How much arguing damages baby's emotional state?

[Mazarati]

We have a beautiful 5 month old son who unfortunately has never slept well, so even now I'm up every hour feeding him back to sleep. This has been a challenge for mine and my partners relationship from day 1. The pressures of first time parenting anxieties and severe sleep depravation have created a perfect storm for arguments.

As a result we have argued in front of the baby quite a few times. A lot of heated words and a handful of shouting arguments.

Our health visitor has told us that any arguing in front of him will damage him emotionally in the long term.

Now 5 months down the line, the HV is now partly blaming his terrible sleeping on the arguments and anxiety we've had. This has upset me so badly to think I've contributed to his harm. And the pressure of 'no arguing' is causing so much added stress and thus more arguing. And now believing that we've caused him harm is adding to the stress even more, thus more arguing.

Our son is a very happy smiley boy and is advancing very well for his age. His only problem is sleep as he needs me to feed him to sleep every hour and preferably to stay on the nipple to stay asleep.

What is like to know is how much damage do you think we would have caused for him so far and is it reversible?

I wouldn't say our relationship isn't toxic as we have so many laughs and fun and there's no domestic abuse. We just argue with the stresses of a new baby.

Thanks in advance

Will he take a dummy? At 9 months I managed to get DC2 to take one (despite being opposed to them and DC1 not having one) and we were all much happier.

If he spits it out, persevere. It took us a few goes, but meant a stretch of 6 hours sleep.

If you’re not getting any sleep, everything will seem worse

Now 5 months down the line, the HV is now partly blaming his terrible sleeping on the arguments and anxiety we've had.

Well, it’s certainly easier for her to say that than to try to give you any practical advice or support

Your health visitor is being ridiculous. Your baby sleeps badly because he’s five months old. He isn’t emotionally damaged and it’s not your fault he prefers to sleep on you. Of course he does! You’re warm, he knows your smell, he feels secure with you.

There are lots of gentle ways you can break his sleep association with you but it takes time and what you’re going through is hard but quite normal.

As regards to arguments, all couples argue. I think it’s important to model for children that arguments can be dealt with as maturely as possible and that it’s possible to make amends with each other and come back together afterwards. It’s not realistic to tell two stressed, sleep-deprived, first-time parents that they should never argue. This is real life not a fairytale.

Please ignore your loony, judgemental health visitor.

Forget what the HV said. Mine were rubbish sleepers and went through phases of waking every hour. I ended up co-sleeping with mine to get some sleep. It's tough and takes its toll on most relationships! Take the pressure off yourselves, dont worry about the arguments and do what you can to make things easier for everyone. It does get better.

I’m afraid he doesn’t souls like a terrible sleeper- he sounds like a 5 month old baby! Loads of babies aren’t anything like sleeping through at this age. Ignore the HV. Take the pressure off you both, do whatever gets the most sleep for the most people (probably co sleeping) and give it a couple of months.

Difficult to say, depends partly on genetic temperament, some kids are not affected too much, those more sensitive can be badly affected. When you argue in front of kids it can scare them, and so a more active fight or flight response can be built into their neural pathways, which is likely to make them more sensitive for life - it happens in the limbic / emotional part of the brain, not easily changed through rational thought later, especially the neural pathways set down in the first two or three years of life. There may be other things that stop a baby sleeping, but being on high alert all the time is one of them.

Long time since mine were that age but really don't think he will be emotionally damaged at 5 months.

Can you change health visitor? She sounds very judgemental and unhelpful but a good health visitor can give good tips. He might be teething and in pain - we used to use teething gel and when really bad calpol. I used to feed one of mine to get him to settle but its probably best to try and see if can find another way to settle him in the night like a dummy or rubbing his back. I used to co-sleep with my DS but that causes its own issues though I loved it.

Hope you can find something that helps. It does get easier as they get older and hopefully things will improve with your DH.

I would see if you can change HV. She sounds horrible and unhelpful. You have not emotionally damaged your child at 5 months by arguing. I doubt the baby has the awareness to understand that you are even arguing!!

You need support and perhaps for the future (not now, you have enough on your plate!!) think about some relationship counselling to look at how you can cope better as a couple during periods of stress. Longer term it would be better for you all if you weren't arguing this much. Ime arguing adds to a stressful situation and makes things so much harder. And that's not a judgement, I used to have awful arguments with my partners and have learnt over the years that it just makes things so much harder so my current partner and I have worked on this (not easy!!) and we handle stress and disagreements so much better now. It's made life much nicer.

I doubt the baby has the awareness to understand that you are even arguing!!

It doesn't work like that. An animal can be frightened by shouting and they do not have the cognitive abilities of a baby. It's emotional regulation it affects, if a child is scared as an infant it can carry this forward, for example it learns to be anxious because it's used to feeling under threat and instead of learning that the world is a nice, safe place it's used to scanning the environment constantly for threat. It's nervous system can end up being primed for stress for the rest of it's life. The child may never understand why they are like this if it's something that happened to them as a baby. As my previous post, research suggests that how children react is partly genetic, and other things that do or don't happen to the child in their life will also have a positive or negative effect on top of this, but having some a lot of reaching about this, I wouldn't argue in front of a baby.

