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

I felt her withdrawal from people was a problem. At night I began by putting one of my fingers against her arm while she slept. Over the weeks I progressed slowly, adding more touch until she no longer withdrew. I held her as much as possible during the day. I arranged my schedule so that I had to be out only two days and spent the rest of the week at home. Some of those days I barely got dressed by noon. We rocked, read, and nursed.

As Gennie learned to accept touch, she seemed to need it even more than the norm. I held her as much as possible. I learned quickly how much she needed me. Gennie liked her dad just fine – as long as mum was there! She really did not relate to outsiders until she was three or four years old.

the perfect match of needs and temperament

In order for children’s high needs to work to their long-term advantage, their outward personality must accurately reflect their inner need level. Suppose an infant is born needing to be held a lot, fed frequently, and responded to in a consistent, nurturing manner. (Actually, all babies are like this.) Suppose that infant also has a rather laid-back personality and seems to be an “easy” baby. This baby would be at a disadvantage because his body language would convey that he did not need to be held much. On the other hand, a baby whose high need level is matched with a persistent, expressive personality will get what he needs. His cries will demand a response, and his compelling body language will ensure that he is picked up, held, and fed. Although more exhausting to parents, this baby is more likely to thrive because his need level is reflected in a personality that knows how to get those needs met.

not a self-soother (#ulink_fc0e73fb-c1ee-5537-98ea-c054f53850b8)

Another unrealistic expectation many new parents have is that babies will soothe themselves to sleep with the help of a dummy, a musical box, or some baby-calming gadget. High-need babies won’t accept that. They need to interact with people, not things. Parents will often report, “He just can’t relax by himself.” Most babies need help to fall asleep. A parent who rocks, jiggles, walks, or dances with a baby at bedtime acts like a shock absorber for the day’s stimulation and frustration. High-need babies must learn to trust their parents to help them. This will help them learn to relax on their own, a skill that has value for a lifetime. Crying oneself off to sleep is not a good way to learn to relax. The best way for a baby to learn to relax and fall asleep is to have his behaviour shaped for him by a parent. Once a child learns to relax on his own, he’ll have no trouble falling asleep on his own.

The quality of wanting people instead of things as comforters, while initially exhausting, will eventually work to the child’s advantage. The child will have a better grasp on interpersonal relationships, especially being comfortable with the quality of intimacy. (See the related section on intimacy on page 219.)

We learned early on that Amy was a people person. She preferred anything human to anything synthetic or mechanical. We tried a host of different things designed to soothe or entertain small infants, but Amy would have none of them. At our childbirth class reunion, all the other babies seemed quiet and content, sitting in infant seats or lying peacefully on the floor. Amy wanted and needed to be in our arms. That day, we got a lot of suggestions about ways to help her. Many other parents were extolling the virtues of the mechanical swing, telling of the many hours their baby would spend in it. Babies who had not tried one were put in the host’s swing and almost always promptly fell asleep. We dutifully tried Amy in it and she cried immediately. Over the months that followed, we learned in no uncertain terms that she preferred arms to the cradle and the breast to the bottle. We came to respect this tendency in her. The pushchair, the cradle, the infant seats were all put away until she signalled that she was ready to be more physically separate from us. Now, at nearly a year old, she sleeps peacefully on a futon at naptime and loves taking rides in the pushchair and backpack. That time of needing intense physical contact was quite short. We’re proud that we were able to be there for her in the way that she needed us to be.

separation-sensitive (#ulink_03dd05f5-108a-531e-9edb-9a998528f5fa)

The song “Only You” could be the theme of most high-need babies. These infants do not readily accept substitute care and are notoriously slow to warm up to strangers. As a mother of a clingy baby described it, “Amanda didn’t like new people or new places and seemed to be in a continual phase of separation anxiety. Baby-sitters wouldn’t watch her because of her reputation as a screamer. This was hard on me because I desperately needed a break from the intensity of my child.”

better early than late

Needs that are met early in life go away. Needs that are left unmet never entirely disappear. Instead, the child can follow one of several paths. He can go through life with lower expectations and resign himself to an unfulfilled life. He can spend his life coping on his own and never learn to use the resources of others. Or, he can live a life of anger that the responses he expected were not the responses he got. He will always be searching without really knowing what he is searching for. It’s a case of “parent me now” or “parent me later”. Therapists’ offices are filled with high-need adults in search of re-parenting.

