High needs baby - DP and I feeling vv low

[Runrun88]

Happy new year all. I’m just looking to hear stories of people getting through or currently going through similar to the below and anything that has helped you.

I’ve posted before about my 6 month old DS being very high needs/‘difficult’ and feeling so alone in this.

What was getting me through was that DP seemed relatively positive and unaffected by the stresses of parenting - did all chores without complaint after work to support me and absolutely doted on DS.

Everything has changed over the Xmas period. I think due to spending so much more time with DS than usual, DP has now joined me in my exhaustion and despair at the constant crying and fussing. I’ve never seen him like this. He’s so low and can’t seem to snap out of it, fairly sure he was lying in bed crying yesterday. I suggested that he might need to seek help but he shrugged this off. I don’t really blame him as I also haven’t sought help as I can’t see what would help us except - I’m sorry to say - DS being an ‘easier’ baby.

We live in a tiny flat so no space for anyone to come and stay to help out and don’t have family nearby anyway.
I’m just so, so low feel horrendously guilty that I was the one to convince DP we should have a baby. We love DS to bits but I feel like our lives are ruined. So many people told us 6 months was when they started to enjoy their baby but it just gets harder for us.

I'm so sorry, it is horrendous to have a distressed crying miserable baby.

Mine finally finally had silent reflux diagnosed, I went back to work 2 days a week when she was 6 months old to have a break from her screaming.

Things had really improved when she was 11/12 months old.

Thank you @RandomMess, reflux has been suggested before but I’m not really sure where to start in confirming that’s what it is. We’ve tried omeprazole with no change.
Searching through threads on here, I’ve also found lots of people returned to work to help their PND (which I’m fairly sure I now have). I may need to go down this route but I need to change roles for boring reasons so am also anxious about returning. Gonna have to bite that bullet I think x

Other than the "constant crying and fussing", in what way is your DC high needs?
Constant crying and fussing is wearing, but the best advice I got was to put the baby in another room for just a few mins at first to give yourself a break.

I went back to work when my baby was 7 months and genuinely think it saved my sanity. And probably my husband’s too as he works from home so we were always there. Loved my baby but I found Mat leave so mundane and the baby stage really, really hard. We were given gaviscon to help with his reflux and that made a huge difference. I also noticed a big difference once we started weaning at about 6 months. Took him a while to take to/enjoy food but that did seem to help as the milk intake then went down.

We were fortunate that we had grandparents to watch him on the days I was working (so didn’t have to start paying for nursery until he was a year old) but I would’ve pushed to put him in nursery sooner if I’d had to. He’s thrived since going there and I’m a much better mum!

It was the weaning that seemed to help but every tooth was awful, curdled positing, rancid nappies, wee of ammonia. She used to love teething powders as I think they helped her stomach.

She was #3 of 4, it was utter hell. Unless you have had a baby that cries and fusses, wakes up screaming and never plays you can't understand how awful it is.

When you say you've tried omeprazole, how long has he been on it? Just my DS took over a month to show improvement but it did really help eventually

My high needs baby was a high needs baby due to allergies and reflux.
Omperazole alone didn't make much of a difference and this was only after it was at the maximum dose below that it barely did anything. We got her reflux under control with high dose omperazole, as much gaviscon as we could get in her (ebf so a challenge) and domperidone which was the life changer. Alongside this I removed as many of her allergens as I could identify from my diet. She is 3 now and still has problematic reflux that goes in and out of being controlled by medication. It seems to be particularly tricky to keep on top of which is probably why we had such a hard time when she was small.
We share the day based on how we rest best. I do overnight and my partner does early mornings.
We set aside a few hours for us both to have a bath at the weekend. For us the there for the other person which not being immediately accessible works to give us a small break from being mum and dad whilst still being a partner. I would try to find a hour each weekend where the other person isn't in parent mode and they can do something to reset. It pales against what is needed but it is a start and it's something

Is he ill? Have any diagnosis? Or just crying like a regular baby would?

My DS is incredibly high needs. I did find it easier when he was properly on food. Things that helped me were baby wearing, was to help cheer me up. Accepting naps were contact naps and getting myself set up with book, tv remote, snacks.

Hes now 14 months and he’s still
high needs (clingy, doesnt sleep well) but he’s also really fun and rewarding

Completely feel your pain, my first was like this and would scream for hours on end every evening. With my second, we were very rigid in paying attention to his "wake windows" I.e. the amount of time they can spend awake before needing a nap through the day, it varies by age but basically means every few hours taking them somewhere calm and quiet and letting them sleep. It made life so much easier and I wish I could have gone back to my first baby and tried it as I think he was being overestimated and just couldn't settle.

