Solidarity from anyone who has or had miserable babies

[Matildasfortune]

Anyone that can give me some light at the end of the tunnel, as I can’t see any yet.

8 month old baby who’s been largely miserable from the off.

• mega witching hours as a newborn
• was extremely unwell and nearly died in that time, I was conditioned to think ‘babies cry’ By everyone around me when it turns out there was a serious medical reason for it.
• will only nap at home, come hell or high water there will be no other naps elsewhere.
• We had a holiday from hell with the non napping baby who cried for the whole week at 4 months old
• Is pretty much unbearable when teething, endless moaning. We have 6 already.
• moans pretty much all day in the house
• moans in the car
• moans after 30 mins in the pushchair
• has been unwell (again) and needed medicine which has caused a bottle aversion.
• moans after ten mins of playing
• moans in high chair
• moans in jumperoo

Baby hates all baby groups, doesn’t really engage or smile at all in them so we do none.

Leaving the house is generally not done as it has to be timed with wake windows and I find the driving and being out with a constsnt moaning or crying baby very stressful.

baby used to smile fairly regularly but now hardly at all.

Does it get better? ❤️‍🩹

I just want to add an addendum not to get hopes up that a specific milestone will be the 'answer', as I have been doing for the last 10 months and I'm sure you have too. I've read countless posts like this and been given hope that 12 weeks/16 weeks/sitting up/weaning/reflux med etc etc would help and they never did, which was so disappointing.

Yes, on my second baby! Just miserable. Turned out to have some health issues which he grew out of but I felt a lot better for having him assessed to make sure the health stuff was nothing we could fix. He is now an absolute dream and has been since about 2. The next one was an easy baby which has felt very validating.

If anyone tries to make you feel bad they're just dicks.

@leois your post is incredible - you’ve completely encapsulated the empathy those of us with miserable babies really needed (or still need).

OP, I had a baby who hated being a baby. Silent reflux and colic, but no serious health issues, so I can’t imagine how much harder your baby’s health makes things.

I have a visceral memory of being confronted by and shouted at by a stranger on the tube cos my baby was screaming and getting off early to stop her attacking me or my baby. Plus many other tales of misery.

I know it’s trite, but time helps. And my miserable baby was a great toddler and is an incredible 6.5 year old - so bright and funny and well behaved. Hang in there and keep listening to your instincts.

I've had one, once I cut dairy and soya out everything improved. But it took us a long time to work that out and those weeks at the beginning were horrendous. I have no sweet lovely newborn memories just screaming baby and me feeling inadequate

Yes! At peak crying my daughter cried and screamed for 16-20h a day. We only tried to do a baby sensory class but we both cried all the way through it.

I was told it was just reflux and reflux was just a washing issue so didn't need treatment. In the end it was mild physical reflux but severe silent reflux and a lot of food allergies. I had to cut over 40 foods from my diet to find her 20 allergies. I went back through old food diaries and found I was eating upto 3 of her allergies every meal so it was no wonder she cried constantly. We reached symptoms free for allergies at 15 months and reflux has gone in and out of control. She is 3 now and since about 18-20 months she became the happiest little girl. Even in days when she is complaining of tummy pain from the reflux and allergies she is a bright and chirpy little thing. She's almost gone too far the other way as people don't realise how much she struggles on a day to day basis when having a reaction or her reflux has stopped being controlled by her medication.

DD1 was a similarly horrific baby. She slept for her first week, then opened her eyes on day 6 and cried until she was 8 months old. She didn't sleep, didn't take a bottle or dummy, hated the pram, hated the car, hated anyone but me (though I felt like she hated me too a lot!).
My worst triggers were when well-meaning older/more experienced mums told me basically to chill out/just bring her places/"give her to me I'm a baby whisperer" (she soon gave her back).
It's incredibly hard and so isolating, but as others have said some babies just find being babies hard. Looking back, I realise that DD1 was struggling with feeding and was most likely hungry a lot, but aside from the HV trying to get me to use formula top ups with a bottle refusing baby and telling the that petit filous were the devil's work there was very little support. I wish I had fought a lot harder, so PP's advice to be a tiger mum is valid.
She is a delightful 10 year old now, for what it's worth, and LOVES her sleep, which is beyond ironic. Hang in there, and don't be afraid to find support in those of us who understand!

@Nestofwalnuts I’m not sure that a post on this subject matter has ever resonated with me quite so much as when you say-

’Having a miserable baby is way tougher than anyone who hasn’t had one understands. It attacks the bond between you, it attacks any shred of confidence you have as a mother, it isolates you from mothers with easier babies. It is a constant and profound source of anxiety’.

I so, so wish I could have read that when I was in the thick of it with my absolutely miserable baby, and I really hope it brings comfort to the OP along with anybody else reading this thread.