It helps to see separation from the baby’s viewpoint. To most adults, especially those of the “babies must learn to be independent” mind-set, baby and mother should be separate people, able to function on their own. Babies don’t see it that way. In their minds, mother is a part of them, and they are part of mother. Mother and baby are one, a complete package. These babies feel right when they feel at one with mother; they feel anxious and frightened when not with mother. Adults dub this completely normal behaviour “separation anxiety”. In reality, these emotions are normal feelings inside a little person who knows that he needs the presence of his mother to thrive and to feel complete. Labels such as “stranger anxiety” or “separation anxiety” are adult jargon, reflecting our expectations of how we want babies to act for our own convenience, not how babies really are, or what they really need.

We have observed that mothers who spend the early months practising what we call attachment parenting (wearing their baby many hours a day in a sling, breast-feeding on cue, taking their babies with them wherever they go, and often sleeping with baby) themselves experience separation anxiety when not with their baby. If this anxiety appears in normal mothers, shouldn’t it also be normal in babies? Fortunately, high-need babies have powerful personalities to tell us when things are not right.

Your baby’s quality of being very selective about who cares for her shows that she is highly discerning. High-need babies know which situations and which people they can trust to meet their needs, and they protest if these expectations are not met. Loud separation protests also reveal that these babies have a capacity for forming deep attachments – if they didn’t care deeply, they wouldn’t fuss so loudly when separated. This capacity is the forerunner of intimacy in adult relationships.

Eventually, the infant’s care-giving circle will grow to include people other than mother. The concept of weaning can be applied to more areas than just the breast or bottle. It also means letting go of exclusive relationships. When a new baby comes along, for example, the older one by necessity must begin to wean from mother to father (if she hasn’t started already). Our own high-need babies were willing to stay happily with people other than Martha by age three and a half, and sooner than that if that person was someone to whom they were already strongly attached (father, sibling, close friend of mother’s, grandparent). Our youngest daughter, Lauren, was given a videotape when she was about two years and nine months old that included a song entitled “Mama Comes Back.” It was her favourite part of the video. She liked Martha to sing the song for her at bedtime over and over. We were still having trouble leaving her happily behind when we went out, and one night we again faced a tearful Lauren who didn’t want Martha to leave. Remembering how much Lauren liked this song, Martha suggested that because she was leaving, she’d put on “Mama Comes Back” for her. Her face instantly brightened and she clicked on to that idea and ran happily to watch the video, secure in the reassurance that Mummy would come back.

growing out of it

Will he ever stop fussing? Will she ever sleep through the night? When will the colic stop? Will I ever get my wife back? The good news is that, yes, babies do grow out of their difficult-to-manage behaviours and grow into more manageable ones. Write the following survival motto on a piece of paper and hang it on your wall: THIS TOO WILL PASS.

There are many milestones in the first two years of a child’s life that bring with them improvements in behaviour and feelings of relief for parents. Within a month, babies can see images a foot away quite clearly, allowing baby to be soothed by eye-to-eye contact with a familiar, caring face. Increasing visual acuity between one to three months allows babies to be happily distracted by moving objects at increasing distances; watching a hand move or their reflection in a mirror will fascinate them. The first truly magical turning point is around three to four months, when many babies enter the promised land of fuss-free living. (High-need babies just don’t get very far across the border!) At this age, they often develop more internal organization of their sleeping and waking patterns. The ability to see clearly across the room can be distracting enough that they forget to fuss. Also, between three and four months some babies find their thumb to soothe themselves, and all of them discover the entertainment value of their hands and fingers. Between four and six months, babies lie on their backs, kicking their legs in delight, enjoying their ability to make purposeful movements. This increasing neurological organization helps babies gain control over their bodies and use their hands and limbs for soothing and entertaining themselves.

