to wonder if some unputdownable babies are made not born that way?

[aamia]

I'm in no doubt that some of them have constantly uncomfy tummies or other problems that drive them to need soothing 24/7. However, are they all like that? I only wonder because DS is very put downable for me - I have popped him in his moses basket and left him there while doing chores (within sight/sound) since the beginning, and after an initial few days of crying when left then realising that I wasn't coming back unless there was actually a problem, he has been fine. Now he only cries if hungry/dirty nappy/cold/tummy hurts. Fair enough, and I'm very happy to attend to those asap! He gets plenty of time being carried too, when I do the horses or we're out and about. Now with DH, there is an element of the fact that DH can't bear to see him cry at all, so will hold him the entire time and just not put him down. As a result, he cries much more when DH has him, and DH gets nothing else done at all!

So I'm wondering - do some babies never get put down in the early days, and then can't cope with the idea, rather than there being anything actually wrong? Or is that an unreasonable thing to think?

Hahaha. Aamia, you really are completely deluded! You have not taught your baby to wait. You just gave birth to a baby that could wait.

DC1 was putdownable (though also very cuddly!), DC2 wasn't. DC2 was just really uncomfortable on her back, I don't know if it was reflux, it didn't seem to be. It just seemed to be a matter of her personal comfort.

wy does it matter?

each to their own style of parenting.

I suppose it matters if you are wondering if you are doing things right e.g. whether you should leave your child for longer on their back in a cot, or whether you should go to your GP for reflux checks, or maybe to a cranial osteopath, or whether you should be researching slings. I think it's a useful discussion in those respects.

I have four children, all four of whom were "put-downable". However, my third was not "lie-downable". By that I mean she would be put down but only if she was propped up so that she could see all around her. She would NOT lie flat when awake. Bear in mind that she was born at a time where babies were put down on their side, usually with a rolled up towel or blanket to keep them in that position - so her line of vision wasn't exactly exciting! It turned out that she was a bit of a smarty pants - she was tying shoelaces at two years old and used to help her nursery teacher tie the other children's laces. I think she was just the type who needed extra stimulation.

My first-born I rarely put down, through my choice; I literally carried her around for hours - talking to her, showing her her image in the mirror, singing etc. Rather than making her clingy it actually did the opposite i.e. when I needed to put her down to make dinner etc she would go down no problem and have a nap or play happily on the floor. She probably needed a break and some chill-out time!

I was very lucky in that all four of my children were good sleepers, sleeping from seven until seven by the time they were ten-twelve weeks old. I put them in their cots and they put themselves to sleep. I did this from newborn - no rocking to sleep. No crying though or I wouldn't have done that. I just don't like leaving babies to cry!

aamia in answer to your questions.
Cook - I adapted what I cooked or batch cooked when dp could hold the baby (or he cooked for me).
Showered - only when dp was home.
Drive - I was lucky that dd would sleep in the car, of course I used a car seat.
Large animals - we don't have any, I took dd with me to feed ducks, rabbits, rats and dogs.
Toilet - dd came too.
Ironing - didn't bother.
Eat hot food - I let things cool a bit before eating over her.

f you had needed to, I bet you would have developed coping strategies like these too. It's great that your baby's so relaxed, but it isn't a reason to lord it over parents who had a more difficult time.

Ds and dd have the same cold. Dd is three months old. She coughs a bit, sounds like darth cadet and has snot coming out of her nose. Other than that you wouldn't notice. She is smily happy calm and self reliant as always. She sleep fine last night. Woke up twice for normal feeds and went back to sleep ten mins later.

Ds is three. He can talk fine. He woke up every couple of hours last noght screaming inconsolably for half an hour each time, the only audible word,"medicine". Thrashing around, sitting as ontop of me as possible and screaming so much that he throws up. This morning I'm wrecked ( I have the cold too and have had no sleep), he's obviously feeling better, up at 6, bouncing on me, poking , hitting, trashing bedroom. Hitting his sister in the face, who just smiles at him.

If ds had had this cold as a baby I would have been camped out in a steamy bathroom with my tits out rocking and cuddling a screaming baby for days.

They are like night and day, I really don't think I treated them dufferently. Dd has been a revelation as before she came along I thought that prams, baby gyms, bouncy chairs etc were all useless inventions that babies hated. Ds would never be put down with screaming so much he threw up. He's still the same now, i still can't shower without him. While DD lies happily cooing on bathroom floor watching us.

I get really annoyed when people suggest that it's a second baby thing or that DS is only the way he is because I wouldn't put him down. How do you put down and leave a baby who instantly turns bright red and rigid and screams do hard he throws up?

YABU. You have a sample size of 1. That's not very conclusive...

DD was a Velcro baby until around 14 months. Before that I couldn't even pee in peace. Then one day she suddenly didn't mind.

