To think that you can have an ‘easier’ baby if you do the right things?

[isthisunfairth]

I know that some babies quite literally scream and scream. Some have reflux etc and there are reasons why they are harder to look after.

But AIBU to think some people just don’t do what works? I have a close friend who won’t allow her baby to cry at all in their cot. I get it, but obviously that means the baby won’t self settle. That’s her choice. By the time the baby was two, they had a sleep consultant as the marriage was almost broken and hey presto, leaving to cry for a minute then going back in - literally - over three nights solved things. This could have been done from day one, not two years later.

Food… my child won’t eat X. If that’s all that’s on offer first thing in the morning when most hungry, then they will eat it. You have to persevere, surely?

My baby won’t be put down… they might not like it but they can be put down? AIBU to think this approach just feeds into the baby feeling a bit out of control as the parent is literally doing what they want even if it’s not best overall?

I am by NO means a perfect parent and I am genuinely interested in what people think to this. But I have noticed that people have different approaches to their babies obviously, and sometimes I do think problems are made by the parents. AIBU?!

What research has tended to show is that some babies are inherently capable of ‘self soothing’ behaviours (thumb sucking / rocking / drifting off) which mean they can happily be left to fall asleep without support.

Other babies don’t have this personality trait and need supported to sleep.

What you can’t do is teach a baby who isn’t inherently capable of drifting off without support to do so by leaving them alone when they express distress. Ignoring their distress doesn’t magically turn them into the type of baby who can sleep without support. It just teaches them that expressions of distress don’t work.

For babies who are happy to be left alone to fall asleep there is, of course, no harm in doing so. For babies who find this distressing, not responding to their distress doesn’t make it magically vanish.

I agree with this.

I'm not saying ADHD is caused by trauma, I'm sure it's more complicated than that and there may be genetic factors.

I couldn't finish the video though because the guy 's definition of trauma is way off. Gabor Mate may indeed be wrong about the causes of ADHD but he does a lot to work with trauma and there's no way he would define it by anything than the correct clinical criteria. Also the video guy is missing the point; experiencing or witnessing violence in childhood certainly is a major cause of trauma but so is ongoing verbal or emotional abuse or neglect, sometimes it's subtle. But no way is it just a one time insult and saying so is very belittling of those of us who did experience actual CPTSD from childhood abuse. There is a huge spectrum of complex trauma and it isn't always physical violence. I

Although I'm pretty sure the posters on here with ADHD are likely to be loving parents who aren't abusive in the slightest, it has to be said that if they were toxic it is pretty common for abusive parents not to see what they are doing as abuse especially if it isn't something one beating or starving the child. My physically verbally and sometimes even sexually abusive father would have said I had a wonderful childhood with no actual trauma. As a matter of fact I was terrified of him and attempted suicide to escape him as a teenager. More than once.

Yes the definition of trauma is dismissive, he is retired and wasn't a trauma specialist anyway so his understanding of current trauma research is probably out of date.

However it's still true that Gabor Maté's claims about the causes of ADHD have been disproven many times. It is genetic, not caused, except for some cases associated with birth hypoxia and brain injury (which are not necessarily related to emotional trauma).

It's true that there is a large correlation between having ADHD and experiencing childhood ACEs and trauma. In fact, having ADHD is highly predictive of traumatic experiences, but the causation is the other way around - as explained in the video, children's behaviour with ADHD tends to cause parents to react in unhelpful ways, this might make the behaviour worse, but it's not causing the ADHD, because the ADHD was already present. Also, many children with ADHD have parents with ADHD and yes, you're absolutely right, statistically adults with ADHD are more likely to struggle with things that tend to be crucial in parenting (which doesn't mean that all parents with ADHD are bad or that parents with ADHD can't be good parents). So again yes you will quite commonly find that people with ADHD have traumatic memories of childhood or difficult relationships with their parents. By the way, there are other experts who recognise this distinction and recognise that people with ADHD, especially undiagnosed/untreated until adulthood are likely to be carrying unresolved trauma which it would help to address. But they aren't saying this is the sole cause of ADHD, nor that if you address the trauma the ADHD will magically go away (which is what Dr. Maté claims).