Between six and nine months, babies begin to sit up by themselves and progress from sitting to crawling. This may be the first time that you are able to set your baby down and enjoy a few minutes of having both arms free. As babies’ motor skills start to take off, they begin to literally move out of their upsetting behaviour. From nine to twelve months, the ability to pick up objects using the thumb and forefinger together broadens babies’ play and feeding skills. They can do many more things all by themselves.

The next major turning point comes between twelve and eighteen months, when babies begin to walk, and then to run and climb. Babies’ increasing ability to get around on their own means they drain less energy from you because they can do more to entertain and help themselves. This is a good time, weather permitting, to spend as much time outdoors as you can. Park yourself on a blanket under a tree with a good book and let baby explore in a safely enclosed area. In bad weather, spread the blanket indoors. You might manage to do some reading, and the two of you will have a better time when you don’t spend all day trying to “get something done”. Now is the time when you can get things done if you figure out a way to have baby be a part of the action. Whether you are cleaning house, gardening, or paying bills, toddlers are ecstatic if they can imitate you.

One of the highest energy-output stages in child rearing comes between fourteen and eighteen months. This is the time to draft some well-nurtured four-to six-year-olds to play with your toddler. They have tremendous energy for entertaining a baby, and you get to relax and simply supervise.

From eighteen to twenty-four months, language skills emerge, allowing the toddler to begin expressing frustrations in words. Annoying behaviours such as whining, screaming, biting, and temper tantrums subside between two and three years, once the child has enough verbal skills to communicate his needs by words rather than undesirable behaviours. As developmental skills progress, neediness lessens, at least somewhat. Yet remember, for many children, their needs do not really decrease, they only change. As a child develops, management responsibility shifts: in the early years, you help the child manage her challenging behaviour so that eventually she can manage it herself. In those middle years, you’ll spend many hours preparing your child for adult life. And remember, for most high-need children, their brains seem way ahead of their bodies.

Jonathan is now a lovable, cuddly, sensitive, intelligent boy. He always had these qualities; they were just trapped inside the body of a baby. When he learned to walk and talk he became less frustrated with his world, and with our world too. Jim and I now enjoy a life with him that we never thought possible. Our high-need baby has very definitely yielded us a high level of returns.

the changing personality profile of the high-need child

The words you use to describe your high-need child will change over the years, as the traits that so exhausted you during infancy are channelled into qualities that will make your child an interesting, dynamic adult. Try to think of your child’s personality in a positive light and look ahead. Labels that seem like negatives will be positive traits in your child’s future personality.

chapter 3 (#ulink_a5546761-228f-599f-b5dc-7ca0734fbff2)

your baby’s cry – what it means, how to listen (#ulink_a5546761-228f-599f-b5dc-7ca0734fbff2)

At some time during the early months of living with a fussy baby, a well-meaning adviser almost certainly will suggest that you, “let your baby cry it out – he’s got to learn sometime”. This is misguided advice. It shows not only a misunderstanding of the communication value of the infant’s cry, but also a devaluing of the mother’s sensitivity.

Mothers are not designed to let their babies cry, nor are babies’ cries designed to go unanswered.

“If only my baby could talk instead of cry I would know what she wants”, said Jane, a new mother of a fussy baby. “Your baby can talk”, we advised. “The key is for you to learn how to listen.” Consider how much more aware you have to be when you are in a foreign country struggling to understand someone. You have to pay attention to body language and be more discerning, so that you can use all available clues to figure out what this person is saying. Once you pay attention to the clues, communicating still requires effort, but you quickly get the gist.

A baby’s cry ensures the survival of the infant and promotes the development of the parent. It’s a two-way communication system designed to get infants whatever they need to thrive, and to teach parents how to interpret their baby’s language.