DS1 was treated no differently, carried in a sling just as much, yet by 4mo was crawling away, without so much as a backward glance.

DS2, again, treated the same, yet even at 4.5yo was still so attached to me that he would grip the pockets of my trousers so hard that he would pull them off. He is now fine to be away from me at almost 9yo, he finally detached when he started school!

DS3, he has never really been clingy at all.

So with my sample size of 4, all brought up the same, two were clingy, two weren't, and nothing was done differently with them. Two were just high needs. Have to say, it's the two with SN's that were the clingy two, don't know how much that had to do with it?

No, co-sleeping is not linke to an increase in SIDS. It is linked to an increase in suffocation/overheating and other explainable deaths. SIDS is unexplainable - the baby simply stops breathing, and there is in fact research to suggest that co-sleeping reduces its incidence because proximity to a parent is believed to help a child to regulate its breathing.

I know this is off topic but I hate seeing this particular bit of misinterpretation of the research repeated.

Oh, I see. So basically OP you have 'taught' your small baby to be the way he is. Right oh. And you wonder why other people can't do the same.

You should have been more upfront about your smugness in your original post. I wouldn't have wasted time with a sensible reply.

I've had one of each so I don't think I particularly made them. My mother had 4 children: one didn't like physical contact at all, one was moderately physical, two were clingy. Luck of the draw imho. But 50 years later you can still see the personality traits that decided which was which.

I've been lucky like you too op. I'm not sure I will be next time.

I'm not taking credit for training her..

Read on here recently about a American mummy blogger who sounded a bit like OP. except she built a blog on her delusions that she'd trained her baby to be content, even had a name for her routine/ approach and sold little diaries and things to use with it.

She wrote an apology blog when her second child made her realise that she'd just been lucky.

Anyone remember it?

Found it styleberryblog.com/project-52-twenty-eight

DS1 was v put-downable. I was insufferably smug.

Then I had DS2. Oh dear god.

Now, as teenagers they are pretty much still the same.

DS1 very self-sufficient. Happy in his own company.

DS2? Follows you round the house. Or the house is full of his large gaggle of friends. Very sociable. Needs company.

Nature not nurture I reckon.

I say pick them all up. Sometimes it's the ones who don't demand that need attention the most.

Ditziness. That is hilarious!

"I say pick them all up. Sometimes it's the ones who don't demand that need attention most."

Merrylegs, that's just a really good thought - we seem so often to decide babies are 'good' for being easy to leave alone, sleep on their own, and 'bad' for wanting us. It doesn't seem right to me.

I am hooting with laughter at the mommy blogger, but good on her for admitting she'd got the wrong end of the stick first time round.

I'm not sure it's "lucky" to have put-downables. It tends to lull you into a ghastly sense of smuggity.

My sister had 4 dc, three easy-as-pie and one workout kid. She always talks of the workout kid as the child who saved her from being insufferable, and for teaching her how it is for so many others. "Thank god for him else I'd never have understood."

A workout kid! I love that expression. From now on, I'll think of dd when a baby as my "workout kid". And boy, am I fit .

Benji, if you're "interested to know how many unputdownable babies were first borns", you could - mad suggestion - read the thread?

I'll make the first bit of data easy for you. Mine was a second born.

Of the two others I encountered in real life, one was her Mum's firstborn (Dad's second), and the other was a third child.

Anecdotal, yes - but still twice as scientific as the original OP.

some babies are going to difficult whatever you do.

some parents are going to make their baby difficult even if it is totally placid.

most lie somewhere between. any parent deserves sympathy when their baby won't settle - we all know how awful that is.

i don't think letting your baby meep a bit after you have put it down fed and clean is 'teaching them to cry' - also i think you don't have to jump to it when it cries for real : finishing what you are doing, getting a cuppa, the remote and laptop in reach and then picking them up and feeding all works out better for me.

Interesting question OP. My DS was unputdownable and, yes, we jumped to attention at every wimper. But DS spent his first 4 weeks in hospital (prem). I overheard the nurses complain that DS was forever crying out and needed picking up and saying he would be a handful! These are nurses that often have four or five other charges to feed, change etc so if baby cries for comfort they aren't neccessarily attended to straight away. So I've always reasoned DS was born that way. Will test theory in five months time .

My friend says babies hate being put down (in general) because in our evolutionary past predators were on the prowl for tasty baby humans to eat. So babies cry for protection - better off in mum's arms than down the neck of a lion. Perhaps some babies are more in touch with their evolutionary past . Perhaps we should be asking: why are some babies putdownable?

I have twins. From birth one was putdownable and the other not. They both are putdownable now, most of the time but not always. Babies will be who they are :)

Just read the link about high needs babies - my first born to a tee and how it affected me. No 2 was the opposite, slept in his cot, didn't crave too much contact, happy on his own for periods. Could be the way I handled them but think there's more to it than just nurture.