The newborns of 2020, sometimes nicknamed “confinement babies”, spent their first months away from grandparents, park games, parents’ friends. Often in a vacuum. Between the six-month curfew, lockdowns, limited interactions and avoided family reunions, they seem less used to the community and sometimes scared.
“I couldn’t even leave her two minutes to go to the bathroom”
Stéphanie, 29, had a daughter on May 12, 2020. “Around five months, she started screaming every time we went to see friends, family… No one could take her on her knees or in her arms apart from her mum and daddy, you could hardly go near her and smile at her. And out of the question to put it on the ground in these moments. I couldn’t even give her two minutes to go to the bathroom. “
Meryl, 28, has a daughter of the same age and nicknames her “baby glue pot”. “I hardly can let go of her. She is very fearful of others and the anxiety of separation is far from over. A total dependence difficult for the parents to bear … Marine, 30, is going through similar difficulties with her 18 month old son. “Even today, he will cry for a good quarter of an hour when we drop him off at his nanny’s, and remains clinging to us like a barnacle on his rock. “
Even more unbearable for single mothers. “My son doesn’t want to sleep with his grandparents,” says Mary, also 30 years old. He would like to be with me all the time. Very complicated at times knowing that I’m a solo mom, hard to take a break! “
“At the nursery, she had a” security perimeter “”
A fear of the other which does not apply only to adults. This makes entering the community sometimes difficult. “At the nursery, things have always gone rather well with the auxiliaries, but my daughter could not bear the other babies approaching her at the beginning,” continues Stéphanie. It had like a “security perimeter”. “
Mégane, 26, had to make a month of adaptation instead of a week in general. “When the crèche began to close every other month, it just got worse and worse. Even when we go to the park, if a child is unfortunate enough to approach her, she will push him away and run away crying. “
“Being already a mother of two grown-ups aged 11 and 12, I can say that this confinement had a great impact on my last, born in 2020, assures Justine, 32 years old. Even today, I can’t leave her with anyone except her nanny. As soon as we meet new people, she stays glued. And as often, faced with these difficulties, not all mothers can count on the benevolence of those around them. Amélie, 33, describes her 15 month old son as “very wild”. “I received a lot of thoughts:” you have too much in your arms “,” you do not leave enough to others “,” you brood too much “,” let him cry “…”
“He goes to the nursery, which allowed him to become more sociable”
But this “glue pot” phase does not necessarily last. Pauline notes an improvement since her son discovered the nursery. “Born in March 2021, there was no confinement but travel restrictions. Our family does not live near us, so he did not see many people. Subsequently, he struggled a lot. Now, at eight months old, he goes to nursery, which has allowed him to become more sociable with our families. “
Some Internet users even point out that, on the contrary, this parenthesis was synonymous with serenity. Séverine, 31, had a daughter in April 2020. “He was a fairly calm baby who slept very quickly. When she was one year old, she started nursery school and she loves going there. Kathelyne, 26, even particularly appreciated this arrival in the world without stress or injunction. “We were not parasitized by the often benevolent, but sometimes tiring requests: ‘you should do like this’. Our son is now 19 months old and lives like any baby boy his age. “
No alert from early childhood professionals
A testimony that does not surprise Stéphane Clerget, child psychiatrist and author of Your child’s spiritual intelligence*. “There is no need to worry if a child under 3 prefers the arms of their parents to those of strangers. For the majority of the babies, the confinement has been positive. They benefited from the presence of both parents, which is quite unprecedented. This has developed an important internal security. These children make a good difference between the parental nucleus and the outside places, and that will not make them insecure, anxious children or emotional dependent adults. “
Will this generation of confinement be specific? No study has yet looked into the question. And the scientific answer may take years. “A baby is never as good as with his parents, notes Stéphane Clerget. As long as they are okay. The concern is that some, during confinement, could be anxious, in mourning, in conflict with the other parent… ”. Anyway, like the child psychiatrist, our other interlocutors did not notice a worrying brake in the sociability of these children. The president of the French Pediatric Society, Christèle Gras-Le Guen, assures us that she sees nothing that could alert. Just like Bénédicte Vrignaud, pediatrician who works in pediatric emergencies and in nurseries: “I did not observe this problem and I was not particularly questioned by the parents. “
Lucie Robert is a childcare assistant in a crèche and co-secretary general of the National Union of Early Childhood Professionals (SNPPE). “There has been no return to the union or to social networks and I do not see a big difference between the children who entered nursery in 2020 and 2021 and in previous years,” she confirms. There have always been children who will take two months to adapt to the community! And for a lot of reasons. We could tend to say: “It’s because of the Covid-19 or the confinement. “But we know that the attachment is multifactorial: it would be necessary to have all the antecedents of the pregnancy, was there a cesarean section, skin-to-skin, shortened breastfeeding…”
“The difficulties linked to separation depend on the baby’s personality, the attachment to other people, father, brother and sister, and the parent’s difficulties in the face of separation,” adds Stéphane Clerget. And the difficulty of separation is sometimes bilateral, continues the child psychiatrist. Without wanting to make the parents feel guilty, because it is normal to have trouble leaving your baby, this pain is felt by the child, at an age when he is a mirror. “
* The spiritual intelligence of your child, Stéphane Clerget, Edition Leduc S, April 2021, € 17.