High need baby support thread

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Does this sound like your baby?

1. Feeds frequently daytime
2. Feeds frequently nighttime
3. Needs to be constantly held
4. Wont sleep alone
5. Hates the car seat/pram
6. Short naps

If so - join the club! :)

Meant to say - arm punches/hugs/brews/alcohol to all those struggling.

Welcome christmastreebow! Wow, 2 HN babies. You deserve some sort of medal. It sounds like you did an excellent job with your DD, it's useful to hear survivor stories about frustrated little babies becoming happy, well adjusted toddlers. Makes me hope that I will eventually see some benefits of all this intensive, attachment parenting.

Congrats buttonmoon, so glad to hear its getting better. Know what you mean about jinxing it though! But sounds to me like you've turned a corner.

LWL - in answer to your question, my DS is incredibly clingy. He kicks off if someone even dares to look at him sometimes. Although he is fine with his daddy, in fact I think the little traitor prefers him to me. Except at night time, then only mummy and boobies will do. But no-one else is able to hold him unless they've been around him for several hours. He is such a diva!

Welcome christmastreebow!

Thanks for the answers to my question - and QueenKong my DD sometimes cries if people just look at her as well!

Ah well, DP has just come home so I've asked him to take her for 10mins as I have a splitting headache, but I can already hear her whinging.... :(

On the up side her sleeping has improved - get 3 hour stretches most nights now! :)

Glad it's not just my DS that does that LWL! He did it to a sweet old lady in the supermarket the other day. She had stopped for a coo, DS just stared her down for a couple of seconds then screamed. She scuttled off quickly, muttering something about having lots of grandchildren.

Welcome christmastreebow :)

You never know, perhaps things will be different with your newest, still very early days but I can understand you anxiety. I do hope we can offer some support here!

Thank you for your kind welcomes! Today I have cried more than I have in years. It all just seems such hard work and everyone sees him on the 2 minute school run asleep and says how beautiful, he is and how I must be sooo happy and I am just feeling so down about it. Not sure whether to go to the doctors really but it's not a case of me just being depressed it's the whole relentlessness and the knowing all the hard work ahead that reduces me to tears!

Ah love, have a hug. Listen, stop worrying about what might not be. Try and take each day at a time. I know it's easier said than done but you will get through it. You've done it before and, yes it was hard. But you did it! And you'll get through this. You will. X

Plus, you were a clueless first time parent last time (like me!) Now you will be so much more experienced and will have picked up lots of tips to help you cope.

Plus he's still so very little - I'm amazed you're even doing the school run yet tbh - all I was up to at 2 weeks was a very slow wobble down the road and back... :)

Welcome Bow :)

I have days where I feel exactly the same as you, have big hugs. I feel so clueless much of the time. Like today - DS was howling and I couldn't work out what to do - not hungry (screamed in the face of boob), tired, etc. Then I sat him in his swing just to get a break and he promptly had a massive bum explosion... Wish I was a mind reader... All up his back, it went...

We've started giving DS a bottle of EBM as his last feed before bed as he has been getting fussier and fussier on the boob :( Gives DS a chance to feed him though, and a more obvious window for me to express, so am feeling okay about it (although I miss the bedtime snugs).

Hah, that lasted long this evening... Decided he wanted bottle AND boob. Greedy little sausage :) Poor love is still very unsettled though, bless him.

Hello everyone!! . Been a while, just so busy over Christmas, and been doing full days at work, gradually moving to full time. The tiredness really kicks in after tea time, and I'm zonked by then!

I have caught up on all your posts, and welcome to Bow, you are in good company!
I suppose the one thing that really stood out to me, is I'm having the same issues with daytime naps. In the past few days, this is what I've done (roughly): i put ds to sleep in my arms and make a note of the time. I put him down and try to get some bits done. Coming up to the half hour mark, i listen out really closely for him to waken, and sure enough he does. If I get to him quickly, I scoop him up and can usually manage to get him to go back over, and when this happens, he'll sleep for another 2 hours!!!! If he does that once in the day, usually after his lunch, I'm happy and his other naps are 1/2 hr. Night time then usually starts about 7pm. Night sleeps are now much improved, wakens only once or twice most nights, usually for comfort rather than food.

