I seem to have the most unhappy 1 year old ever! When will it get better?!

[Bambinobaby]

My little girl is just miserable 85% of the time, the other 15% being as soon as she wakes up, we might get a smiley half hour or so out of her before it all goes back to whining incessantly.

She turned 1 just a few days ago and she’s been pretty miserable since she was born. She cried non stop for about 4 months, I recall having a nice 5th month with her then at 6months it all went downhill again and has never really recovered.

She hates the car, she hates the pram, she’s not particularly social and doesn’t want to know other people. She whines on and off virtually all day every day, and even at night she’s still waking anywhere between 2-6 times so I’m literally dealing with some kind of crying virtually around the clock 24/7.

She saw a cranial osteopath as a new born and was all fine, along with having a tongue tie cut around the same sort of time.

She just seems to be super super sensitive to absolutely everything and already throws a fit if she can’t do what she wants. She can’t walk yet, and is happiest outside but being the middle of winter I can’t let her crawl outside and the whining is killing me.

not sure why I posted, I just need to know if anyone went through similar and when it started to get better?

Ds was an absolute misery. Until we got him sleeping all night. Literally transformed him. ..

Superscientist
Didn't know that!

Sounds very similar to our now 4 year old girl.

Now's she's a preschooler you can reflect back and see how her personality perhaps revealed itself in her behaviour as a baby & younger toddler. Didn't really stop crying for majority of her awake time until 3-4 months old. Super hard work, very "highly strung" and emotionally needy from the outset. We used to look fairly green-eyed at other parents with toddlers that would just happily bumble about. A missed nap or late bedtime was just not an option at any stage whereas for many it's just no drama.

Life has become easier as she's got older and more independent, but she remains highly emotionally labile and is extremely sensitive to being tired / hungry / unwell etc, far more so than any of our friends / relatives toddlers, and remains "harder work" than most appear to be generally.

The counter to that is that when the stars align she is an absolute blast, very intelligent, sociable empathetic and kind for her age and is great fun to be around when she is happy. She gets on great at nursery and always has done.

When she learns to control and harness her massive emotions a bit better I think she'll become quite a straightforward young child.

I think we are much better parents now than we would have been as a consequence of having to work out strategies to deal with these sentivities from such a young age too.

No allergy or obvious neurodivergence here - I'd be careful going down those routes personally. Babies and toddlers change so quickly from day to day that outside of proper medical trials etc it's extremely difficult to delineate cause / effect from coincidence once you make an intervention (like withdrawal of dairy, for example).

@Bambinobaby hey! I know this was a year ago but how is your baby now?? My 12 month is (birthday today) is just miserable 70% of the time. She will laugh and play if we encourage it but otherwise she’s whining about something! Just wondered if there is an end in sight

I sympathise. My youngest was like this. It went on for months.

No matter what we did he was so miserable all the time. I used to dread waking up in the morning with him because it got so draining.

I took him to the GP twice, 3 phone calls with a HV and a visit from one to be told 'it's just a phase.'

I was really at my wits end and I was starting to feel so negative toward him when suddenly it just stopped. It's like he woke up one day and everything was great again.

I think a lot of it was frustration to be honest - he has an older brother and couldn't do a lot of things that he could.

Hang in there - it will absolutely get better x

Oh sorry I just saw the date of this thread!

I’m sorry to say she’s still a difficult toddler! But she is better in that she can do a lot more for herself, I would say she’s happier more now then she ever has been and her language development is growing. But the fundamental issues I had are still there, she tantrums like her life depends on it, still sleeps terribly and she still hates the car and pram.