High needs babies

[Countryside14]

Hi Everyone,

I have a 14 week old baby girl. The first 5 weeks were easy. She slept and eat all the time anywhere, we had no problems. Then things changed. She became more demanding. Always wants to be held, doesn't like being left for long. Doesnt like playing with toys for long. Has to be moving all the time. Seems to get bored easily and will not sleep longer than 45 mins on her own.

At night she's not seemed too bad at all I took now. Where she'll scream for literally hours! Tonight it was 4 hours. She has to be with me to sleep it seems.

I didn't some research and it seems she's a high needs baby. Has anyone else had experience with this? I'd be greatful for advice or supper as I'm stating to feel so low about it. I'm exhausted with no time to do anything else :(

[rosemarytwinkle]

I also have a high needs baby, she is my second so I can see the difference from my first (who, at the time, I thought was quite demanding!) It is definitely not something you can fight. My dd is 9 months now, she is very active and did things like roll, sit, crawl very early, it's like she wants to get on to the next thing all the time.

She will sometimes play by herself if I am close by but when I try to do housework or anything like that she follows me around crying at me until I pick her up, then she immediately goes for the breast. It is really exhausting. She is very adventurous and will try to climb or grab or get into everything.

I hardly ever take a shower as the only place I can safely contain her is her cot (which she hardly ever sleeps in) and then she goes into such a massively dramatic meltdown I end up having to be as quick as I can and then picking her up when I am still half wet to soothe her!!

She co-sleeps at night and many of her naps are in the sling or on me or dh. Sometimes I manage to put her in the cot for a couple of hours at the beginning of the night or the odd nap (but that doesn't last long at all!)

It's hard on my toddler as she demands so much attention. I am back at work soon and she will be in nursery so god knows how that will go. I am starting her settling in period next week. She does tend to be happier when surrounded by activity/ other children so I am hoping that she will actually be better in that environment than one to one with me.