But what am I?An infant crying in the night:An infant crying for the light:And with no language but a cry. ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

When you learn the special language of your baby’s cry, you will be able to respond sensitively. Here are some listening tips that will help you discover what your baby is trying to say when he cries.

an infant’s cry – the perfect signal (#ulink_12461f0a-674a-5384-be0c-3b20a197fef7)

Scientists have long appreciated that the sound of an infant’s cry has all four features of a perfect signal. First, a perfect signal is automatic. A newborn cries by reflex. The infant senses a need, which triggers a sudden inspiration of air followed by a forceful expelling of that air through vocal cords, which vibrate to produce the sound we call a cry. In the early months, the tiny infant does not think, “What kind of cry will get me fed?” He just automatically cries. Second, the cry is easily generated. Once his lungs are full of air, the infant can initiate crying with very little effort. Third, the cry is appropriately disturbing: ear-piercing enough to get the caregiver’s attention and make him or her try to stop the cry but not so disturbing as to make the listener want to avoid the sound altogether. Fourth, the cry can be modified as both the sender and the listener learn ways to make the signal more precise.

responding to baby’s cries is biologically correct

A mother is biologically programmed to give a nurturant response to her newborn’s cries and not to restrain herself. Fascinating biological changes take place in a mother’s body in response to her infant’s cry. Upon hearing her baby cry, the blood flow to a mother’s breasts increases, accompanied by a biological urge to “pick up and feed”. The act of breast-feeding itself causes a surge in prolactin, a hormone that we feel forms the biological basis of the term “mother’s intuition”. Oxytocin, the hormone that causes a mother’s milk to let down, brings feelings of relaxation and pleasure, a pleasant release from the tension built up by the baby’s cry. These feelings help you love your baby. Mothers, listen to the biological cues of your body when your baby cries rather than to advisers who would tell you to turn a deaf ear. These biological happenings explain why it’s easy for those advisers to say such a thing. They are not biologically connected to your baby. Nothing happens to their hormones when your baby cries.

Each baby’s signal is unique. A baby’s cry is a baby’s language, and each baby cries differently. Voice researchers call these unique sounds “cry prints”, which are as unique for babies as their fingerprints are.

Once you appreciate the special signal value of your baby’s cry, the important thing is what you do about it. You have two basic options: ignore or respond. Ignoring your baby’s cry is usually a lose-lose situation. A more compliant baby gives up and stops signalling, becomes withdrawn, eventually realizes that crying is not worthwhile, and concludes that he himself is not worthwhile either. The baby loses the motivation to communicate with his parents, and the parents miss out on opportunities to get to know their baby. Everyone loses. A baby with a more persistent personality does not give up so easily. Instead, he cries more loudly and keeps escalating his signal, making it more and more disturbing. You could ignore this persistent signal in several ways. You could wait until the baby stops crying and then pick him up, so that he won’t think it was his crying that got your attention. This is actually a type of power struggle; you teach the baby that you’re in control, but you also teach him that he has no power to communicate. This shuts down parent-child communication, and in the long run everybody loses.

You could desensitize yourself completely so that you won’t be “bothered” at all by the cry; this way you can teach baby he gets responded to only when it’s “time”. Also, according to this scenario, baby gets used to being in a constant state of want. Not feeling right becomes the norm to be re-created throughout his life. This is another lose-lose situation; baby doesn’t get what he needs, and parents remain stuck in a mind-set that doesn’t allow them to enjoy the baby’s unique personality. Or you could pick baby up to calm him but then put him right back down because “it’s not time to feed him yet”. He has to learn, after all, to be happy “on his own”. Lose-lose again; he will start to cry again and you will feel angry. He will learn that his desires make you angry. And he will learn his communication, though heard, has not been understood, which can lead him to learn to distrust his own perceptions (“Maybe they’re right. Maybe I’m not hungry”).

Your other option is to give a prompt and nurturant response. This is the win-win way for baby and mother to work out a communication system that helps them both. The mother responds promptly and sensitively so that baby will feel less frantic the next time he needs something. The baby learns to cry “better”, in a less disturbing way, since he knows mother will come. Mother structures baby’s environment so that there is less need for him to cry; she keeps him close to her if she knows he’s tired and ready to sleep. Mother also heightens her sensitivity to the cry so that she can give just the right response: a quick response when the baby is young and prone to fall apart easily or when the cry makes it clear there is real danger, a slower response when the baby is older and can begin to learn to settle the disturbance on his own.

