People who say 'we are quite chilled, so the baby is too'

[JammyRedRooo]

AIBU to find this incredible smug and annoying?

I'm fairly chilled - not massively so but not highly strung at all. My DH is practically horizontal he is so chilled. And our baby DD is still bloody high maintenance

So when a relative said this to me I wanted to scream that it doesn't work like that and they are just lucky but of course I nodded politely.

Do people with chilled out babies think those of us with non chilled out babies bring it on themselves?

Oh please. Colicky babies make stressed out parents, not the other way around.

Yes and no...

One person's chilled baby is another person's high needs baby, and what there are some on either end of the scale that almost everyone would agree are ready/difficult, there's a lot of subjectivity in how we view this.

I had a colicky baby, and I was not stressed. Weirdly perhaps, I didnt find colic stressful, just one of those annoying things that would eventually pass. But there are other things I find extremely stressful that others don't 🤷

Its like anything in life which is subjectively viewed. Two people miss the same train, one finds the disruption stressful, the other one shrugs and goes shopping. Neither person is 'better' but they view the same situation differently.

I dont think its unrealistic that someone who gets stressed easily in general will find having a baby more stressful than someone who is very laid back in life. I think the perception if how chilled a baby is, is more likely to be effected thsn in reality how chilled the baby is, if that makes sense.

This is the absolute worst.

@ohfook

I think it's the other way around. If the baby is chilled, you've got a chance that you might remain chilled out too. If the baby isn't, the lack of sleep may affect your ability to remain even tempered!

Me too, it's easy to be chilled when you have a chilled baby.

Oh people used to tell me all the time because me and my husband was so chilled out child was. In fairness they where the most chilled kid ever …. they now 3 and all my chilled child smugness has well and truly disappeared

@DustyMaiden

I do think babies pick up on tension. Your baby will be calmer if you are.

Only to a certain extent...

My baby was colicky and furious even when we were calmly trying to soothe him.

And the same baby was fabulously chilled even when I was having a nightmare of a day and feeling anxious.

Babies do pick up on mood, but a moment(s) of tension or stress aren't going to significantly alter personality... you'd be looking at a serious inability to meet needs over a long period of time/abuse to do that.

YADNBU!!
My first born was very colicky,barely slept I was at end of my tether as sleep deprived new mum and was frequently told by my mum and a few others of her generation that DD would be more relaxed if I wasn't stressed!! Sadly she didn't offer any practical help so I could sleep!

@Dutchesss

Fully on board with the execution. My first was a non sleeper and could not be put down. I used to put off going to the toilet for as long as I could so as to not start them off. I got all the advice under the sun and stupidly tried to follow it. My second was so different, slept and was happy to be put down. It was only then I realised that it hadn't been me doing it all wrong the first time.

I could have written your post, word for word. My second baby is so different that I actually feel as though I'm learning how to parent from scratch, because the concept of a baby who will sleep on their own is so alien to me (my first needed to be held or touched at all times, he'd have to be nestled into me when we co-slept and held/worn in a sling for naps with the unusual exception of an occasional pram or car nap). My second can actually be put down 'drowsy but awake' and go to sleep quite contentedly, rather than screaming hysterically. I now understand how all the mums I met at baby groups did all their cleaning/batch cooking/generally looked like they had their shit together. I honestly thought I was doing something wrong, but it turns out I just had a velcro baby! Mind you, aside from the 'velcro' side of things I'd say he was actually very content, happy, chilled and sociable... as long as someone was with him 🤣

People say this about my baby but I’m not chilled at all so I don’t know where they’re getting it from

If you were chilled you wouldn't be posting this on here so YABU

Apparently more demanding/higher maintenance/fussy babies are more intelligent. Just say that back to them.

'Oh really, you're so lucky! Apparently highly demanding babies are more intelligent - so at this rate I think we're looking at some sort of astrophysicist!" Then look at their baby, 'just so chilled out isn't he.....' haha!

But seriously for those who like to kick the boot in - who cares? Everyone's an expert eye roll

Imagine you're an episode of the Office - and the people saying these things are a David Brent sort - or pick another TV show like that, that makes you laugh. If it's your MIL imagine she's Hacinth Bucket from Keeping up Appearances, or Joanna Lumley in Ab Fab.

It works. You'll be laughing to yourself in no time! I'm not mad BTW, I was actually told to do this - when I feel challenged and I want to retaliate! It works.

Mine was/ still is pretty damn chilled as long as she was being held by/ in some form of physical contact with me at all times. 18 months of that later I am definitely not chilled, if I ever was (I wasn’t).

