Poking back, part 2...the hormonal side of fetal movement

So, I love feeling baby Penelope kick, but then, when I don't feel her kick, it makes me CRAZY! Augh!

At 24 weeks, my little bundle of joy has developed somewhat of a schedule as far as when I feel her moving around in my tummy. I expect her to kick and twist in the morning as well as a bit throughout the day and then to go crazy again around bedtime. One day, we did a lot of driving, so she was going all acrobatic while riding in the car. I think she gets riled up when I sit for a long time, and plus, we were singing along to music, including her special playlist. Then, that night, we were up later than usual and got to sleep in a bit. I think that the combination of all that threw her off her schedule because the next day, I didn't feel her kicking all morning or hardly at all throughout the day. I was thinking of all the different pregnancy literature I'd read, about calling your doctor if you feel major changes in the pattern of fetal movement or if you don't feel fetal movement in a 24-hour period... Thanks to crazy motherly worries and high hormone levels, I, of course, was in tears. I wanted to feel my baby. Who knew that fetal movement could bring such highs and lows?

Well, that following night, every time I woke up to go to the bathroom, I felt her kicking like crazy, and the next few days proved for her to be back to her typical movement schedule. Ah, the ups and downs and tender joys of carrying a little child.

Fetal Learning: A Musical Approach

From early on, babies in the womb can start hearing sounds from the outside world. While they are mostly hearing their mother's bodily sounds such as heartbeat and digestion, they also hear mommy's voice and recognize her voice by at least 30 weeks. They can also learn daddy's voice and their native language by around the same time. Furthermore, babies remember sounds and patterns that they've heard in the womb after they are born. One older study showed that babies could remember hearing The Cat in the Hat, read to them by their mothers several times a week during the latter part of pregnancy, after birth and would prefer hearing that over other stories or language sounds (DeCasper & Spence, 1986). The babies were given pacifiers to suck on, that measured and recorded their rate of "sucking," and then learned that whenever they sucked at a certain rate, The Cat in the Hat was played for them, while other stories/readings were played in response to other rates of sucking. Once babies figured out the system, they would only suck at the rate that cued the familiar story to be played for them.

Hearing familiar sounds after birth, or anything that mimics the womb environment, can have a calming and comforting effect on young infants. So, to take a more proactive approach, my husband and I have come up with a playlist for Baby Penelope to hear us sing along to during pregnancy. If we sing them to her throughout the next 4 months, then when we sing them to her after she is born, they should be familiar and provide a way for us to calm and soothe her during those trying times of her adjusting to life outside the womb. I've made a separate post of "Penelope's Playlist" to share the songs we've decided on, with much helpful input and suggestions from family and friends, to sing to her now and after she is born. Enjoy! I'm hoping it really works!

Penelope's Playlist

Lean on Me        Bill Withers

You are the Sunshine of my life

You’ll be in my heart       Phil Collins

My Girl     The Temptations

Don’t Stop Believin         Journey

All I want is you                 Barry Louis Polisar

Twist & Shout                 the beatles

You’re Some Kind of Wonderful             Michael Buble

Isn’t She Lovely                                Stevie Wonder

Daughters                        John Mayer

Goodnight, Sweetheart                             The Spaniels

Just the way you are      Bruno Mars

Come Thou Fount

Be Thou my Vision

I cant help falling in love with you                             Ingrid Michaelson

I’ll Stand By You                             The Pretenders

Mama’s Song                  Carrie Underwood

My Little Girl                    Tim McGraw

In my Arms                         Plumb

Everything                        Michael Buble

Father Daughter Song    Paul Simon

Next to Me                         Sleeping at Last

I saw God today      George Strait

Baby Mine                          Alison Krauss

O Praise Him                      David Crowder
You can't always get what you want          The Rolling Stones

Poking back

Feeling the baby move is probably the most exciting monumental moment during pregnancy!!! There's nothing more magical than feeling the baby kick inside of you, and then being able to share that experience with others is so rewarding. I find myself already trying to show off what my baby can do... It's such an interesting phenomenon since pregnant women will feel the first kick at such different times - there's no predicting, based on maternal weight, whether or not this is her first pregnancy, how fast the baby grows in length, etc. The baby seems a million times more real once you get good at recognizing those baby kicks! My not-so-secret plan for when strangers start wanting to feel my growing belly is to put my hand on top of theirs and hold it in place, asking them earnestly if they can feel the baby kick. :) I use it for my own purposes sometime...like when my husband called her by her cousin's name instead of the name we've chosen for her, I told him that she was giving him the silent treatment - unless she kicked, to which I told him that she was clearly irritated and kicked to show him. Also, if I really want him to sing a song with me to Baby Penelope (our little fetus-baby), then I let him know when she starts kicking with excitement because she likes to hear us sing. She really starts showing her own personality - fetal movement really is measured in many scientific studies of fetal learning and development. So, whenever she kicks in response to my husband talking "to my belly," I know it's because she likes hearing him talk to her and wants to add to the conversation in the only way she can, at this point.

I'm also trying to monitor when she kicks to most often to determine how I'm doing in shaping her wake/sleep cycle, since her circadian rhythm starts showing up at 16 weeks. So, recently, I decided that perhaps my baby wakes up at 5am every morning. However, I think I've felt her earlier than that on occasion, and she seems to get riled up at night, close to 10pm, as well. So, I'm not sure, but if I don't feel her a while during the day, I do try to wake her up.
I also will try poking her to get her to move for other people, but my real experiment with poking is a plan to teach her about turn-taking. When I feel her kick, I try to poke her back in the same spot, in an effort to teach her to kick back so that we can have a pokey conversation-game. Babies are sensitive to cause and effect as well as turn-taking fairly early on, as shown by early language and cognitive development studies. For instance, when infants were presented with a green, fuzzy blob that made beeping noises in a rhythm similar to language/conversations, they would babble back to the blob-looking creature in a turn-taking fashion akin to that of a conversation between two people. So far, I'm not sure if she's catching on yet...more to come.