OP- I can only emphasise what others have already said on this post.

My son is two now, and he has been very easy going on the whole since he could crawl (which was at ten months) with particular improvements once walking and as verbal communication has increased. I absolutely adore him and our bond is fantastic, but that was certainly not always the case.

He was largely grumpy for their first three months, and then utterly fucking miserable from three months up to ten months, along with being a truly shit sleeper. There was no clear reason for it, other than that I assume it was frustration given the immediate overnight improvement once crawling.

It was absolutely soul destroying. It made me profoundly depressed, it made me question whether I even loved him, and it also made me terribly anxious about things like baby groups, as all the other babies were so comparatively content. It would make me feel shit and full of self-loathing as I thought it must be my fault, and it got to the point where I just couldn’t really be around other babies because it would make me so angry and jealous.

I remember nearly breaking down when we were at the 10 month Health Visitor check because he was being an absolute screaming nightmare, as always. However, rather than telling me that all babies cry and are difficult or that my son was probably just picking up on my anxiety like ever other fucker seemed to, the HV said ‘gosh he’s certainly demanding an awful lot from you. Is he like this often? That must be extremely difficult for you, and you’re doing really well’. She understood.

I also got extremely anxious about the prospect of my child having autism and that being the cause of their behaviour, and I would go down horrible spirals of Google searches about early autism symptoms. That all stopped when his mood dramatically improved once crawling, and particularly when I went back to work and the fog fully cleared.

Nobody can tell you how long it will last and I found it better to have extremely low expectations about if/ when it might resolve. Unfortunately, some babies are miserable for a very long time and for others it passes quite quickly.

Reading other threads about high needs babies helped keep me sane, as did doing whatever was necessary to keep him as happy as possible. In my case, that meant being out of the house nearly all day every day walking for bloody miles & miles (I averaged about 20,000 steps each day) as they were just much easier when they had lots of constantly changing things to look at.

Another tip from me is to wear headphones or earplugs when they’re screaming. It made it so much easier for me to comfort him patiently for hours on end when the noise wasn’t going right through me.

I so, so hope it passes quickly for you, parenting is much harder when you have a difficult baby so be kind to yourself and do not doubt for one moment how difficult you have it.

My ds was the same it was an awful time in my life and the reason I found mumsnet to begin with! I was constantly in a state of anxiety about him, milestones and his health problems. I never had another but my ex (no chance we could have survived those years unscathed!) had another and he keeps harping on at me about how different his second is and that it wasn't normal for our ds to be so sad all of the time. It's made me feel a bit more positive about having a second. Ds is 7 now and he's a joy!

Have you tried swimming op?

High needs often like swimming

Yes I had a miserable baby. Sorry to say he was also a very miserable child. I was a young mum, no other kids around to compare, it was a couple of decades ago so not the widespread knowledge around re ND, but I remember taking him to the doctor several times as a toddler/child saying there is something wrong with him, he won't stop crying... and the doctors would look at me as a naive young mum and laugh and say "yes dear, babies cry". Eventually when he was around 9yo, I got lucky with a GP who had autistic children, so immediately recognised what was happening with my child, and so he was eventually diagnosed with Aspergers. Looking back now, I can see that as a baby/toddler, his crying was mostly related to sensory issues. Poor little guy. If he was a baby now, he would've been so much better off, with all the help and support that's around for ND children.

Can relate OP! And I know this is unfair but I feel resentful when people with healthy babies complain about how hard the newborn phase is. If my baby hadn't been suffering the way she was I know I would have coped brilliantly with a newborn. Of course, that's a completely unfair attitude because I'm lucky compared to people who have children with more severe problems or babies that died.

Has your child been exposed to antibiotics over the course of his illnesses which could be causing stomach issues and explain the unhappiness? That's what happened to mine and my poor DD now has multiple life threatening allergies which she'll have to manage for the rest of her life probably, to the extent that the vast majority of restaurants won't have even 1meal that is safe for her. My heart breaks for her when I think about how much she will miss out on socially in the future but at age 2 she is at least happy and healthy in herself.

Such an emotional read. Brings up so many memories.

The hardest bit was that I was so good with my friends' babies, everyone used to comment on that! Until I had my own who I couldn't soothe. I have no happy newborn memories.

Mine is 20 months and is much much better. I can go on 1 hour car ride and feel calm, not full of anxiety expecting constant screaming. I sit at the park with my coffee whilst he's running around me. He sleeps all night. He is still clingy and cries if I leave the room.

Can I just say how baffled I am that most of you went for a second child There's no way in hell me or DH could risk another high needs baby.

