is it pot luck to get an "easy" baby or is it down to parenting?

[BarbieLovesKen]

This came up at lunch today. Im 31 weeks pregnant and said to some colleagues that I really hope we are as lucky with this baby as we have been with our dd and ds. Aside from the obvious hope that this baby is as healthy as our 2 have been, I'm hoping its as "easy" one too.

We are one of those couples who have just been completely flukey when it comes to having an easy time with children (so far!). I dont mean to put that across in a braggy way, I genuinely mean we dont know we're born/ cant sympathise with others at times as we just havent experienced what its like to have a hard time. I suppose theres no point in pretending we're martyrs when we havent a clue.

My cousin has a 4 and a half year old and an (almost) 2 year old, she works full time and is constantly exhausted - as shes up every hour with one or the other child during the night. I feel really sorry for her - Im very careful not to mention what good sleepers mine are etc but her mum is our CM so she knows. Its the same with eating/ tantrums etc.. I think shes pissed off alot of the time with me to be honest and had said when I was pregnant with ds (more than once) that "I hope this one gives you hell". (joke)

My mum and other family members etc reckon this is no ones fault but hers and her DHs (which I think is a little unfair tbh) - that the children are "ruined" and its all down to parenting.

Colleagues at lunch today responded with something similiar after I said I hoped we'd be as lucky again. They said that luck has absolutely nothing to do with it and its down to the parenting/ how relaxed the parents are etc...

Im genuinely prepared to have this one scream every night for a year but am continuously being told (assuming all is well and healthy) that this wont happen, given the way our current dc are.

I have to admit that I am slightly beginning to come around to that school of thought - I wouldnt go so far as to say that its a parents "fault" if their children are really hard work but am starting to think that parenting has to be a huge factor. (Im going to eat my words, arent I )

I dont even know if its an AIBU to be honest, I just find it interesting. Its came up alot.

Pot luck!
dd1 - dream baby, healthy, slept through from 6 weeks, didn't move till she was 11mo, well behaved (usually) though she is a picky eater.
dd2 - born with a congenital defect, at 10mo still has a bottle through the night and sleeps in our bed most of the night, great eater but poss. food intolerance, has crawled since 8mo and is a little devil, you can't turn your back on her for a second or she's escaped/ate something/destroyed something etc...

So I accept some of those things are down to parenting, e.g dd2 in our bed, but the need to do that never arose with dd1. Count your blessings and keep your fingers crossed for dc3.

Mostly temperament - which would partly be inherited. So if you are both relaxed, laidback people naturally then if you are lucky your dcs will inherit that.

I think dh and I were very laidback in our parenting with ds - we were blissed out, relaxed, we took him out everywhere, it was lovely. But we are naturally fairly neurotic, determined, difficult people and that has come out clearly in our dcs' personalites once they got passed the baby stage.

No way is it down to parenting. If it were, how do you explain my twins? Everything - treatment, routine, even food - has been exactly the same for them both from birth. Girl twin blissfully easy and sweet natured, boy twin the tantrumming devil incarnate.

Baby with reflux...that isn't down to parenting but can pave the way for a terrible sleeper....

Clearly some things are down to parenting (how you deal with tantrums, fussy eaters etc) but it would be a sweeping generalisation to say it is one thing or the other....

luck - how else to explain one super-easy baby who turned into a demon child and one nightmare baby who is an angelic toddler?

Rather than parenting itself, I think it's partly do with the parents' temperament and how robust you are. Surely all babies are hard work- but some adults can take stuff in their stride, and others like me are prone to worrying, stressing and feeling overwhelmed.

I've got an 'easy' baby (childminder says the easiest she's looked after in 20 years) but rather than feeling smug and braggy about it, I live in terror of the next one not being 'easy', because a) I am knackered and b) I find being a parent really challenging as well as insanely wonderful. So how would I cope with a 'challenging' baby? I've certainly not breezed along thinking 'ooh this is easy!', and have actually cried when dd has woken up from a short nap once again; equally, I have friends with much less 'easy' babies who just pour a large glass of wine, stick the baby in a sling and don't let it get them down.

I actually HATE the categorisation of babies into 'easy', 'difficult', 'good', etc. Friends who have had a really hard time with sleep/eating/colic etc with their babies have felt very alienated and sad because it seems everyone is casting judgment over what their gorgeous, unique baby is like.

So your baby sleeps through? Big deal. So they eat loads/everything? Big deal. So they'll play on their own for an hour? Big deal.

What is their personality like? What quirks do they have? What do they love? These things are what makes a baby special. Not an ability to lie still with their eyes closed for ten hours.

Gah.

(This rant is not aimed at you OP but at the tendency for people to measure babies up against an ideal)>

Yes, a friend was jokingly telling my 8 mo old off for being a 'naughty baby' for still needing rocking or cuddling to sleep when she wakes at night. She did CIO at 6 mo so thinks I'm mad. I had to grit my teeth as at 8 mo old she isn't naughty, and it doesn't bother me! So that comes back to the perception thing, she would hate to be waking with an 8 mo old and would therefore categorize dd as naughty or difficult, whereas it doesn't other me so I see her as easy. I also don't see anything wrong with her knowing that if she cries we go to her.

I 'mollycoddle' her too, and am happy to do so.

Was going to say luck as dd1 has slept exactly according to how the routines in the book say babies "should" - 11 hours a night straight from 10 weeks, 3 long naps a day at 6 months, hardly ever awake whereas dd2 at 7 months wakes a lot at night and doesn't nap for long during the day, and spent the first months of her life in the sling, needs constant entertainment... but they have been parented differently...

