Fatherhood Adventures can attest to the effectiveness of Daily Happiness Tip #8- Smell a Baby. It does calm me down from everyday stress to an extent that much hugging and sniffing may even induce me to sleep.
Just early this month when an important decision had to be made, I was all stressed out. I happened to instinctively pick the baby up from the crib as she was making a fuss as if telling me to get her. As I cuddled her, my thoughts still on the issue at hand, I started kissing her head and noticed her sweet smell.
I realized how happy the baby was to be cuddled. Her smile turned into giggles as I began to tickle her in the neck, arm and torso with my face. It only took a few minutes of living in that moment to clear my head. I felt better and was ready to tackle my concerns head-on. As mentioned in my previous blog on the benefits of being a dad, the smell, sight and sound of a baby trigger hormonal changes in men that supposed to improve problem-solving skills, resilience, motivation and stress-handling abilities.
In different occasions, a few sniffs of the baby’s sweet smell was enough to elicit a good feeling in me…a natural high. And indeed many times I dozed off during prolonged cuddling and exposure to baby scent.
How fortunate for me to realize (not too late) and articulate it now with our fourth child what must have always been happening to me with my first three. Indeed discoveries are not made by looking at new territories, but by looking into familiar, everyday occurrences with a new set of eyes.
I am sharing this to provide a new perspective (a new set of eyes, or glasses if more apt) and help others recognize how precious our children are, and their presence is a blessing that positively impacts our own wellbeing if we learn to live in the moment.
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True. Babies (sight, sound, feel and smell) brings a refreshing that makes them more endearing to us, and this in turn invites us to be more affectionate to them. This is both healthy to the adult and the baby. In fact, the lack of parental affection is detrimental to the baby's overall health (and i would say to the parent's psychological well being as well). Without it the baby will just not survive. Again, God designed us in a way that will make sure the baby has a good fighting chance to not just survive but thrive. Although my 9 yr old "baby", is no longer technically a baby, and she smells differently now, my 'babyish' affections for her remains.
@Bogs, yes all of the mechanism to ensure survival and the well-being of babies is there...something all parents should appreciate in light of challenges in parenthood.
Our older kids' smell would, I guess, fall in the "sweat smell" instead of "sweet smell" as categorized in Daily Happiness Tip#8...hahaha
That's interesting. I never thought baby smell can be therapeutic.
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