Arguing in front of baby

[happyhopefulmummy]

Can shouting and arguing in front of a 10 month old baby damage their brain development? Will it have long lasting, negative effects if the arguing stops when they become able to talk? Walk? Go to nursery? Have their 1st birtday? Would arguing damage a 2 month old?

Regardless of whether it affects your baby it's worth working on for you/your relationship. Sorry - I know that isn't what you asked, but I feel concerned that the kind of thing you describe could be related to stress, depression or anxiety and I think it would be useful to acknowledge if so.

Someone asked above if we'd consider relationship
Counselling - we are having this, but not purely for rows. I feel a
General Sense of dissatisfaction which I find uncomfortable because it doesn't support my Feelings of love and contentment that I also feel for my DH. Now I can type that out, but if I try and explain it, it
Becomes: "you've spilt tea on the sofa. I hate you and I'm
Leaving you." (I've paraphrased massively, but that's how it starts and ends.) I love my husband and baby so much, but there Re issues there that I Know we have to Work on. I just don't want our "working on it" to damage our baby.

It sounds to me like you might either be depressed, or unhappy in your relationship. I know that when I go through down patches (which can last weeks/months) or even hormonal days like having PMT - I can be quite mean to DP and really have to catch myself, even though we have a healthy relationship, I'm happy with him, and I know he will respond well if I try to talk to him calmly.

I've just recently had some blood tests to see if my feelings of depression are related to any kind of medical issue on my doctor's suggestion - these are things like anaemia, vitamin D deficiency and thyroid issues. The deficiencies (especially anaemia) can be brought on by and kept around by childbirth and breastfeeding, even some time afterwards.

I think that it would be helpful for you to identify if this is a communication issue with your partner (ie, you feel you have no alternative but to shout and scream, and it's only happening with him, or you have a general feeling of irritation/dissatisfaction with him for other reasons) or a personal issue (you feel stressed like this in other situations too, you know he would talk calmly if you tried and you don't know why you end up escalating things) then hopefully you'll feel clearer about where you need to go from here.

Good luck :) I hope you can find a way through from this.

I'd say that it's probably best avoided; certainly my 5mo dd cries and gets upset if there are exchanges that she thinks might be threatening - she has no way of knowing that they don't involve her - they form her environment. But at the same time, it's probably inevitable to some degree, especially if you have more than one child (who hasn't ended up speaking sharply to /shouting at the 3 year old in order to prevent some worse calamity occurring).

If he is mostly happy, secure and loved, then there's probably no need to worry unduly (I worry a lot about dd1 who spent a lot of her babyhood chronically over-tired and over-stimulated)

I don't think I'm depressed...my DH says he is depressed though.

Honestly, I think when you have a small baby you can be exhausted, depressed, it tests your relationship to the limits. To not shout ever, in front of (rather than at) children seems a little unrealistic in my eyes. It certainly doesn't rate in my mind as the sin of the century nor as 'abuse'.

I was devastated when I had my first proper argument in front of my first baby. But golly gosh, that was a long time ago.

I have a baby and two wonderfully emotionally balanced children, whom I couldn't be prouder or happier of.

Sometimes, when I am under a lot of stress, I shout and argue with their dad. But mostly, they live in a warm loving home. I don't think 'shouting' and 'arguing' and a 'warm loving home' are mutually exclusive.

I think Bertie botts have given some really good advice.

first I'd do as other posters have suggested and look into potential health issues- it's amazing how they can affect how you handle personal relationships

then maybe think about if there is some way that you can turn this into a positive, not so much "oh dear, we've damaging the baby" as "we're going to think about how we handle conflict resolution so we can pass that skill onto him"

imo it is one of the great things we can pass onto our children, how you handle disagreement

if you start working on it now, thinking through a few strategies, you'll have tested which ones work by the time he is old enough to have it explained to him

it's not about never losing your temper- that wouldn't be a very useful learning experience for him- but about being able to lose your temper without doing too much damage