Dropping an anchor during emotional storms as you care for your baby or toddler

Sometimes when we are buffetted by life's storms, returning to the present moment is like casting an anchor. This takes courage, but it keeps us safe as the storm passes over.

It's easy for us, as humans, to become lost in a thinking and feeling storm. At these times, we need to make more of an effort to bring our attention back.

• Can you carefully attend to the things you can see, the things you can hear, the sensations in your body?

• Can you move a little so that you notice your feet on the floor, the feeling of bending over or lifting your arms in the air or swinging them.

• Can you start deep breathing and attend to the sensations of that, too?

You might use your little baby or toddler as an anchor! What can you notice about her delicate little ear, or the scent of her scalp, the precious weight of her, her eagerness to receive a kiss or a cuddle? Can you make her smile or laugh? Sometimes, the storm itself might be floods of resentment against your little one - a normal occurrence. Deep self-compassion is required. How hard you've tried, how hard you are trying! How impossible it all seems!

If your little one is crying (and sometimes this is the cause of your own emotional storm since we are hardwired to be upset when our little one cries) then you might cuddle the child anyway, despite that tightly dialled up pushing-away little body, and set out on a walk together - into the street or park if you possibly can, or if that is too much, from room to room, noticing, noticing, anchoring yourself in the present moment, letting his screams be there alongside your breath, practicing profound self-compassion. This too will pass.

Dropping an anchor into the present moment from the midst of an emotional storm includes small acts of self-care. One such act of self-care might be reaching out to someone else for help and support.

Recommended resources

Dropping anchor practice. Stanford Health

Things to know up front if your baby cries and fusses a lot in the first few months of life

Recommended resources, acknowledgements, and selected references for the articles in the Caring for you section of The Possums Sleep Program are found here, including selected research evaluations of both Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Compassion-focused Therapy in the perinatal period.