Dr Gabor Mate has done a lot of writing on the effects of childhood stress and trauma on people, and had also appeared in various podcasts if you are interested in a bit more depth.

The way your feeling is perfectly normal your first time parents and hardly sleeping of course your snapping at each other if baby likes nipple for comfort give the dunny a go if you don't like that try pitting a muslin in your bra for the day so it smells of you have it between you and baby for feeds then put baby down with it so baby has the comforting smell your near you could also express so partner an lighten the load on you in the night.

At this stage you will not have done any lasting 'damage', however a baby hearing arguments and being in a stressful environment does impact on their emotional regulation and development. It may make them more alert, more hyper vigilant and more difficult to settle. The good news is that creating a calm environment can help to 're-programme' the baby. I know it's difficult when you and dh are stressed but just as you would aim not to argue around a 7 year old just because a baby doesn't understand doesn't mean that it doesn't effect them.

As a family unit you sound like you're in a cycle of baby not sleeping- tired and stressed parents- parents argue- parents become more stressed- baby picks up on this and is harder to settle to sleep- doesn't sleep and then cycle continues. Can your health visitor support you in thinking about how you can support baby to develop better sleeping routine? Is baby teething/ overtired/ under stimulated/ overstimulated etc etc. Good luck!

Your HV is being ridiculous. Your arguments have not made him a poor sleeper. So many 5 month old's are terrible sleepers! The 4 month sleep regression was a killer for us.

That said, yes - in general, it is not good for the baby to grow up in an environment of constant arguing and aggression. In the long-term this is likely to impact upon him negatively. This will differ child to child and situation to situation so there's no definitive X minutes if arguing will lead him to be 46% more likely to have emotional damage, but your child needs a happy and stable home environment. If you and your husband can't give him that right now, you do need to have a serious talk about what you can do to put your baby's needs first. I do know how tough it is though. My husband and I argued a lot when my boy was a newborn.

As others have said, you haven’t emotionally damaged your baby. Everyone Ignoring him/not interacting with him at all - maybe.. A few arguments from sleep deprivation - no. Although as so many others have said, it’s better not to be in a stressful environment. Your description suggests this is quite occasional though?

Ignore that and focus on surviving the sleepless nights. It’s so shit. But you do need to support each other through it, otherwise it’s adding to your misery. You’re a team, and always will have to be with your child. Can you find time to work out how to support each other through this (and maybe accepting that he’s not ready to sleep through yet (and not going mad like I did trying to find a magic cure) will help your sanity?

Hug. It’s awful. You’ll get there.

Thanks so much for all the kindness and tips, I can't tell you what a relief it is to think that he's gonna be ok. The arguments really are only occasional and after speaking to my other half, we're going to get some couples counselling... to make sure we've done all we can to make a stable, calm environment, and take away that layer of stress.

You say this

As a result we have argued in front of the baby quite a few times. A lot of heated words and a handful of shouting arguments.

And then you say this

The arguments really are only occasional

Which is it ?

@wildorchidz Not sure why you're confused; it sounds like it has happened occasionally - ie 'a few times' as she has said...

There is over whelming evidence that parental conflict does affect babies brains in the way that it grows & develops.

You can take the advice of all the people on this thread who say it's rubbish- but im being honest with you because you actually care.

I work in this field day in day out , and there is strong evidence that even the foetus experiences stress which impacts upon brain development.

There is a fab book called "Why Love Matters" that explains the development of baby's brain under stress.

I work in this area ... but was also reminded of it by my own HV.

The fact that you are aware of the potential effects upon baby and the fact that you care is really positive and you can absolutely turn this around... ( babies & adults brains are capable of re-wiring) .
Just make sure you rein in all the support that you can for the 3 of you - because early parenting in the modern age can be very stressful & isolating.

Shouting loudly scares babies, it startles them, and considering that babies can often quickly get used to most things I think your shouting must be quite bad. Suggest you have a set bed time for the baby upstairs and never shout in front of it.

Arguing if done properly without name calling or accusations can often be a good thing for kids to see, and can help their own anger management (and communication) skills later on in childhood. But shouting is always bad.

DC1 was a horrible sleeper and I had people saying my stress was rubbing off on her. When in fact I was stressed because she didn’t sleep!

DC2 was born in the midst of some non child related family problems and I was very stressed out and emotionally drained. And yet baby was a champion sleeper and extremely easygoing.

Your HV is quite uncaring blaming your arguments for the baby’s lack of sleep. Unless you’re literally shouting him awake from sleep I highly doubt it. She should offer you support and guidance on how to manage this challenging period not blame you.