Ease Your Child's Transition: Learn Cultural Child Care Practicesby Pam Connell | More from this Blogger 29 Mar 2007 10:29 AM Rachel's recent blog on babywearing reminded me of the many hours I spent wearing my one-year-old daughter Meg in a traditional Korean podaegi, a quilt-like baby carrier, and how much it comforted her while she was grieving for the foster mother who had cared for her for ten months. This got me thinking about the difference in child care among cultures. I would urge adoptive parents to learn as much as they can about child care in their child's country, and if possible how your child in particular was cared for. Especially for the older baby or toddler, keeping some child care practices the same may help them through the trauma of the move. Remember the child is already experiencing the loss of familiar faces, places, smells, language, time zones, climate and more. Many babies and toddlers in other parts of the world are used to being held by foster parents and unused to being left in swings, cribs and strollers. Conversely some babies from orphanages may be unused to prolonged face-to-face interaction and need to be eased into it. They may not be used to being the only child around. Korean babies usually sleep with their mothers on a mat or futon-like setting on the floor, and many Korean foster mothers follow this practice. My daughter had slept with her foster mother, then been transitioned from the foster mother's Western-style bed to a mat on the floor next to the mother's bed. However, the foster mother lay down with her until she was asleep. We allowed our daughters to share our king-size bed for several months after they came home. (We ended up doing this for a while with our birth son too, as do many mothers who practice attachment parenting or long-term breastfeeding.) The Korean babies are carried on their foster mothers' backs almost constantly. I was able to find a Korean baby carrier, a podaegi, which is quite different from most carriers, being basically a quilt which ties a baby onto your back. I was able to find a website with directions for wearing and information on ordering the podaegi as well as many other kinds of baby carriers, some inspired by traditional carriers of the Mayan Indians, parts of Africa or the Pacific Islands. The websites include pictures of how to put it on the carrier yourself (I always had my husband help me, and didn't try to carry other things while I was wearing my daughter in it. We used it mostly at night when we were trying to get her days and nights switched to our time zone. My husband would tie her onto me before he went to bed (his job was to get up early with our toddler son) and Meg and I would walk the floors for hours...I'm actually kind of nostalgic about it now. Note: If you are adopting internationally and have children already, plan ahead to have someone help you with the older children who may be on a completely different time schedule. We had one kid finally going to sleep at five am and her brother waking up at seven. In Korea they called this form of carrying "obo" and if Meg was crying I would just say, "obo?" and lift her to my back (even without the carrier for brief periods). I was very happy to have had this for Meg--it is what she was used to and I think it was a comfort. Please see these related blogs: Learn more about Pam Connell  Pam Connell is a mother of three by both birth and adoption. She has worked in education, child care, social services, ministry and journalism. Relevantadoption tags relationships | pregnancy | baby | christmas | Scrapbooking | parenting | family | holidays | children | Food User Comments  gina00 (680) 30 Mar 2007 12:12 AMHi Pam! I was just reading your all your blogs about your trip to Korea-it sounds like you adopted through Eastern Social Welfare Society. Our agency in Colorado works w/ Eastern also & your description of the guest house/nursery/hospital/prayer ceremony w/ Dr. Kim sounded much like it was last April/May for us. Now the nursery/hospital are on the bottom floors, w/ the guest house on the 3rd & 4th floors. We will be traveling again, hopefully soon, to adopt a daughter. We're just waiting on her visa. She will be a little older than our son was at the time we adopted him (he was 6 months 1 week at the time). She is currently 10+months old. We bought a pojegi in Korea to use w/ our son, but he hated it! I was thinking of bringing it w/ us to use on the plane & also another carrier in case she preferred something other than the pojagi. That really is hard when your new child has a hard time on an airplane! Our son had one difficult moment on each plane where he was inconsolable. W/ regard to the ladies wanting to hold your daughter/grabbing your daughter to hold-that happened at the airport for us too! The first time took me by surprise, & I gave her our son to hold, but then we decided they could hold his hands/touch him, but we were going to continue holding him!! I know you know first hand, since you also traveled to bring home your daughter, but I think that the most important thing you can do for your child is to travel to pick him/her up. We found meeting our son's foster family, being able to ask questions, seeing cultural practices firsthand, and of course the tremendous bonding that occurs on the plane ride home are invaluable to the overall bonding and understanding of your child.  Pam Connell (2658) 30 Mar 2007 03:01 PMYes Gina, it was ESWS. Our American agency had told us very little about the Korean agency so it was wonderful to see it firsthand and see how loved the children are. My DH and I both traveled to Korea in 2000 to pick up our first DD. I spent much of the trip home pacing up and down the aisles. My DH traveled alone to get our second DD as our first was not ready to separate from me. That was after the 9/11 attacks when the airlines were not allowing people to walk around the plane except for brief restroom trips. We had been assured 8 month old DD had not started teething yet--but she cut her first two teeth on the plane! gina00 (680) 31 Mar 2007 01:37 PMWe too were really impressed w/ ESWS. We had no idea the scope of their ministry/work w/ birthmothers, special needs, job training, etc. Dr. Kim's love for the children was so poignant. I will always treasure our meeting w/ him! What do DH & DD stand for? Thanks! Gina Pam Connell (2658) 01 Apr 2007 01:34 PMWhen I met Dr. Kim, I remember thinking, "This is what people describe feeling when they met Mother Teresa." I was using DH and DD for "Dear Husband" and "Dear Daughter" (also DS for dear son). gina00 (680) 01 Apr 2007 08:49 PMThanks Pam! Were there any places you visited while in Korea that you would recommend? I wrote an adoption story book for our son, including pictures of the places we visited on our trip to bring him home. I thought it would be fun to visit different places this trip & include them in her adoption story book. Discuss this article
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