The Fussy Baby Book: Parenting your high-need child from birth to five. Martha Sears

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СКАЧАТЬ those high-maintenance early months.

      Babies take the fuel they need from you without considering whether they leave anything behind in mother’s gas tank. The seemingly constant holding, feeding, and comforting leave little energy for your needs. Experienced mothers learn to operate in what one woman calls “the mother zone” (like the Twilight Zone); you feel a bit fuzzy, somewhat sleep-deprived; you simply function in low gear for a stretch of time. It’s a season that passes; and while you’re in it, try not to fight it or resent it.

      communication, not control

       One of the most difficult mental adjustments for parents to make is overcoming the fear of “being manipulated” and “losing control”. Once you make the switch in mind-set to believing that your baby is communicating her needs, not controlling your lives, thriving and surviving with a high-need baby will be much easier.

      Instead of feeling sorry for yourself that you didn’t get enough sleep, just don’t expect as much from yourself that day. Of course you’re not completely rested – you are the mother of a baby who needs you. Time spent in the mother zone is good for you and for baby. Ease up on yourself and you’ll be easier to be around. You’ll be happier getting less done. Other tasks can wait, but baby can’t.

      Many mothers seem to have an internal energy gauge that magically brings in more fuel just as the tank nears empty. There will be days of incessant holding with no breaks. But just when you feel you can’t cope with another day of giving, you get a second wind, and suddenly you can relax and enjoy your baby’s unique personality blooming. Perhaps baby even senses mother’s breaking point and backs off a bit. There probably won’t be any days off, but some days will be less difficult than others.

feeds frequently

      You will soon learn that feeding is not only a source of nutrition, but also an easy tool for comforting, not only because the skin-to-skin contact makes the breast a nice place to nestle, but also because the baby can easily regulate the flow of milk. Studies show that babies who are fed frequently, as needed, cry less than infants who are fed on a more rigid, parent-controlled schedule. In cultures in which babies rarely cry, as documented, for example, in Liedloff’s The Continuum Concept, infants usually breast-feed twenty or so times a day. Researchers have attributed the mellowness of the babies in these “higher” cultures to the effect frequent feeding has on the overall organizing of the baby’s biological systems. This number of feedings sounds incredible to us in our Western culture, but it’s really not so strange when you consider that in these cultures baby is worn on the mother’s body in such a way that he has easy access to the breast. A feeding in this case may last only five minutes, rather than the thirty to forty-five minutes a baby takes to fill his tummy when fed only six or eight times a day in a more controlled feeding arrangement.

      the “velcro” mother and baby

       Tracy and her baby, Michael, seemed to be constantly attached. In fact, when Michael was one month of age, Tracy tagged him “the Velcro baby”. You never saw one without the other. When Michael wasn’t nursing at Tracy’s breasts, he was in her arms or in her sling. When Tracy worked about the house, she wore Michael in her sling, a scene she called “work and wear”. On particularly high-need days, Tracy said, “I seem to put him on in the morning and take him off at night.” When Michael wasn’t on some part of Tracy’s body, he was glued to Daddy. This baby was put down only for a long nap, when Tracy needed to attend to her personal needs, or when he grew up enough to demand some “floor time”. At night, baby and mother did not go their separate ways either. The pair slept face-to-face, tummy to tummy, nursing several times at night without either member of the pair fully awakening. Not all babies need this much intensive care, and not all mothers are comfortable providing it, but for many high-need families, this level of attachment works smoothly, especially when they realize that this high-maintenance stage does not last forever.

      As a parent, you’ll put your hours in at one end or the other of the time your child lives with you. We personally would much rather put that time in when they are infants and toddlers than when they are teens. Our teens have not given us the chance to find out what it would be like to sit up all night wondering where they are or whom they’re with. But we can imagine this would be far more nerve-racking than being there for our infants and toddlers when they need us so much.

      We live in a culture that is definitely at odds with this “primitive” style of mothering. And our babies cry a lot! It is a challenge to a Western mother of a high-need baby to find a lifestyle that both she and her baby can live with. And there must be a balance in feeding. Overfed formula-feeders can get fat, so using a formula-filled bottle as a constant pacifier is certainly not healthy or appropriate. The good news is, you don’t have to worry about over-breast-feeding, because the caloric content of breast milk self-adjusts to frequent feeding; when baby has just a brief “comfort-feed”, she gets only the lower-calorie foremilk. Besides, frequent breast-feeders rarely remain overweight, even if for a while some look like miniature sumo wrestlers. Studies show that the fat cells laid down by breast-feeding babies are quite different from those of babies fed manufactured baby milk. The fat melts away once baby becomes mobile. So how often should you breast-feed your high-need baby? As frequently as baby needs, yet not to the extent that it wears you out. There are other ways to comfort high-need babies, and it’s important to learn some of these alternatives.

      

       We’re in harmony with each other. I nurse an average of eighteen times a day. I know this sounds like a lot of nursing, but there is never a schedule to it. Either she lets me know or I just start it. It always works out. Nursing is never a hassle or bother. It’s just second nature to me. I don’t even think about it or worry about it. It seems like we are always in harmony. We just nurse whenever or wherever Lindsey or I start it.

      first-class baby

       A lot of this book was written in the peace and quiet of coast-to-coast flights during a year of frequent public speaking. On one flight, when I was fortunate to be upgraded to first class, I identified with a high-need baby who “has it made”. He gets a higher standard of care – he goes first class! The high-need baby gets held more because he protests if he is put down. The high-need baby gets fed more because he demands it. He (usually) enjoys the first-class comfort of sleeping with his parents because he refuses to sleep separate. And, he gets taken to more interesting places because he is unwilling to accept a lower level of care. For high-need babies, life is one continuous upgrade.

      “Schedule” is not in the high-need baby’s vocabulary. Early on, these smart infants learn that the breast or bottle is not only a source of nutrition, but also a source of comfort. In fact, research has shown that non-nutritive sucking (sucking for comfort rather than for food) is one of the earliest ways a baby learns to settle. Mothers figure this out quickly and, unfortunately, many of them get their babies hooked on dummies so they can be put down, away from mother, a lot. We prefer that mother use her own finger to give baby extra suck time if he is bottle-fed, or if she knows he doesn’t need any more milk from her breast, or if her breasts need a break.

      A recurrent theme that we hear from the parents of high-need babies is “She wants to feed all the time.” Martha’s experience with Hayden is a perfect example. Because our first three babies went an average of three hours between feedings – or even four hours once we added solid food to their diet in the early months – she expected the same from Hayden. Her approach with the first three was to feed them when they cried. СКАЧАТЬ