The not-so-rosy part
May 3rd, 2012I originally posted this back in November of 2006. I’ve come a long way with my writing, and I cringed as I read some of it. Not because what I said was wrong, but because I’ve learned a lot about sentence structure and how to tighten my writing. The original post can be found here, if you want to read through the comments — and I believe the comments are as important as the post.
I’m repeating the post here, edited for grammar but not content, so we can get fresh comments — old posts have comments automatically turned off after a certain number of days, because the spammers often try to hit them.
I’m using female pronouns here for simplicity’s sake, but of course the advice also applies to darling boys.
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I’ve read blogs of people who are home and who are miserable.
I’ve read about recent disruptions.
And I’ve read posts from people on various groups and blogs, where the people are sure their new family member hates them, and some of them sound like they’re starting to hate their child.
So I feel I need to talk a little about what happens when this screaming little baby is finally placed in your arms.
This is not a newborn, but a child who already has a personality — one you get to try to figure out. She’s been ripped from all she knows: the people who’ve cared for her and kept her alive, the language she’s been around since birth, the food she’s accustomed to, the other kids, her schedule, her crib, her cribmate.
It’s all gone, and she’s with these people she’s never seen before, and she can’t understand what’s being said, and the food is different. Scared and grieving doesn’t begin to describe her emotional state.
Some babies completely shut down and appear to be autistic, but after three or four days they start coming around and you begin to see the real child. It can take weeks (or months) for the grieving to stop, but after several days you should begin to see little pieces of their personality. Other children have different survival mechanisms and you’ll immediately see a little bubbly charming temperament, but this doesn’t mean there’s no grief — it could be their survival instincts are telling them to be cute and lovable.
We all know this transition to a family is for the best in the long run, but the child only knows how they feel right now, and they’re scared and mad and grieving. Some move through it faster than others. Many seem to work through it in China and then backtrack once you get them home
When you’re in China they still hear Chinese in the restaurants and out on the street, they still get some Chinese food, they still have the unique smells of China around them. However, once you’re home, everything familiar is gone. By then you’ve probably switched them to American formula, they likely aren’t getting congee every morning now that it’s not on a buffet, you probably can’t make steamed eggs exactly like they were in China, the smells are different, and no one is speaking Chinese around them anymore.
They might be able to keep their minds off all of this during the day, when they’re active and have much to keep them occupied, but when their mind starts quieting down to go to sleep it all comes back, and the grief can be all-encompassing. Some babies can’t quiet down without grieving, and sleep becomes next to impossible. Combine this with jet lag and it’s a waking nightmare for everyone in the house.
There will also be control and manipulation issues. Even a 9 or 10 month old baby will try to gain control of something, anything, so they don’t feel so helpless. Maybe you can let them have it in some instances, but in others you’ll need to make sure you remain in control. Follow your instincts on this one — they need boundaries in order to feel safe, but letting them have little pieces of control may also help them. How do you know when it’s best to give in and when it’s best to be firm? You fly by the seat of your pants and hope you get it right.
You’ve been waiting for this child for a really long time, but she knows nothing about you. She’s scared and will act in ways you cannot currently imagine a little 15 or 20 pound baby could possibly manage.
I remember getting so upset with my big girl when she was a toddler and into everything. I’d carry her outside and put her in her swing, and push her. Before long we were both laughing and having fun. It worked for us. If you’ve read about sensory issues you know there are dozens of reasons why this worked, if you haven’t, you need to.
Sometimes, when she was into everything, I’d load her up and take her to the park with a few toys, put a blanket on the ground, and let her play that way. She only had the handful of toys I brought, and I only had to make sure she didn’t put rocks or bugs in her mouth (with her sensory issues, she wouldn’t touch such things with her hands, but had no problems picking them up in her mouth). She never wandered far from me in public, so this worked out well since I didn’t have to worry about her running off.
So many times, I realized we were into a pattern of her doing something and me correcting, and I needed to break the pattern.
I also put her in her highchair with fingerfoods, and rolled the highchair into the bathroom to take a shower. We put a clear shower curtain up so she could see me, and I could keep an eye on her.
My big girl was terrified of being alone. Even today, she’s rarely in a room by herself unless she’s asleep. When we were first home with her, before I went back to work, this meant she and I were together 24 hours a day, every single day (she slept in our room, too, back then). Once my husband was home in the evenings she expected us to all stay in the same room together, and for those first months, she ran the show when it came to things like that.
I see people talking about how happy their child will be to finally get a family, but that just isn’t the way it works. I worry families are setting themselves up for problems by having expectations that aren’t likely to happen.
Please, take this time to read about attachment. Not just attachment issues, but attachment in general – how attachment happens, red flags that attachment may not be happening, and ideas for how to foster attachment.
Also, read about sensory issues and other things that may pop up in post-institutionalized babies and children.
If you have the “What to expect the first year” book, understand your 10 month old baby may not be doing what the authors say four month old baby should be capable of. This is completely normal, and most children catch up at an amazing speed. The rule of thumb I’ve always heard is babies develop one month for every three they’re institutionalized – so a nine month old child will have the developmental skills of a three month old, an 18 month old may only have the developmental skills of a 6 month old. If they’re in foster care or a HTS orphanage then they’ll likely be further along.
Your child may have been strapped into a potty chair for hours a day, and laid in the crib for most of the rest of the day. Of course they won’t have the developmental skills appropriate for their age.
Your baby may have been gravity fed, and never learned how to suck. She may not be capable of drinking from a normal bottle. You may spend months getting her to the point that she can pull liquid from a normal nipple, and those sucking muscles are important before she can learn to talk, it’s all related.
This is why Half the Sky is one of my favorite charities. If your child is from a HTS orphanage, the odds are they’ll be very close to being on target developmentally, and won’t have major sensory issues. There are still a lot of other things that can pop up, but these two things should be on target.
I’m not saying the first couple of months are going to be all bad – there will be wonderful moments, too. I’m hoping to get the point across that you need to be prepared for some difficult times. No matter how frustrated you are, at least you know what’s going on. It’s your job to comfort this child when she’s scared and grieving and screaming her little head off from 11:00 at night until 4:00 in the morning almost nonstop. It’s your job to make her feel safe and loved, and that’s not always an easy thing to do.
Recommended Reading:
- Toddler Adoption: The Weaver’s Craft
- Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today’s Parents
- Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child: From Your First Hours Together Through the Teen Years
- Adoption Parenting: Creating a Toolbox, Building Connections
- The Out-of-Sync Child: Recognizing and Coping with Sensory Processing Disorder, Revised Edition
- Raising a Sensory Smart Child: The Definitive Handbook for Helping Your Child with Sensory Processing Issues
- Parenting a Child with Sensory Processing Disorder: A Family Guide to Understanding and Supporting Your Sensory-Sensitive Child









