Sunday, February 27, 2011

Speaking of Intense...

This past weekend was President's day weekend.  My husband's family has made it a tradition, since before he was born, to go to the coast for the long weekend every year.  They rent a house and everyone has a great time playing games, hanging out, and walking to the beach.  This year was our son's first year at this event, let alone at the beach!  There was a lot of holding the baby going on.  Great-grandma wanted her fill, grandma got her turn, Auntie also took her share, even I got to hold him for a little while in between :).  As I was holding him and he was squealing and getting excited (which is his usual play these days) I could feel his whole body tense up; from head to toe, every muscle inside of the boy was tense for about 20 seconds and then he would relax and then do it again until he got tired.  It was a little strange to me to sit back and take this in from the perspective of him being a high need baby.  If he didn't do that all of the time I would think that the child was having a seizure.  His body gets THAT tense.  You would think he would be tired all of the time since he is so tense most of his waking minutes.  It makes me giggle to think that this is just a glimpse into what he will be like as a growing boy.  INTENSE!!!!  Gotta love him! 

Friday, February 25, 2011

Sickness has taken over

Sorry bloggers....

I haven't updated this blog in a while because I caught a stomach bug and have been miserable!  I will get to it soon enough!  Bare with me a little while....

Thursday, February 17, 2011

The future of a high needs baby?

Number two highlight of a high needs baby is Hyperactivity.  GULP! 

I was a kindergarten teacher for four years before I had my baby and became a stay-at-home mother and the thought about having a child that is hyperactive makes me sweat!  But it doesn't have to be such a negative thing.  Askdrsears.com says, "Parents, remember that, like all the words used to describe high need children, the term "hyperactive" is not a negative tag. At what point a normally active child becomes a "hyperactive" child is a judgment call. Calling your busy toddler hyperactive does not mean he will be burdened with this label forever, or that he will someday be tagged hyperactive by a school psychologist. This term just describes how your child acts, without making any judgment about whether it's good or bad. "Hyperactive" in an infant or toddler is not a disorder, it's a description."  These kids are ready to go all of the time.  They are barrelling through the day at 100 MPH until they finally get too tired to continue and then they crash!

I see this play out with my son everyday (and it's so good to know that it is part of his personality that I need to foster instead of moan about).  You should see what I'm staring at right now.  Sitting on the floor in my living room I see a MESS!  ALL of his toys are sprawled out on the floor.  To keep him occupied I put all of his toys in a basket and then tip it over so he can sit there and go through each toy one after the next.  He is never satisfied with one toy for long.  He needs the whole gammut.

I am already preparing myself for when he becomes mobile and is hyperactive.  I decided that we will take a daily trip to the park to run off steam and find a playground nearby that will help him get some energy out.  I was taught to dread the hyperactive child, as a teacher.  But now that I have a child that has displayed some hyperactive traits already, I am finding ways to love the endless energy in my son.

Share your experience with your hyperactive child.  Did they display hyperactivity as a baby?  Did it continue through toddlerhood and get worse or did you learn to enjoy it?

Monday, February 14, 2011

12 Features of a High Need Baby

So apparently the kinder thing to call my baby is a high needs baby, but I think I'm going to stick with high maintenance because it's too hard to change the name of the blog :)

So I found this website that highlights the 12 features of a high needs baby (click here for the link).  I find this helpful and fascinating.  So I thought I would begin blogging by talking about the way my wonderful son fits into each category and hopefully get a few laughs and a little energy out.


The first sign of a high needs baby is INTENSITY.  "You can read the intensity of the baby's feelings in her body language. The fists are clenched, back arched, muscles tensed, as if ready for action."  So that's what it's called... intense... I was calling it a fit this whole time.  If you have a high needs baby you have experienced this daily.  My son likes to tell me what he needs by being very dramatic.  The most recent environments he likes to play this out is in his high chair and car seat.  For no apparent reason, while I'm feeding him solids (which 2 months ago was a cause for intensity telling me he wanted to eat solids; now his intensity is aimed at telling me he doesn't want anymore... seems ironic to me) my son clenches his fists, gets red in the face and grunts loudly.  Sometimes it means he is loving the food, sometimes it means he's done, sometimes the cause is him wanting to take over the feeding.  Almost nothing he does is not intense...sound familiar?  Sleeping... getting tired creates an intense crying baby.  Hungry....intense crying.  Having fun... intense screaming.  Bored...intense crying.  You get the picture (but I'm sure you see the same picture in your own home if you have a high needs baby).  

I have come to realize that I actually love this trait about my little boy.  I guess because he's far from boring.  I am a stay at home mom; and as much as this exhausts me everyday, I also enjoy his intensity because it shows me how passionate he is about life already.  I just hope that this intensity for crying and screaming as a baby will turn into a passion for life and love as he gets older.

I find that it is helpful to revel in the joys of these high needs traits instead of focusing on the negative.  This helps me appreciate the child my son was created to be instead of wishing I had someone else's child. 

Share your experiences of intensity with your high needs baby.  I'd love to hear how this plays out in your home.

Next time... hyperactive!  See you then!

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Hello Bloggers!

I have created this new blog specifically for mommies who also have high maintenance babies. 

As I struggled this weekend with the constant whining, crying, fussing, and then a switch back to smiles, I seriously thought I was the only mommy with a baby so incredibly high maintenance.  But I thought, there has GOT to be other mommies with babies ALWAYS in need of something (more sleep, more attention, more food, etc.). 

Here, I will share my struggles with my high maintenance baby as well as my joys.  Hopefully this will help someone else out there know that you are not the only mommy with a high maintenance baby.  And maybe I can hear from some mommies out there too so that I can know I'm not the only one also! 

Here's a little info about my high maintenance baby.  I had a wonderful pregnancy.  I wasn't working full time, only a few odd jobs here and there.  My labor and delivery went great also.  The only struggle was during delivery when I had to push for 2 hours.  But other than that everything was wonderful.  He even took to breastfeeding great.

We brought our little bundle home and soon found out that life with this bundle wasn't going to be easy.  He cried almost all of the time.  It seemed when he wasn't sleeping he was crying (even when he was nursing).  I called his pediatrician and he said that all of the symptoms sound like he has acid reflux.  So he prescribed some medicine and things got better... for a while.  He still seemed to struggle with nursing.  I was getting fed up with the mess that we were when he was nursing.  He would make so many grunts and noises.  The doctor said nursing should be the happiest time of his life.  That certainly wasn't the case with our son.  We began to assume he had a milk protein sensitivity.  So the doctor told me to take dairy out of my diet to see if it helped; and it did... for a while. 

It just seems like there is always something new that we are learning about him.  It is exhausting and very taxing on my emotions. 

I have so many friends who have babies that just sit, lay, or do anything quietly and peacefully.  It's hard, sometimes, to accept my high maintenance baby for who God made him to be. 

There is how my struggle began.  I will create follow-up blogs on the struggles that have come about as he is growing older.  (He is currently 7 months old).

Please follow me and tell me about your experiences as well.