Some of the symptoms of ADHD and some of the symptoms of PTSD and c-PTSD overlap, so it's quite possible that there are people who have been misdiagnosed and told "You have ADHD" when they are actually suffering from the after effects of trauma. But that is not ADHD caused by trauma, that's just misdiagnosis. If Gabor Maté was saying this then I'd be totally behind him, but he's not saying this at all, he makes the same claim about various mental health disorders, that the root cause is trauma, when this is highly unlikely to be the case.

@BertieBottsspot on analysis there. I think being misunderstood due to having a disability which causes your parents, teachers or peers to bully/misunderstand/reject you as a child due to having ADHD or autism would definitely cause a secondary CPTSD to develop, it's that way round.

Yes exactly. And it is important to understand the distinction.

There is so much stigma about neurodevelopmental conditions like ADHD and I don't really understand why - if there can be disorders in other organs then why not the brain? But people are determined to explain it away or make out that it's not real, just an excuse etc and I find that very frustrating.

Trauma exists and ADHD exists and they can co-exist together, but they are different things with different causes and effects.

So leaving your baby to cry is the ‘right’ thing? OK then.

I had four easy babies. My first was hardest as I was on a steep learning curve but I read a brilliant sleep book just off a magazine when I was pregnant with my second which talked about core nights and core sleep times that helped me identify when it would be easiest to put my baby down so they were ready to self settle. It worked amazingly for mine.

I now work in a nursery and I have seen so many difficult children. Some of which can be helped by parents making changes but quite often it is just the child’s personality.

I think you do whatever you need to survive. With my eldest I could cater wholly to her needs as she was my first, when her brother unexpectedly came along things changed. I needed him to sleep so did whatever I could to get him down for a nap so I could sort out my eldest. Rocking him worked for me when he was little but it became a habit and was very hard to break. He had colic for the first few months and that was hard with 2 under 2.

My third child eats well and has slept through from 3 months. This time I have been more consistent in putting her down for all naps in her next to me crib. Instead of rocking her to sleep I put her down drowsy as I had to sort out one of my other kids, came back and she was asleep this scenario happened again and then i just started to do this. If she cried I would go to her and comfort her but she just didn't. She did have reflux and that was upsetting and a difficult time but I just took it on my stride as had other kids to deal with. Dirty clothes got soaked in a tub and then stuck in the washing machine when she napped. We play together lots but equally I have a house to clean and meals to cook so she gets set up with her toys whilst I do that. Her eating well is down to her. The only thing I did was allow her anything she wanted off my plate when she was 6 months, she seems to eat a variety of things compared to her siblings at this age. Doesn't mean she won't grow up to be fussy but at 2 she is doing well. She feeds herself but she took well to this whereas dc1 had gross and fine motor issues so it took her much longer.

Dc3 is a relaxed baby but dh and I were more chilled parents this time around and took things in out stride. I've finally gotten over having showhouse standards and would sit and smother her in kisses when she was a baby instead and just soak up her cuddles. I don't know if this has contributed to her being the way she is or vice versa.

All kids are different, instead of judgement maybe it's better to appreciate others are just doing what they need to to get through the day.

I had a lot of 'you have to nip this in the bud, don't let it become a habit' type comments.

Generally I took the view that it wouldn't last forever. He started sleeping in his own room at 9, though he still needs me with him to go to sleep, but now he's taking melatonin that takes nowhere near as long.

When DD was a few weeks old PIL came round.
DD wanted to be held/carried all the time and cried when we put her in the pram or laid he down.
MIL insisted we were making a rod for our own back (she had 4 children and 7 GC) and took DD. She put her in the pram, DD of course screamed, then MIL spoke very sternly and said "that's enough now, quiet now" . I was amazed as a new mum - was it really that easy...? DD stopped crying - for about a nano second - and then resumed screaming! MIL was seemed quite surprised!
She either had forgotten what newborns were like or had more placid babies (or left them to cry)
My parents were amazed at how content my DC were when they were babies - they said they only remembered screaming when me and siblings were babies. They were advised to feed every 4 hours so feeding on demand was new to them.

I don't know many people who've had several "easy" babies or several "difficult" babies - siblings vary quite a lot. That suggests that parental behaviour isn't the major determining factor in most cases.