Just opening this following on from the other thread that went a bit (lot) o/t about eye contact...

Bath i hope you don't mind, i thought i'd copy your post and answer it a bit here:

MODS - please move if this is in a bad place. Thought if i put it here it'd be more clearly a discussion of theory and not a comparison of individuals. I thought we could talk about concepts, not WITHOUT relating them to ourselves, but perhaps at most doing so in a removed way to discuss the theories, rather than in a more subjective way. Of course it might not work out, but here goes anyway....

I hear so many parents attribute emotions/needs to their children that the child is absolutely NOT capable of having and it drives me nuts! Eg. the parent who claims their newborn is being "manipulative" by settling well to sleep in the day and not at night. A newborn is just not capable of that degree of sophistication in their relationships. Why do parents feel the need to do this? Can they (the parents) not relate to another human being that has a vastly different reality to their own? I agree... I don't think my newborns "needed" eye contact to settle but I never actively avoided it... who knows, their might have been a few times... say they heard a strange noise like a loud sudden bang and briefly needed my eye contact to see that I am calm thus everything is ok... maybe babies don't react that way... just guessing. I'd love to read more about the reality of being a newborn (life from their perspective not ours)! Robin Skinner (British psychologist, written many books) touches upon it but only in a mainstream kinda sense.
Bath as far as i know newborns have no sense of self seperate from their carers until they are 2 or 3 (when they start to say "me" or "i" and begin to show compassion). Until then it is pointless to work from the basis of manipulation because all manipulation which occurs (and it does - lots of kids will respond to "don't touch that" by putting ONE finger on the forbidden item to see what will happen) id subjective - like pinching your own leg to see how much it hurts. Until they develop their conscience you ARE their conscience and a mere externalisation of an internal mechanism to them, they cannot hurt you without hurting themselves and thus they have no inborn desire to do so, they just want to get a grip on how they work and you, until they learn to separate themselves, are just an extension of them.

Newborns especially have very poor spatial awareness. We all know the marker of development when a child who has dropped their toy actually LOOKS for it, because it marks a special realisation that things out of sight have not ceased to exist but are still there, elsewhere. Their understanding of our shared reality and how it works is growing and it's exciting. Unfortunately many fail to join the dots on that. If you leave your newborn alone in a room it has no concept that you are in the next room unless you sing loudly and constantly so it can hear you. Many many babies who cry in their cots are doing so simply because nature is saying "you are alone. you will die. summon help. you are alone. you will die. summon help" over and over and all they can do is scream. If left long enough the instinctual level of their mind seems to switch off because conserving energy and not attracting predators when one's parent is obviously so far away it cannot even hear your cries becomes the focus. At this point CC has "worked" - the baby ceases crying to summon help. Unfortunately the long-term lesson is one of helplessness. Having shown the baby his or her ONLY tool for communication doesn't work, this tells him that HE cannot change or improve his situation. The world is full of adults who believe they are only helpless victims of their situations. It also i think can lead to problems with interpersonal relations since it teaches the baby nothing about how it relates to its parents or how they relate to it. If you do not know how to communicate your needs how can you meet the needs of others?

As for the eye contact thing - in GENERAL eye contact is stimulating to new and small babies. It is kind of like an urgent tap on the shoulder and makes them go "what!?" physiologically. BUT some babies are very laid back and do not panic as much and some (like mine ) are so desperately worried about missing anything while they sleep that they cling DESPERATELY onto consciousness, and i think for those babies eye contact can actually be more distressing/harmful if given when they need to sleep. Lots and lots of babies find it hard to break eye contact themselves and NEED the other person to glance away every few seconds so they have the option of not maintaining eye contact, but you will see many mothers do this without conscious thought. In terms of body language this gesture is like the mum has "sticky eyes" where it appears that whatever else distracts mum her eyes are drawn back as if stuck to the baby and then away again and then back. You see it also between lovers and if you deliberately use it in a social situation you can pretty much ensure that whoever you want to talk to will come talk to you (very jaded of me i know!).

In terms of sleep, babies do not have a concept that they will wake up again. This is something they learn. This is another reason some babies fight sleep so hard - wouldn't anyone fight death, especially when they don't know it's only "the small death"? Again, in terms of personality some babies learn quicker and worry less, others go on fighting sleep well into childhood (i was one). Often these individuals find it hard to "switch off" whatever age they are, and they can be challenging infants to care for because they tend to fight sleep, sleep briefly, wake frequently and find re-settling difficult. For THOSE babies a lack of eye contact during loving settling can be especially useful as their madly inquiring minds are LOOKING for a reason to keep them awake and learning. Babies like that, if cherished and understood, learn fast and excel in academia but tend to find hand crafts and so on difficult because they lack patience. Being understanding and loving while maintaining semi-strict routines can really assist such children in developing their abilities in different areas to the maximum as it TEACHES them the patience they lack. I see so much of me in DD and am constantly amazed that even the MEMORY of being her age and struggling with the same concepts and emotions she struggles with in fact does very little to assist me in parenting her.

Bx