Glad most of us seem to be finally getting somewhere with sleep, light at the end of the tunnel for others too

Anyhow, glad to be back, and hope your 2012 is full of health and happiness!!!

Hay Mampig! Great to hear from you - glad things are going well :)

YES - have one of those !!

ebf until 6 months - bf until 3.5 years (self-weaned). Was the most amazingly fussy baby and a bit of a nightmare toddler.

He woke up every hour for bf until 9 months old.

Rubblish sleeper, short day time naps, wanted to be held constantly until around 4 months or so, would only sleep in a car seat when constantly "jigged around", drove us crazy until he was 9 months old

BUT, has been sleeping 10 hours a night since 9 months old,
never had or has nightmares, never gets scared, never woke up or wakes up before 8 am (ah.....bliss !!)

Has turned out to be an incredibly intelligent, independent, humorous gorgeous boy (now 7.5 year old boy in year 3 at school). First day at nursery (around 3.5 years old) other children were crying/clinging to their parents, DS didn't even look back once, ran into the buidling never even looked at me once ! All that clinging to us as a baby obviously paid off later in life

Fussiness still exists, but only because he is a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to art (he is a very talented artist - this one is a genetic trait luckily it runs in the family). Art teachers are telling me he is doing drawings and has artistic imagination/ideas way above his age.

He was totally mis-understood, misread at school due to anxiety over things he was not able to do (again this is a trait commonly seen in intelligent children). School was telling us there was defo. something wrong with him, sent us to see doctors left right and centre, we persisted and insisted there wasn't.

Now the same school tells us they can't believe how he has "changed" since the end of year 1 - and agree with what I said all along: that whatever it was in reception/year was due to his very young age (he is one of the youngest in a group of 30) and his perfectionism - Aha !! I feel like showing them a rude finger sign and saying "I told you so" !

Have read numerous research over the years which says fussy babies/toddlers are often very intelligent and in some cases highly gifted : )

If you have a baby/toddler who fits this picture and is likely to be very young (a summer baby like DS) when they start primary, a word of caution. They may "misdiagonose" them with all sorts of things. Obviosuly it all depends on how nice and understanding the teachers/school enviornment is. Ours put us through hell and back, something I don't thank them for.

May be they all simply need to do their research as I have had to on fussy, but very clever children.

Hi everyone and welcome Bow

DS is incredibly clingy and fussy at the moment. I had put it down to teeth but he's absolutely fine if I'm holding him or he's doing something he wants to. He goes mental if I dare go on my laptop or use my phone when he wants my attention! I feel like he prefers my DP too QueenKong, he certainly gets all the smiles and giggles whereas I get the screaming and explosive-all-up-the-back nappies

I'm just trying to decide what to do about work. I can just afford to go back part-time, but it would mean using up my savings and prolonging my training. The more I think about it, the more full time makes sense, but I feel guilty about DS having to go into nursery fulltime (and I would hardly get to see him - leaving at 7.15 and getting back at 7).

On a more positive note, I'm the thinnest I've been for 2yrs, having lost almost 4 stone of baby weight plus a bit extra, thanks to DS wanting constant carrying/jiggling and me forgetting to eat because I'm entertaining him!

Hi BFactor and welcome - thank you for that lovely post - glad your little one is doing so well :)

An amusing afternoon here - tried a little BLW with our little man. Did some roasted carrot and parsnip for him to try. The look on his face when he eventually got some to his mouth He ended up giving it a good old suck though so it can't have been that bad.

He doesn't think much of his high hair yet though...

Oooh nice one Spanner!

And, of course, I meant DS doesn't think much of his high chair rather than high hair. He is working on his beehive though...

HI folks, havent' had time to read this whole thread (done pages 1 and 36!) but wanted to share my own experience of having a fairly HN baby up until about 6-7 months, when he chilled out considerably. I realise that won't be everyone's experience but a few months ago I never thought it would get easier, and it has Phew!

I could easily have ticked 5/6 of those for the first 4 months or so, and in fact he still only naps during the day on or next to me or DH, except on long car journeys when he dutifully nods off. I do get comments about the naps and wonder when we'll ever be able to put him down for a daytime sleep!

