Monday, January 13, 2014

How we found joy: Parenting our high need baby.

Charlie insists I need to blog more, I'm not so sure. There are many things that I want to say, but like a lot of other areas in my life, my need for perfection paralyzes me. I think that if I can't say what I want to say in the best possible way that I should just leave the talking to someone else. But the people around me keep insisting that I'm wrong, so here I am.

I promised that I wouldn't turn this blog into a mommy blog.

But I lied.

That's like being on a boat, out at sea, and trying to talk about your life on land. It's so far gone you don't even remember. Maybe one day you'll get to land again, but for a while you're here.

Anyways.

Today I want to write about what has been my "boat" for the last six months; this tiny man.


If there's one theme to the last six months it's been this: going with my gut and following my heart. At times this meant swimming upstream and tuning out basically everyone in the world around me. It was hard, but it has been so worth it, and I think our family is better because of it.

The truth is that before Finn was born I didn't really have any idea about raising a baby, no one does really unless you've done it before. I had a basic gist about their needs and breastfeeding and baby care, but not really any idea how to manage their temperament and how to get them to sleep and make them happy.

So this was what the first three months of Finns life were like:

From birth he was pretty fussy. He nursed for 45 minutes every 1.5-2 hours. To convince him to sleep we had to swaddle him, give him his binky (force it into his mouth repeatedly) and bounce him vigorously. He fought and screamed and cried constantly. This process usually took between 15-40 minutes. Since he couldn't stay awake for longer than an hour and a half, these thing sucked up the majority of our lives. I can count on one hand how many times I've left him with a babysitter.

He has never slept through the night to this day. From 1-2 months he only woke up 2 or 3 times a night but as he got a little older he started waking up more frequently to the point where at five months he was waking up 4, 5, 6 times a night.

On top of all that, he was a pretty discontent baby. He would never just relax or chill out (I thought this was normal for all babies until I met my nephew, Korben!), he wanted to be constantly stimulated and engaged, but after ten minutes or so you needed to mix it up.

Can you hear the exhaustion in my voice?

I reached the end of my rope several times a day. I was beside myself, I didn't know what we were doing wrong or how to fix it, and I was so sad because I just wanted him to be happy. I read everything I could find about helping your baby sleep, but a lot of the stuff I read made me uncomfortable and didn't seem right for my son.

After reading Dr. Sears article about high need babies we decided that this described Finn pretty well. And at that point (I think he was about 3 months old) Charlie and I made the decision to change how we had been handling him. We decided to press into our son because he obviously needed us. Just like everyone else in the world, he needed understanding, grace, patience, and persistence. We decided to stop wishing he would sleep through the night like so-and-so's baby, stop wishing that he would be more content and not demand our attention every second, and stop getting so frustrated with him. We made a commitment to support each other more and communicate to each other when we were at the end of our rope so the other parent could help out. We decided to just accept him where he was.

This really didn't change Finns behavior at all, but it changed our perspective. Instead of constantly feeling like a horrible mom and trying to find ways to "fix" him, I just accepted that Finn is the way he is. Instead of worrying every time he woke up in the middle of the night that we were messing up his sleeping habits for life, I just gave him love and patience and extra cuddles (of course I still had my moments of impatience). I use to try to multi task while taking care of him, which left me frustrated when I couldn't accomplish what I was trying to do, and instead just stopped what I was doing to give him my undivided attention. I stopped talking to anyone about Finns behavior because I knew their advice would only discourage me and revert me back to my place of frustration, because truthfully, people don't really understand HNB (I learned this the hard way after letting slip at the chiropractor about how Finn doesn't sleep well at night. After twenty minutes and a "You gotta get him to stop manipulating you" speech later, I swore I would never make that mistake again).

Eventually Finn came around to everything in his own time. He wouldn't sleep in his own bed until he was 3 months old, but now he loves it. He use to need to nurse back to sleep in the middle of the night (yes that means sometimes I had to nurse 5+ times a night), but now he will go back down with some comforting. He use to not be able to fall asleep on his own, but we are currently in the process of teaching him to do that and he is doing SO GREAT! I use to think he would never be okay with a babysitter, but he is perfectly content with strangers. All in all, he has become a super happy baby. He is strong willed, always wants to be engaged, and constantly active, but I really think that we're seeing the fruit of our labor with him. I truly believe that it is because we were patient and let him do things in his own time, instead of forcing things on him. I'm so glad that we listened to his needs and met them, that we never tried to fit him into a box of what he was "supposed" to be doing. Because now I feel that we have won his trust. That he feel so safe and secure with us that he is independent and happy, and he knows that we will always meet his needs.

If you have a chill baby who sleeps through the night and laughs at your silly faces, then you probably have no idea of what I'm talking about. But if you are the parent of a high need or fussy baby, I hope this post can give you some inspiration and hope. You're not doing anything wrong and there's nothing wrong with your baby. Let them lead you, listen to their needs and accept them where they are, and eventually they will grow.



2 comments:

  1. "manipulating you"? HE'S A BABY. Geeeesus. I'm glad he's learning and you guys are doing better. :)

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  2. Isn' that just the way God deals with us, giving us patience, love and understanding, meeting us where we are. You are doing an amazing job! Hugs to you!

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