Responding appropriately to your baby’s cry is the first and one of the most difficult of many communication challenges you will face as a mother. You will master the system only after rehearsing thousands of cue-response cycles in the early months. If you initially regard your baby’s cry as a signal to be responded to and evaluated rather than as an unfortunate habit to be broken, you will open yourself up to becoming an expert in your baby’s signals, which will carry over into becoming an expert on everything about your baby. Each mother-baby signal system is unique. That’s why it is so short-sighted for “sleep trainers” to prescribe canned cry-response formulas, such as “leave her to cry for five minutes the first night, ten minutes the second”, and so on.

should baby cry it out? (#ulink_e49919a7-cbe3-5a66-bd7b-4f5f15cae8b2)

“But is there a time when I should leave my baby to cry?” you may wonder. As a new mother you are vulnerable to all kinds of well-meaning advisers, each of whom bears his own bag of tricks to dump on you whether you want them or not. The most damaging of all this free advice is “leave your baby to cry it out”. This often given, yet seldom helpful, advice shows a lack of understanding of the signal value of the infant cry and of the receptive qualities of the listening mother. This advice serves no useful purpose; if followed, it usually desensitizes a mother to her baby and creates a distance between the members of the communicating pair.

As a teacher, my training in child development kept haunting me. I remember learning that the social and emotional growth of a child begins with the stage of trust versus mistrust. Jason would either learn trust in his environment or learn various degrees of mistrust. Even if we could not alleviate his discomfort, we could at least hold him and rock him and let him know we cared. Abandoning him to suffer alone in a cot down the hall seemed cruel and inhumane. If we could not comfort him, at least we could teach him to learn to trust.

No one should ever advise a mother to let her baby cry it out, but neither should a mother feel that it is her responsibility always to stop her baby from crying. In the following discussion we want to help you work out the cry-response communication network that works best for you. If, when, and how long to let your baby complain is a cry-by-cry judgment. These following considerations can help you make the right judgement.

How the cry-it-out advice got started. In light of what we now know about infant development, the cry-it-out advice should be put in its proper place – filed away in the archives of bad baby advice; yet this dreadful advice is still around. Why? Understanding the historical setting that bred this philosophy makes it easier to appreciate why this advice is still so common. This sad story began in the late 1890s, when drastic changes occurred in parenting, ones that, like a contagious disease, are still around infecting parenting practices a hundred years later. This was the era when, due to a variety of social and economic situations, experts entered the business of advising women on childbearing and child rearing. Traditional motherly wisdom fell out of favour and new “scientific” theories took over. Pregnancy and birth became a medical “disease” from which a woman needed to be delivered. Man-made formula replaced mother-made milk. Rigid schedules replaced flexible feeding routines. The infant cry became an annoyance to be squelched, not a signal to be listened and responded to. “What should I do when my baby cries?” was a question that mothers should never have had to ask in the first place, and advisers should not even have attempted to answer.

Once “scientific” notions of baby tending did away with mother’s intuition, demand rose in the baby-advice market, and a multitude of advisers rushed in to supply what was needed. The most prevalent parenting theory of the time was that parents must be strict and in control, that babies and children should follow rigid, prescribed routines, and that parents who didn’t follow this advice to the letter were likely to raise spoiled and wildly uncontrollable children. If parents listened to their baby rather than to the books, they were not in control and their babies were manipulating them. To rescue parents from the fearful prospect of losing control, baby-care advisers handed out quick and easy rules to help parents control their children. The chief vaccine against the disease of manipulation was “let baby cry it out.” This was not just a suggestion, it became a mandate. This advice even came with a schedule of the predicted results: baby will probably cry one hour the first night, forty-five minutes the second night, and so on. Every new cry adviser had his own timetable: “Leave baby to cry five minutes before the first time you go in to reassure him, ten minutes the second time …”

survival mode