Either way, it got easier and will do for you too. Sympathy whilst you're in the fog of it though

Have you tried cutting out dairy? My EBF baby is a totally different baby when I'm eating a dairy free diet.

Join Facebook page "surviving reflux Ireland" so many great tips, medical advice and guidance there. If giving omeprazole give it at 5. 30pm, it's a protein pump inhibitor and you need to catch the pumps when they are active which is about 7pm. Giving it at 5.30 ish allows it to have worked way through system in time. Don't give it with milk as it makes it less effective. Avoid petit filous, they were hugely triggering for my child.

Agree with pp that omeprazole takes a while to kick in. I just looked it up and it can take up to 4 weeks, which is quite a while.

You have my sympathy, I have a 12 month high needs daughter and it’s been hell since day 1. She’s never slept, she even now sleeps on par with a newborn. She is incredibly clingy, hates being strapped into anything so a car and pram don’t work. I managed to get her in a hip carry at 6 months and have used that as our sole way of getting around since.

I can’t say it’s gotten better for me, but I’ve had the same situation with my other half. Spending Christmas with her has absolutely done him in and it’s a relief to know I’m not alone, but also sad we are both now miserable.

Agree with this, unless you've had one like this it's hard to understand and can be incredibly isolating if it's your first, you wonder why everyone else seems to be breezing it and you're dragging your arse along in despair.

I don't have a quick fix for you, tried everything, other than drop expectations and do whatever you need to do within your four walls in order to get through. If that's having them in bed with you, do it, sticking them in a back carrier as they get a bit older, do it, whatever gets you through the day.

If you have relatives that would be willing to come and help out, let them, please, even just for a night a month in a nearby b and b, rope in all the support you can, you need it. Go to some groups, eventually you will bump into another mum with the same haunted look in her eyes and you'll still be mates when they're teens, this is bonding shit!

Time, overall though, is the answer and my one has grown into the most wonderful child even though as a baby she was a daily endurance test. Keep the faith, this will pass.

I feel your pain. I had one of these and it started getting easier around a year.

Ignore everyone in real life and posting stupid comments on this thread about 'is it just normal baby fussing/crying'. Until you've had a baby that screams relentlessly no matter what you do for 10/12 hours every single day for the best part of a year there is no way you can understand how much it takes out of you.

You'll want to punch everyone who says 'it's just a phase' too, but that one's actually right. I promise it will get easier. We had a huge change at around a year and another huge change at around 16 months.

This is bringing back memories of DD1. She was awful, and I didn’t realise just how hard work she was until I had DD2, a ‘normal’ baby. Constantly crying and fussing, probably because she brought up so much milk and slept in 28 minute bursts, so was always overtired and hungry. Didn’t crawl due to vomiting when on her tummy, so she was frustrated too. Refused contact naps/slings, so couldn’t even go down that route.

We did lots of things that helped marginally (reflux meds, weaning at 4 months on paediatrician advice, hours walking in the buggy so she could see stuff) but honestly, the biggest improvements came when she started to walk and especially when she was talking fluently, which was blessedly early.

She’s just turned 5 and is still much harder work than her 2.5 year old sister, so it might be a personality thing. She’s never really played with toys but starting school has really helped her to entertain herself; now she spends ages writing lists, letters etc to her friends and can read simple books to herself. Maybe she was just an impatient baby/toddler because she needed to use her brain more.

I appreciate that this all seems like an age away to you, but I was looking at FB memories the other day and thinking how that stage feels just like yesterday, and also wondering how we survived it. My top tip is to do what you need to do to make it through each stage, always knowing that things can only get better. And they WILL get better.

My DC are all adults now and I still feel upset/horrified at how bad it was.

Unsurprisingly she has the highest pain threshold of anyone I know!

She was very late to sit unaided 11 months as she was basically held upright with pressure on her tummy as she was marginally less screaming that way.

Fortunately she slept 6/7 hours at night in a solid block. However that was the only sleep she did have until she was 8 months old.

Mine was like this. He did and still does have cmpa but tbh it’s his temperament. His Dad was managing well like your partner until the summer holidays (he’s a teacher) and the real reality of what it’s like to be with a baby that spends most of his time screaming hit him and wore him down immensely.
our solution was nursery and me going back to work and that honestly saved me. I had ppd and found him so hard to deal with, I even tried to get them to take him a few weeks earlier than 6 months old.
He’s now 22 months and still incredibly high maintenance, non-stop in every waking moment and a child that strangers always refer to as alert but he is more manageable. As soon as he could walk and talk he became much happier. Essentially I think he hated being a baby.
I will say this Christmas break has worn me down to the point of burn out and I’ve had to book annual leave to get some rest and I’m very glad he’s back in nursery tomorrow but at least I don’t have to listen to the endless newborn/first year screaming any more.