Yes and people think they are being helpful by normalising it. I knew they were wrong because ds was my third child. But for a first time parent being told that a constantly screaming chid is normal (when it really isn't) must be soul destroying.

I remember the hv saying patronisingly "I'm sure he doesn't cry all the time" At that point he was sleeping around 2 (broken) hours at night.The only time he was quiet was feeding.

My ds has several allergies and asd so unfortunately life did not get much easier.

Our Daughter (now 4, "spirited" but not neurodivergent) was a "high-needs" baby as you describe. No medical issues though, which must make it even more incredibly difficult.

These babies make infinitely "better" second children than first - there is no education for new parents to be that really explains just what 10-15% of babies are going to be like.

I found reading threads just like these to be very helpful as it's tricky to find solidarity elsewhere unless you happen to know someone who has recently been in the same situation. There seems to be a tendancy for people to minimise how things were at the time when their children get older too.

It makes parenting infinitely more difficult for such a multitude of reasons, and it's pretty much impossible for most other parents to truly understand how different it is (and completely futile trying to compare as a consequence).

Adding medical issues into the mix is even harder because when they are tiny you've got much less differentiation between different cries etc to let you understand what's going on.

Our 'high needs" baby turned into a "spirited" toddler and preschooler. I'd highly recommend the book "raising your spirited child" at some point. I didn't find it contained many answers but the explanation for many of her behaviours was incredibly helpful in our case as she got older.

In retrospect I think we made a mistake in waiting / wishing for things to suddenly get easier at every stage - like the "colic" to magically disappear at 12 weeks or the toddler to suddenly get breezy and chilled when she could walk or talk. It didn't work out like that - it's been a gradual continuum of life becoming more straightforward over a long period of time. We would have been better off in accepting the reality of the situation and adapting our lives to that more readily than we did. It feels a bit like "giving in" at times, and you have to be careful where you draw the line between acceptance and being downtrodden, but making adjustments to your expectations of daily life (particularly holidays etc) can be very helpful.

Reframing the experience in a positive light is very helpful too. The level of emotional intelligence that you generate in trying to understand the needs of your baby when they are small will pay dividends when they get a bit older. You'll see people getting stressed and losing their cool when their previously easy toddlers turn into tantrumming preschoolers, or when potty training their "angel baby" who has played independently since a year old is randomly impossible. Or the chilled preschooler who's suddenly an emotional wreck for the first month of school and their household is turned upside-fown with stress.

You may still find all of those things challenging, but the years of extreme patience, tolerance and empathy that you've had to engage in on a daily basis from day 1 leaves you in quite a fundamentally different place to those parents who's babies were cooing or sleeping in their buggy whilst they chatted and drank coffee at the same stage.

Mine was a high needs baby. I remember going to my postnatal mum group and everyone else popping their babies on the floor to lie calmly whilst they had a cup of tea. Mine was clinging to me for grim life & glaring (as well as a 6wo can) at anyone who dared come near her mummy.

We went through phases of no one but me could hold her, all car rides were scream fests. We were asked not to come back to baby massage as she couldn’t cope with lying on the mat whilst I massaged her. I went back to work earlyish and on the verge of breakdown as we had so little sleep. I am still triggered seeing mums of newborns sleeping peacefully in pram carrycots - we have used ours for <2 hours total!

She was and remains so nosy, the only thing that would calm her would be walking her around the house facing forward to look at things. Everyone commented on how alert she was from 2/3 weeks old.

She did have an element of CMPA, definite tongue tie and tension which was helped but not resolved by treatment.

She immeasurably improved once she could crawl (10 months), even more with walking and is now the most amazing toddler. Still clingy but very verbal, affectionate and helpful.

We’ve found the toddler stage a breeze and the usual “it gets hard once they’re on the move” didn’t apply to us, it got easier instead. I felt so isolated with her as a newborn, I couldn’t enjoy baby classes or any other normal mat leave activities as she’d never sleep and required my constant full attention.

Seeing baby massage mentioned is a nice reminder to me that we are far enough out the other side to be able to look back and laugh at certain events.

I'm pretty sure the baby massage therapist that visited our house at 6 wks or so must have PTSD from the onslaught that our daughter unleashed for the 30 minutes she was here... I really distinctly remember the "wtaf" look on her face as we gamely carried on in case it helped whilst she screamed blue murder!

my son was a monstrous baby. Would cry all day every day (apart from half an hour in the early morning) if not given various forms of attention/ soothing. for ages afterwards I had a kind of jealous ptsd type thing when looking at other calm and peaceful babies.

His father was apparently similar, and a twin, and MIL used to say if she’d had two babies like the other twin she’d have though babies were easy but because she had my partner she knew it wasn’t something she was doing. This helped me.

