Technology in the Nursery

I recently discovered that I need to take a parenting class for grandparents.  When I was in Denver talking to my daughter and her husband about their soon-to-be-born new baby, I realized, even though I teach child development, I was shockingly out of touch with the latest baby care protocol and technology. Thinking back to my first experiences taking care of infant Bean I remembered feeling the same way when my oldest daughter requested that the nursery be completely dark (“not even your cell phone on, Mom”), the baby monitor turned on, and the wind-up lamb that played ocean sounds wound before I left the room after rocking my new grandchild to sleep.

Being asked to take care of a new baby today consists of more than simply sitting in a rocking chair with a precious infant in your lap. Grandmother Nancy Schneider captured my feelings in an essay she wrote for the Boston Globe:

There are soothing sound machines in the bedrooms. There are video cameras trained on the crib. Technology has come to grandparenting, and I find myself lacking. My daughter and daughter-in-law hand me battery-powered monitors as they head out the door. They think I know what I am doing. – I don’t.

Since my first grandchild was born less than five years ago there has been a sea change in nursery technology, car seat and stroller integration, and an increase in young parents practicing Attachment Parenting with their children and expecting their parents and other caregivers to do the same.  For many grandparents, managing all this information is like trying to learn a foreign language, and even though they did a great job of raising their own families, they may feel uncertain about how to care adequately for these 21st century children.

Taking a Grandparenting Class

So when I came across a description of Grandparenting classes that were  being offered across the country, I thought that sounded like a pretty good idea.  Not all hospitals offer them yet, but young parents are requesting that their parents take them, so their number is growing.  The classes are often taught by the same people who teach the new parent classes, and cover much of the same material, which includes understanding the reasoning behind putting babies to sleep on their backs instead of their tummies as we did back in the 70s and 80s, and how important “tummy time” has become, not only as exercise, but also to offset the “flat head syndrome” that sometimes occurs when babies sleep on their backs.

In addition to basic feeding, changing, and sleeping brush-ups, grandparenting classes introduce the current car safety seat laws and the new equipment that allow you to take the upper portion of a car seat and lock it into a stroller or baby carriage, how to fold jogging strollers and place them into your car, how to prepare car seats and strollers to take on an airplane, and all kinds of other interesting topics.

But even more than that, they talk to grandparents about letting their children have a little space when the baby is first born, being understanding if they are asked to wait a week or two before traveling across country to meet their grandchild, and thinking about how they want their grandchildren to remember them, approaching grandparenting as a long term relationship, not just a sprint to the bassinet.

The grandparenting classes I located through online research are mostly one-time, two or three hour seminars, and they sometimes include a tour of the hospital’s birthing center.  Even if your grandchild will be born in a different geographical region, seeing a new birthing center can be an eye opener for those of us who birthed our babies in sterile – and cold – delivery rooms.  Here is the the course description for the grandparenting seminar that  is offered once a month at the Lucille Packard Hospital in Stanford:

Learn about “Back to Sleep”, swaddling, giving a relief bottle, car seats and more. Led by a health care professional, this 2-1/2 hour class includes updates on the latest obstetrical and pediatric practices as well as car seat safety information. In addition, it will examine your unique role as grandparents and offer tips on how to support your own children as they step into parenthood.

Rule Number One

I’ve signed up for a session in January, and I plan to email all my fellow grandparents awaiting the arrival of the baby expected in February AND the one expected in March (our family is twice blessed this year).  I’ve already learned what is perhaps the most important rule for grandparents, by reading this article about the Stanford class in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Rule number one on a list of tips handed out in class: “Seal your lips.”

As I said last week, I learned that lesson while I was in Denver.  But it’s a lesson that may have to be learned over and over again.  New parents need to find their own way.  They don’t need us telling them how things were in the olden days (who ever thought 1972 would be considered the olden days?  But to someone born in the mid 1980s or later, it might as well be the stone age.)

I am looking forward to the class in January, and I’m practicing keeping my lip zipped.  I’ll let you know how I do!

Meanwhile, here is a list of the grandparenting classes I located by researching online.  There are new ones starting up all the time; if you don’t see one near you, I’d suggest contacting local hospitals and requesting one.

Grandparenting Classes

California – Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital

Colorado – Swedish Medical Center Denver

Illinois – Northwestern Memorial Hospital

Michigan – Beaumont Health System

Oklahoma – Mercy Oklahoma City

New Jersey – Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Somerset in Somerville

New York – University of Rochester Medical Center

Pennsylvania – St. Clair Hospital

Texas – Medical Center of Plano

Washington – Various Seattle classes

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