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Attachment Parenting
high needs infant?
If you would "classify" your LO as high needs as an infant what were/are they like? what makes them ""high needs"?
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Re: high needs infant?
https://www.lalecheleague.org/nb/nbsepoct96p136.html
Both my boys are high needs, but they also have special needs. DS1 screamed day and night for 7 months, he literally slept in 30 minute increments then screamed bloody murder for 30-90 minutes only to fall asleep for 30 more minutes. Once we finally started him on medicine he started sleeping in 3 hr chunks.
DS2 was extremely colicky. He screamed for about 5.5 months. We started him on DS1's meds at 3 months and it did help, he usually slept in chunks, however he still screamed a lot.
I literally could not put my boys down for 30 seconds before they were screaming bloody murder. They had to constantly be moving, bouncing, swaying, interacted with for them to be content.
DS1 had 45 minutes therapy session that we literally spent the entire time just getting him to stop screaming and relax.
Both boys also have severe reflux. DS1 was a projectile vomiter while DS2 is a more silent refluxer with only a normal amount of spit up. DS1 also had a poor suck/swallow so he had to be fed just so or else he wouldn't eat and then usually it all came back up 5 minutes later.
I remember in July going to a doctors appt for my knee and wearing capri's with sweatpants over them and a t-shirt with a long sleeve shirt over it. This way when i got to the dr's i could take my outer layer off and be clean because DS1 spit up so much.
Add in DS1's food allergies and dealing with all his tummy aches. And then him getting 105+ degree fevers for 5 days ever 2 weeks starting when he was 7 months old and all the medical testing, he was a high needs infant. DS2 started with surgery at 3 weeks old and thankfully has teh same diagnosis as DS1 so we've avoided a lot of the same testing and we avoided the NICU.
I consider DD1 to have been a high needs infant. She pretty much needed ME (not dad or grandma or anyone else) to hold her all day, every day until she was almost two...I didn't realize that wasn't "normal" until DD2 was born. DD2 lets other people hold her, can be set down, and can entertain herself, and has been able to almost since she was born...
DS needed to be held all. the. time.
He cried a lot more than his peers. I had a great group of mom friends and all of us had babies that were born within a month of each other. DS was the one that always needed to be held and cried a lot. This was for most of the first year.
Fingers crossed this next one isn't a high needs baby. But if it is at least I'm a bit more prepared.
I would say that my daughter is pretty high need (we say high maintenance in our house). We also joke that she is great at crowd control (i.e. getting us to do what she wants or needs).
Our dear friends have a happy little boy who is happy to just chill out with them and watch what is going on around him. They can actually relax on the couch with their baby.
our little gal is great, but she wants to be held constantly and to be bounced, walked, rocked, etc. I feel like we spent the first few months holding her while bouncing on a yoga ball. She's now 23 pounds, but she still gets held/carried the majority of the time. You can stand still for about 20 seconds, but then she wants to move. She has recently learned to sleep on her own in her crib for the first 3 hours of the night, but then the only way to finish the night is in bed snuggled up against an armpit. She's pretty much the same at daycare. I have never seen here there when they are not holding her or giving her 1:1 care, but I see that the other babies there don't seem to require that. Despite this she is a super happy and clever baby. I don't really mind it and wasn't entirely surprised by it. It's also part of the reason why Attachment Parenting seems so perfect for her.