Dd1 was bottlefed, had a dummy and slept in her own cot from 6 months. Dd2 is breastfed, won't take a dummy and co-sleeps. So, hmmm, not sure...

I guess it seems that 'easy' does mean 'sleeping through'. My DS is only just starting to sleep longer blocks at night, so it that respect the last 8 months have been very hard - I've felt a bit bonkers for most of it. But now the fog is lifting, and I'm so, so glad that we encouraged him to get there on his own steam, not by leaving him to CIO or not respond to him. Babies wake for all manner of reasons - only experience and confidence helps you (and them) identify what the reason may be.

I'd be mortified if I had ignored DS because he 'shouldn't' be waking at night (as the HV told me), to then find him soaking wet in the morning.

As a result (I think), I have one very, very happy and sunny little boy, who is a true delight to hang with - and! - seems to be weaning naturally away from the boob without any trauma or distress (as I had been led to believe to expect by the HV).

I'm sure it must just be luck...

I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing and didn't really feel prepared (read no books, took no classes etc) before DD was born but everyone tells me she's an easy baby.

She sleeps 13ish hours and has done from about 7 weeks... But having said that she never naps in the day and I can never get anything done!

It's definitely luck IMO. DD1 was a the nightmare baby, she would sleep, but only if I was holding her, constantly! She was really hard to wean too, I could never put her down, always had to be holding her. I couldn't leave her with anyone but DH either! So that meant that DH and I could never go out together! We had to co-sleep with her until she was 5! Fast forward to now, she's 8 and is the loveliest, nicest, most gorgeous girl in the world.

DD2 on the other hand was heaven as a baby. She was so easy, a really good sleeper, would go to anyone. Very independent, had to do BLW as she wouldn't let me feed her with a spoon. Fast forward to now, she's 4 and such a little madam! Cries at the drop of a hat, will us any trick in the book to get what she wants.

They're like chalk and cheese!

Good parents do the best with what they'v got. Generally, their children will be better behaved. That is not to say their children will be better behaved than all other children, just better behaved than they would have been with a less good parent.

However, 'good' is a bit of a judgemental and subjective word. Good can mean meeting the bills rather than spending time with a child with challenging behaviour. Good can mean giving up work and moving into a small flat to address the behavioural difficulties of a child. Good can mean letting your child get away with murder in order to climb the career ladder to provide them with opportunities later. Good can mean giving up your career entirely and living in poverty rather than subject your SN child to the provision of the authorities.

Oh hello Starlight! You're back!

Kind of. Not so much back as starting again a bit differently.

Hope all's well... (sorry for hijack, it always annoys me when people do it and yet I couldn't help myself!)

I really, really want to say luck. But that's because mine's a terrible sleeper and always has been. Plus is a bit of a madam. But it can't possibly be my fault, I'm a perfect parent

no not really working, but I'm not going to ruin another thread!

I hope that it's luck -neither of mine are "easy" babies - so I must be a really shit parent. Neither slept through until 18 mos and they both like a lot of interaction/conversation etc which drives me mad. But they are the most enchanting and interesting children, to me anyway. Everyone else probably thinks they're right little buggers

I think it's nature and nurture and perception. People often comment on how easy my DS2 is and indeed he is much easier than my DS1, however I don't think he's easy at all and this is down to MY temperament. I have little patience and easily get in a right old pickle.
Some days I thank my lucky stars that I go out to work because staying at home all day would drive me nuts. Another person would love every minute of it.

I believe there is no way any child of mine could be placid even though my DH is so laid back he's practically dead.

The nice traits my children have are of course all down to ME, the more trying ones are just luck and not because I'm a slack parent. This is what helps me keep my sanity when I'm winding up the loo roll for the 20th time in a week.

I think as they get older it becomes more apparent which children come from good parents. Ask any teacher to tell you which child is read to every evening, which child gets enough sleep, which child doesn't watch 4 hrs of TV every night, which child has involved parents. Even at secondary school when the teachers don't know the parents as well, I bet they can make pretty good judgements about a childs home life.

Oh cripes....my 2YO still isn't sleeping through. I don't care though 'cos he joins me in bed and we cuddle. I'm not giving that up for anything :)

i'm going to sound so stupid here, but it's a genuine question - does parenting have any effect on a child's behaviour? i always thought it played a massive part, but having skimming through this thread it appears alot of posters thinks a child's personality is just down to nature.

i'm quite strict, i don't give in when DD throws tantrums, i read to her, i encourage sharing, i give her lots of attention and love so i'm hoping she'll grow up into a well behaved, balanced, lovely child. seriously, could this not be the case just because of her personality? (she's 18months old)

I think some of it's about perception. I always thought I had easy babies because they didn't cry, they were content and they went back to sleep straight after being fed at night.

But two of them fed A LOT and for some people this might make them DIFFICULT babies. Not for me though - I was happy to breastfeed on demand, sometimes dozens of times in a 24 hour period.

Bet some people would be driven mad by that.

JingleMum, parenting plays a big part in children's behaviour but I think that you have to work with the personalities that your DC have. That's harder with some children than with others. DD1 and DD3 are disciplined more in a week than DD2 is diciplined in a year! Just different personalities. My DDs are all well behaved, balanced, lovely children but it's been harder work parenting my 2 wilful DDs than my calmer, more amenable DD. DD1 and DD2 had much more potential to be horrible children than DD2, who would probably have been lovely regardless of my parenting style.