Leaving high needs baby to cry?

[Jadefeather7]

Any parents of high needs baby have any advice on how to stay sane? My 7 week old will scream the house down unless he is picked up about 80% of the time. I try to hold him as much as I can but sometimes I need to go to the loo, have something to eat, wash and sterilise his bottles or put him in the car seat so I can go to my mums and hand him over to her for a bit. Is it ok to leave him screaming for 5-10-20 mins? I put him in the sling every day for about two hours so I can get stuff done but other than that I don’t get much respite because he wants me to be constantly holding him and often will kick and headbutt me until I walk around with him. I wish there was something that could be done but all the reading I’ve done suggests there isn’t much, so my question is it ok for him to cry or am I doing damage to him by letting him cry?

@irecite I am one of those people. It IS possible but it is rubbish. To be quite honest I would have left him to cry if I could bear it. But seriously, I can't stand the sound. Hearing him crying DOES something to me! I don't know if it's that he has a very demanding cry (it does sound louder and more urgent than other babies... at least to me it does) or if its just me. But it affects me to hear him cry and i just feel this need to stop it as soon as possible so that always takes priority over everything else. He is so so much better now he's older and cries much less but when he does I still feel some of that sense of needing to stop him crying. Less than I did though and these days it's more whinging and whining than crying, which I can deal with in short bursts. Does anyone else feel lile their baby's cry kind of hurts them? I thought it was normal but perhaps not! Anyway that's the main reason I could never leave him to cry. I actually wish I could but just can't do it to him/myself.

My first baby is 1 week old and I’m also mystified how it’s possible not to ever leave her to cry. She’s had multi-hour crying jags during the night when nothing helps - holding, rocking, walking, music, burping, tummy rubs... she’s fed, clean and dry and being comforted, and there’s no sign of a medical issue - so it’s not that we ‘let her’ cry, there’s just nothing we can do to stop it for more than 30 seconds. She’s going to cry whether i walk with her or not, and I can only do that for so long before my stitches play up. Lying next to the Moses basket with a hand on her tummy so she doesn’t feel completely abandoned seems a reasonable way to at least get some rest I think and avoid accidentally falling asleep on the sofa with her?

@ArgyllFTM Sounds reasonable to me! All I can tell you is that my happy, secure 2 year-old seems unscathed by the fact that I occasionally had to put her down (I had to shower after going to the loo to avoid another infection and she hated being put in the sling so practicality had to intervene). It was nothing to do with not finding her cry distressing (yes, @surreygirl1987, all babies' cries sound urgent to their mothers, you are entirely normal and average in this respect), and of course my immediate instinct on hearing her cry was a rather panicked rush to try to solve it - that's evolution for you. But a few minutes delay doesn't cancel out all the other time you spend cuddling and comforting the baby. Otherwise there would be an epidemic of psychologically-damaged 2nd and 3rd children. Babies need caring, responsive parenting , not 100% perfect parenting.

I feel really strongly about this because I remember how much the 'Oh, I never let them cry for more than a minute' messages drove me crazy as a new mother and made me feel anxious and inadequate when there was no need at all.

Feeling a bit bad that my earlier post may have given the wrong impression.... I’m not a fan of “leaving them to cry for long”. That doesn’t mean I think that they will definitely stop crying just because you hold them, or that you should never ever put them down if they are crying. If you need to put them down, put them down for a moment. If you are holding them, but they don’t stop crying, you don’t have to feel like you have to pace around all the time to comfort them. Sitting and holding them will still comfort them and let them know you are there, even if they don’t stop crying straight away (or for quite a while!)

It will get easier. The first 3 months can be HARD with some babies. I used to feel so inadequate going out with NCT group when some of their tiny ones would just FALL ASLEEP. With no effort. Of their own accord. It seemed like witchcraft to me! Hang in there OP. It does get better.

Hahaha @crazychemist I totally know what you mean about the NCT witchcraft!!

Argyll I'm sure you're doing a great job. DO you have much support? At 1 week all I did was feed DD (BF). DH did absolutely everything else on his 3 weeks of paternity leave. I had an episiotomy which was super painful for me and I could barely walk at 1 week PP. Definitely was doing no pacing around with her at that stage. It all gets better though. DD screamed whether she was being held or not. At 1 she still often does especially if overtired, unwell, teething, or has wind or constipation. Sometimes DH and I just need to take turns holding her and periodically re-offering her dummy til she exhausts herself, really. It doesn't get any less upsetting or grim I'm afraid. But it is much, much less frequent, so that makes it easier overral. And we get so much rewarding from her now, she scoots over to us, cuddles us, babbles at us, etc. Which makes it all much easier to deal with and just a generally more pleasant experience of parenthood!

@MeadowHay - My husband has been an absolute hero looking after both of us - I had a traumatic delivery so I was a bit of an emotional wreck for the first few days, as well as in pain from a tear and a lot of bruising and swelling. He’s definitely needing to be in pacing duty! Breastfeeding didn’t work out so we can share feeds which is making a big difference, and the other night when she was inconsolable he took over completely in the early hours and sent me to the back bedroom for five hours uninterrupted sleep which was bliss.
We also, on my mums advice, started giving her a dummy (I’m not sure why I had a vague feeling we were supposed to wait til she’s older but I think that’s just if breastfeeding) which sometimes works a treat.

Glad that your DH is doing his job properly. Yes I didn't BF for long and we started doing odd bottle of EBM at 2 weeks so I could do a longer stint of sleep now and then but tbh DD was a decent sleeper as a newborn, she always did one four hour stretch from birth, so we had it quite good on that front when she was a newborn compared to most. She was a screamer but slept ok for the most part, it was like she exhausted herself from the day as she hardly slept in the daytime compared to most other babies. So at least we would generally get some rest. She goes through phases where she sleeps badly but then they all do I think? If you ever want to talk, I was in a similar position a year ago to you so DM me any time. It can be so rough, my mental health was really bad the first 7 months or so, looking back I can't believe I didn't receive more intervention from HV etc as I was quite open about how I was feeling! Things are much better for me now though. Tbh returning to work when she was 9 months old really helped me and I think nursery has really helped DD too so that has been a win win. Dummy is fine, they usually say to wait around 6 weeks if you're BF so that you can build supply without the dummy interfering, but you're not BF so that's no issue. And lots of BF babies have dummies before then. DD had one occasionally from being about 2 weeks old and was using it more frequently by about 4-6 weeks and I didn't have any problems withy supply or anything anyway. Now at 1 she mostly just has her dummy for sleep or nappy changes (she screams blue murder at changes otherwise!)