As a little baby he hardly slept during the day and was consequently very grisly the rest of it, only being settled by jigging or swaying STANDING UP (us not him!), no bouncing him or your knee or anything so restful. Hated his pram - don't think he enjoyed lying flat as he likes looking around. I really sympathise with those of you who are tired beyond belief, I hit 3 months and could barely function. (By 6 months he was still waking and crying about 4-5 times a night, mostly for a breastfeed). I carried him a lot in the sling and shed all my baby weight very quickly!

However now he generally sleeps through the night (we did do one or two nights of semi-controlled-crying once he was on 3 solid meals, I was very anti but gradual retreat ideas actually made him more distressed). He is really happy to play by himself and can often settle himself to sleep next to us rather than needing to be cuddled or jiggled. If he wakes up when we put him down in his cot at night, he just sucks his fingers and goes back to sleep. He's loving his food and just seems so much more settled than when he was newborn... almost the opposite!

Hope that gives you a bit of hope that some of those high needs will lower down at some point :-)

Hello agan ladies. Wow this thread is great. Red through it all and so many of your posts could have been written by me when I had DD! I can't believe it's been 5 years since then. Well 3 really as most of the high needs tendencies didn't fully calm down til she was 2. In fact car journeys were tricky til nearer 3 really, always required a lot of distractions and gadgets to keep her entertained.

Well DS is certainly giving DD a run for her money in terms of screaming! I find him so hard to read. With DD I knew as exhausting as it was that walking around with her, jiggling her, turning the extrator fan on and rocking her ec would work. This little guy it doesn't seem to matter what I do if he wants o scream, he will do and I am useless :-(

He is so young (15 days) I keep hoping he'll calm down and settle over the coming weeks but I just remember what a struggle it was last time and I have a feeling we're heading down he same path again!

Looby seriously don't worry about where your ds naps, even if it's on you. DD napped on us (after much rocking and walking around with her) til she was 2 and I loved it. I miss her beautiful face resting on my shoulder while I got to watch tv or read!

I'm so excited I have to share this - not only did DS sleep from 7pm-4.30am but when he woke up again at 6.30 I brought him into our bed and he fed then slept again until 8.30!!!!!

re: naps, I'm trying to get DS into the habit of napping at similar times everyday, and while we've progressed from him only napping on me, now I feed him to sleep in our bed (and sometimes have a nap with him, or I can sneak out and leave the monitor on) and he has 2 x 1.5hr naps per day like that. Eventually I'm hoping I'll be able to put him in his cot at naptime and he'll sleep, but I don't think I'll have cracked that by the time he starts nursery (in March). If we're in the car or he's in the pushchair at naptime he'll fall asleep so that's a start.

OK opinions needed and only mothers of high needs babies can understand this one I think....

I needed a break, so after an hour of in bed playing etc this morning after her 6am wake-up, DP came to take DD downstairs so I can lie in/shower/pull myself together.

I hear crying.... which escalates.... and carries on... and on. No idea how long it went on for but several minutes. Long enough for me to clean my teeth and get dressed. (5 minutes?)

Now normally I would rush downstairs and take over, but DP had said yesterday that it felt like I was checking up on him, so I left it.

Came downstairs just as he was settling her into the ring sling, and she stopped crying.

It turned out that she had wanted to be held (well Duh!) but he wanted to do other things so needed the sling, which he said needed re-threading. So apparently he stood over her re-threading the sling while she hysterically cried.

Now if it had been me I would have sod the sling at that point and picked her up. But not DP. And now I'm Unreasonable for suggesting he should have (all I said was "well, if it had been me I would have just picked her up and sorted the sling out later").

So... verdicts please?

Hey Spanner - that's brilliant! :)

I would be exactly the same as you LWL! YANBU at all.

My DP keeps complaining that he doesn't see enough of DS because of work, so at weekends I take the opportunity to have a nice long shower and usually come downstairs to see DS screaming, abandoned on his playmat and DP sat on the sofa watching TV , to be told that DS just wants to be carried and his arms were hurting! I wouldn't be able to hear the TV over DS's screaming but somehow he manages it!

Is it a man thing? Her needs come first instantly to me....

Man thing- my dh same and get this, excuses it by saying "he needs to cry every now and again"