DS went on to be a DELIGHTFUL toddler. Laughed at everything, ran and jumped about, very daft and hilarious. People talked about terrible twos and I just thought I was so lucky. He’s now in his late teens and still marvellous. Hang in there xx

This was me.

All the wistful moments in coffee shops either other mums who could sit down whilst my baby fussed, cried - or my toddler who was ramped up level of impulsive! Would never sit still and was scared of anything from dogs to hand dryers.

All the dismissive comments about how it was normal etc. like I was just not good enough.

I felt so isolated and exhausted.

My husband was also in awful work situations, periods of unemployment and lots of uncertainty. we had no family support and the whole period was terrible honestly. I'm still affected by it.

Our son is now nearly 13 and much much easier - a lovely lovely lad.

He was diagnosed with autism and ADHD at around 7 and attends a special school.

He still is impulsive and fidgety - hard work in some ways but a wonderful boy who is kind and maturing fast.

Very proud of him.

And wish I could go back and give myself a massive hug and tell myself that I was in fact doing amazingly

My second was a horrid baby - constantly screaming, wouldn't sleep, total velcro baby so I couldn't even put her down. She wouldn't go to anyone else, even my husband (her dad). Then COVID hit and I couldn't even take her to soft play as a distraction so was at home 24/7 with a screaming baby and a bored toddler. It was hard.

She's now the most delightful 4 year old and I adore the bones of her. It will come, but sending you hugs. It's very, very hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel at the tunnel but I promise you it's there.

I'm sorry OP! I had a miserable baby until 5 months and it almost broke me. It frustrates me no end that my mother still insists it was all in my head 😡 so no, you're not imagining it, it doesn't mean you love your baby any less, and you do what you need to survive!

My daughter flat out refused the pram until 5 months and that was it she had to be in the pram. I walked for hours and hours every day wind or shine. Headphones in listening to the calming voices on radio 4. My mum often called too once she twigged what time I usually walked. "A captive audience" she called me to my sister's!
I took a flask of coffee with snacks just to try to offset some of the calorie expenditure. I was under 7stone by the time I was forced to stop I ended up in a mother and baby unit

I did some work with psychologist on the ward and he compared living with a baby that just screams at you to experiencing a trauma as it's relentless and you can't escape it. I felt heard when he said that

@Superscientist I used to remind myself that sleep deprivation and constant noise are used as torture methods for a reason. I'm not surprised you found it so hard.

Can I just say how baffled I am that most of you went for a second child There's no way in hell me or DH could risk another high needs baby.

So am I tbh! I think it was because we told ourselves that a second baby couldn’t possibly as difficult as the first one.

Joke’s on me, he was worse.

Our Daughter (now 4, "spirited" but not neurodivergent) was a "high-needs" baby as you describe.

I promise I’m not armchair diagnosing @Whoknows101 but I would have said exactly the same thing about my daughter at that age.

I was wrong though, she was autistic all along. The penny didn’t really drop until just before her 8th birthday. I’d always known she wasn’t like her peers, was spirited/highly strung/difficult/high maintenance (and, crucially, school didn’t flag a single concern). Diagnosed at 9.

It was only when my son (the one that was worse than her 😅) was on the pathway to an autism assessment that I started looking into autism and girls and realised it fit her to a tee.

Thats the thing - it’s easy to say “not neurodivergent” when - quite understandably! - you have a narrow and stereotyped idea of what autism looks like.

It’s something I come across so much 😊

Regarding having further children after a high needs baby...

I risked baby 2 after a high needs DD (health issues and birth trauma too), but it took 4.5 years of healing to be ready. I wanted her to have sibling more than I was scared of another high risk baby I guess. With DD the payoff after the first year has been enormous, she's everything to me. I'm still hopeful that DS will be once he's grown out of this stage a bit more.

In the same way that I feel resentful of people who have had easy babies and lovely maternity leave, I was beginning to feel resentful of those who had more than one child and who had given their child a sibling. I just eventually felt that the risk was worth it to get where I felt I wanted to be (2 lovely children).

But I absolutely do understand why people would feel that they don't want to do it/risk it again. (I regretted the decision until recently).

Can I just say how baffled I am that most of you went for a second child There's no way in hell me or DH could risk another high needs baby

Like a lot of PPs, DS1 eased somewhat around his first birthday. Still highly strung, still difficult, still spirited, but overall seemed to be converging more with his peers then diverging. So we went for a second thinking it would continue to calm down.

Then the wheels almightily fell off between age 3 and 4. It continued getting worse and it became clear things are not improving and he is back to diverging from his peers instead of converging.

Im glad we had that bit of respite as DS2 is the things that keeps me going through the storm. But if I had known what life was going to be like with DS1 I wouldn’t have had a second. Which is a devastating thought in itself.