both from family and complete strangers. Something so adorable is just hard to ignore or refuse lavishing one’s attention on.

2. Crying

Ugh. Probably his most powerful instinct and mechanism is ironically, his most vulnerable, at least it would be if he wasn’t of the modern home sapien erectus clan. His cries are so gut wrenching, at least as a parent, especially within the first weeks of birth, that your own senses go on hyper vigilance. If they were the cries of any other adults kids, it might be different, and most times it is just plain irritating.

3. Limb Movement

Babies have little to no great control over their limb movements at first. And some like Lee, can be excessive and violent in their motions. And while his or any other baby’s range of motion and motor control is far from a great defense, it still could do some good since their motions are quick, unpredictable (well okay, not completely unpredictable), and seemingly violent.

Of course, all this motion day-to-day is just he or she developing their motor control, but there are times when it seems to more defensive or reactionary to something they don’t like or startles them.

Regardless of what is and isn’t a survival instinct, he remains super cute.

So this is the basic technique we’ve been using to feed Lee, when he’s being too fussy to feed from the breast:

We use a little 1.5 tsp-sized syringe to drop in the breast milk alongside our finger; he goes through about 1 every 2-3 mins at the fastest and 15-mins at the slowest. Whether or not this is a measure of our speed of dispensing it, varies based on who’s feeding him. If it’s me at 4am, then it sometimes takes me 10-15-mins for one; other times I squeeze it all out in less than 5.

We’re still trying to get him stop fussing at the breast, but Tristan’s just getting frustrated and doesn’t like to see him upset. It’s definitely something that takes getting used to and should work itself out with practice.