Spending time with relatives with a younger baby I was really amazed at how their baby would just lie in the Moses basket or pram quite happily, the mum would pop her down and then go get herself a drink or whatever, and baby would murmur away, maybe drift off to sleep. After DD I really hadn’t believed that babies actually did that in real life. And I didn’t respond well to said relatives implying it was because they were just so chilled about it all either. But then I know full well I’ve had my moments of being all ‘well what we did was XYZ’ about the things that DID go smoothly with DD, like weaning for example, like I’d discovered the secrets of the universe when in actual fact I just got a kid who loves her grub (and it could all still change at any moment). I do cringe when I realise I’ve been doing it - at the time I genuinely do mean to be helpful though!

My nephew is the most perfect, chilled out, content baby I have ever known. He is literally a dream baby. He is exactly like my sister was as a baby so it could perhaps be linked.
She is a fantastic mum to him and they both plod along so happily together. It’s lovely. I’m so happy for her that he’s the way he is as she is disabled and so it makes things easier for her. I adore him and we spend lots of time together.

My two were absolute whirlwinds, both diagnosed as Autistic now which answers everything. I have struggled so much with my children with very little/no support and have no doubt at all that my children have been worse when I, myself have been worse and struggling. My almost 12 and 8 year old are far harder to care for than her 10 month old. Obviously he could become a nightmare in time but I honestly can’t see it. He’s slept so brilliantly for months now and mine still don’t sleep through!

The thing to do to these kinds of people is to reply something about less chilled babies being related to intelligence 😬

@Kinko

You beat me to it (with a much better post, I might add). Yes to this!

With the benefit of 12 years of hindsight I am glad I had my sleep refuser first, precisely as it meant I didn’t indulge in this level of twattery. By the time my third came along and actually did what it said on the tin (slept through by 3 months, breastfed on a regular schedule, actually took a bottle occasionally, potty trained in a week etc) I was thoroughly disabused of the notion that it had much to do with me!

There was a woman in my NCT group who claimed this. Her first baby was perfect. So perfect she had no trouble breastfeeding, even though she was the only person ever to have had a C Section. So perfect she couldn't risk dropping him so for the first three months of his life she made her MIL come round every weekday morning to carry him downstairs. Us plebs who carried our own babies around just didn't love our babies as much as she loved her perfect baby. Then she had baby no 2 who screamed for 23 hours a day for the first 8 months of his life. I would have laughed but by then I lived next to her saintly MIL who would frequently baby sit Satan and so I got to hear the screaming

YANBU. My eldest had colic as a newborn and the amount of people that suggested he was picking up on my stress… I felt like screaming I’m stressed because my baby spends every waking moment screaming inconsolably you morons!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NOPE. Could not have been more chilled going into birth (because that's also a bugbear of mine, people who say we need to just relax and our 'bodies will take care of the rest' with birth). My birth plan was basically, whatever works, open to drugs but see how we go, baby at the end please. DS had other ideas and got horrendously stuck after 33 hours of Labour at the point of pushing, requiring a c section. No amount of lavender oil was getting him or me out of that situation.

DS continued to have other ideas. Incredibly poorly so was in NICU for a while so by the time we got him home I was maxed out on worrying about him and had returned back to being chill. Friends have vouched for my utter lack of PFBness Yet despite this DS was the most high needs cantankerous angry little demon baby for the first few months. Only resolved when he was able to sit up and start doing things for himself. He just really hated being a newborn and not able to control anything for himself. Fits his personality perfectly now he's 7.

DS2 by contrast was the most beneficent gorgeous placid little potato baby that you ever did see. Aged 6 now he's my most difficult and is ON IT at all times and will either destroy the house or me before he reaches 12 through one of his brilliant ideas. They all go through a dick stage

I had a baby with reflux, who would literally only stop crying if held upright, while I stood up and bounced him up and down in a very particular manner. And would only sleep for 45 mins at a time before waking to scream for at least an hour, day or night. I challenge anyone to still be f*ing "chilled" after a few months of that.

I mean, I'm not the most chilled person, but it wasn't my first child and I went in feeling pretty confident and relaxed about it. All the people who made comments to imply that somehow I brought it on myself by being stressed deserve a special place in hell.

(Still annoyed about it a decade later!)

@Giraffesandbottoms

The thing to do to these kinds of people is to reply something about less chilled babies being related to intelligence 😬

Haha great idea 🤣

Yeah... I am often described to people as "calm". My husband isn't a stressed out person. My son as a baby? High maintenance AF. Constant need to be held and the most piercing cry I've ever heard (and I work with children).

Op I translate this in my head to "we are quite judgemental of other people's children and parenting."
What are you going to say to people like this?

The next one along the timeline is "she speaks so well because we talked to her all the time;"
Then "she reads so well because we read together all the time."

Ooh, have we had:

'Our DC aren't fussy because we tend to feed them whatever we're having?'

yanbu
we thought that with dc1
with dc 2 we had to take it all back