mom or meme?
How my demanding baby almost made me despair
© natalialeb / Adobe Stock
If the first time with baby is completely different than expected, it can be quite stressful. Do I have a high need baby, are all babies extremely exhausting or am I too sensitive? As a mom, are you actually allowed to whine and if so, how loudly? A field report.
The birth of a child is overwhelming, they say. However, I must have misunderstood something when I thought of tears of joy and happiness. When my first daughter was born, it actually blew my mind. So quite literally. When I came to in the delivery room, I was beside myself. And that shouldn’t change for quite a long time. “She’s not exactly the most relaxed child,” said the pediatrician while she was still in the hospital. A sentence that I couldn’t get out of my head for a long time.
Enjoy the baby time – right?
Babies have strong and immediate needs, I knew that. I felt well informed and of course I also knew that the first time with a baby can be quite upsetting and exhausting. Nevertheless, I would certainly enjoy the baby months, go for long walks, breastfeed on the go in the spring and find some variety in the baby course, I thought. And then this sweet little gift came to us and with it a loud, resolute NO to all of this.
The hospital where I gave birth is committed to bonding. During the entire stay, the baby should cuddle skin to skin on mom’s chest. I loved that. But not you. Not at all. I glance over at the woman next to me: Blissful panting from young and old. First day, first uncertainty – well, thank you.
We’re finally going home, from now on we’re going to focus on ourselves. Everything is prepared for our little baby, but apparently I’m not. She screams a lot, long and loud. And of course I know that babies do that. “It’s all normal,” I say to myself, until it starts again. For hours. “It’s all normal, all normal! Is that still normal? That can’t be normal! She’s got something!” In a rage, with a red face and a trembling body, she screams out her tension and we try to hide ours. After all, we want to provide security. We carry and hold and endure the situation. After three months it should usually get better. It wasn’t.
Scream, nurse, sleep
We break off the baby massage course after the fourth visit, without a single drop of baby oil ever touching her skin. Unfortunately, breastfeeding is only possible in the dark and not on a park bench in the countryside. The pram goes into the basement unused. I create a low-stimulus everyday life that doesn’t overwhelm you – but completely exhausts me. My radius is getting smaller and smaller, I feel more and more isolated and don’t trust myself anymore. I carry and carry and carry, but we don’t get far. Because as soon as she wakes up, we have to go home quickly. Then it starts again, the screaming that makes my heart beat in my throat, that just can’t be stopped.
“Babies cry – sometimes more,” says the pediatrician. “These are pronounced primal instincts. She demands what she needs,” says the midwife. So is everything really normal? I’m glad, but also kind of terribly ashamed. So are the “high need baby” or “cribbing baby” attributions just an excuse for parents who have underestimated the challenge of parenthood? So I’m just a coward then? The one who declares her cute child a problem? The one who maybe just doesn’t recognize baby needs properly? The one who gets overwhelmed too quickly? Are the back pains, the exhaustion and the ever smaller number on the scale my personal weakness?
A special temper
Time and especially my second child, who was born with completely different characteristics, have taught me: No! Children challenge us. And some kids ask for more. This is neither personal failure nor competition for the golden sacrificial cup. It is what it is – something between individual feelings and objective facts that desperate parents read out of sleep and cry logs. And both are justified!
A few years later, the hardships of the first few months and years are as if in a fog – somehow burned in forever, but still lovingly covered up. Do parents need a label for a baby who is perceived as very demanding? No idea. But what I do know: Parents are allowed to whine, doubt and work hard! And they should feel that they are being taken seriously – no matter where their child is on the temperament spectrum.