The active baby. Babies often send the first clue that they’re going to be more active than most right from the uterus; suspicions are confirmed soon after birth when receiving blankets are kicked off, diapering and dressing sessions become wrestling matches, and baby always ends up at the opposite end of the crib after a nap. Active babies are a constant challenge (they sleep less than most, become restless when feeding, can be extremely frustrated until they’re able to be independently mobile, and are always at risk of hurting themselves), but they can also be a joy (they’re usually very alert, interested and interesting, and quick to accomplish). While you don’t want to squelch such a baby’s enthusiasm and adventurous nature, you will want to take special protective precautions as well as learn ways to quiet him or her for eating and sleeping. The following tips should help:
Use a blanket sleeper in cold weather and lightweight sleepers in cool weather; limit or avoid swaddling.
Be especially careful never to leave an active baby on a bed, changing table, or any other elevated spot even for a second—they often figure out how to turn over very early, and
sometimes just when you least expect it. A restraining strap on the changing table is useful but should not be relied upon if you’re more than a step away.
Adjust the crib mattress to its lowest level as soon as the active baby starts to sit alone for even a few seconds—the next step may be pulling up and over the sides of the crib. Keep all objects a baby might climb on out of crib and play yard.
Don’t leave an active baby in an infant seat except on the floor—they are often capable of overturning the seat. And of course, baby should always be strapped in.
Learn what slows down your active baby—massage (see page 304), soft music (either your own singing or a CD), a warm bath, or looking at a picture book (though active children may not be ready for this as early as quieter children). Build such quieting activities into your baby’s schedule before feeding and sleeping times.
The irregular baby. At about six to twelve weeks, just when other babies seem to be settling into a schedule and becoming more predictable, these babies seem to become more erratic.
Not only don’t they fall into schedules on their own, they aren’t interested in any you may have to offer.
Instead of following such a baby’s lead and letting chaos take over your home life, or taking the reins yourself and imposing a very rigid schedule that is contrary to the infant’s nature, try to find a middle ground. For both your sakes, it’s necessary to put at least a modicum of order in your lives, but try as much as possible to build a schedule around any natural tendencies your baby seems to exhibit. You may have to keep a diary to uncover any hints of a recurring time frame in your child’s days, such as hunger around 11 A.M. every morning or fussiness after 7 P.M. every evening.
Try to counter any unpredictability with predictability. That means trying, as much as possible, to do things at the same times and in the same ways every day. Nurse in the same chair when possible, give baths at the same time each day, always soothe by the same method (rocking or singing or whatever works best). Try scheduling feedings at roughly the same times each day, even if your baby doesn’t seem hungry, and try to stick to the schedule even if he or she is hungry between meals, offering a small snack if necessary. Ease rather than force your baby into more of a structured day. And don’t expect true regularity, just a little less chaos.
Nights with an irregular baby can be torture, mostly because the baby doesn’t usually differentiate them from days. You can try the tips for dealing with night-day differentiation problems (see page 181), but it’s very possible they won’t work for your baby, who may want to stay up throughout the night, at least initially. To survive, mommy and daddy may have to alternate night duty or share split shifts until things get better, which they eventually will if you are persistent and stay cool.
The poor-adaptability or initial-withdrawal baby. These babies consistently reject the unfamiliar—new objects, people, foods. Some are upset by change of any kind, even familiar
change such as going from the house to the car. If this sounds like your baby, try setting up a daily schedule with few surprises. Feedings, baths, and naps should take place at the same times and in the same places, with as few departures from routine as possible. Introduce new toys and people (and foods, when baby is ready for them) very gradually. For example, hang a new mobile over the crib for just a minute or two. Remove it and bring it out again in a short while, leaving it up for a few minutes longer. Continue increasing the time of exposure until baby seems ready to accept and enjoy the mobile. Introduce other new toys and objects in the same way. Have new people spend a lot of time just being in the same room with your baby, then talking at a distance, then communicating close up, before they make an attempt at
physical contact. Later, when you introduce solids, add new foods very gradually, starting with tiny amounts, and increasing portion size over the span of a week or two. Don’t add another food until the last is well accepted. Try to avoid unnecessary changes when making purchases—a new feeding bottle with a different shape or color, a new gadget on the stroller, a new pacifier. If an item wears out or breaks, try to replace it with an identical or similar model.
The high-intensity baby. You probably noticed it right at the beginning—your baby cried louder than any other child in the hospital nursery. The loud crying and screaming, the kind that can frazzle even the steadiest of nerves, continued when you got home. You can’t flip a switch and turn down the volume on your baby, of course—but turning down the volume of noise and activity in the environment may help tone your child down a bit. Also, you will want to take some purely practical measures to keep the noise from bothering family and neighbors. If possible, soundproof your baby’s room by insulating the walls with insulating board or padding, adding carpeting, curtains, and anything else that will absorb the sound.
You can try earplugs, a white-noise machine, a fan or air conditioner to reduce the wear and tear on your ears and nerves without totally blocking out your baby’s cries. As crying lessens in the months ahead, so will this problem, but your child will probably always be louder and more intense than most.
The negative or “unhappy” baby. Instead of smiling and cooing, some babies just seem grumpy all the time. This is no reflection on the parents (unless, of course, they’ve been
neglectful), but it can have a profound impact on them. They often find it difficult to love their unhappy babies, and sometimes they even reject them. If nothing seems to satisfy your baby (and no medical explanation is uncovered), then do your best to be loving and caring anyway, secure in the knowledge that one of these days, when your baby learns other ways of
expression, the crying and general unhappiness will diminish, though he or she may always be the “serious” type.
Sound sensitivity. As much as is practical (remember, you still have to live in the house, too) lower the sound level in your home. Keep the radio, stereo, and TV low, adjust the telephone ring to low, and install carpeting and draperies, where possible, to absorb sound. Speak or sing to your baby softly and have others do the same. Be sure any musical or other sound-producing toys aren’t disturbing to baby. If outside noises seem to be a problem, try a white-noise machine or air
cleaner in baby’s room to block them out.
Light or visual sensitivity. Use room-darkening shades or drapes so baby can sleep later in the morning and nap during the day, and avoid very bright lights in rooms she frequents. Don’t expose her to too much visual stimulation at once—hang just one toy in the crib, or put just a couple in the play yard at a time. Select toys that are soft and subtle in color and design rather than bright and busy.
Taste sensitivity. If your baby is breastfed and has a bad day after you eat garlic or onions, consider that the unfamiliar taste of your milk may be the cause; if she’s bottle fed and seems cranky a lot, try switching to a formula with a different taste (ask the doctor for a
recommendation). When you introduce solids, recognize the fact that your baby may not relish every taste sensation and may reject strong flavors entirely.
Touch sensitivity. With this princess-and-the pea-like syndrome, some babies lose their
composure as soon as they wet their diapers, become frantic when they’re too warm or dressed in rough fabrics, scream when they’re dunked in the tub or put down on a too-cold mattress or, later, when you tie their shoes over wrinkled socks. So keep clothing comfortable (cotton knits with smooth seams and buttons, snaps, labels, and collars that won’t irritate because of size, shape, or location are ideal), bathwater and room temperatures at levels that keep her happy, and diapers changed frequently.
A small percentage of babies are so oversensitive to touch that they resist being held and cuddled.
Don’t over-handle such a baby; do a lot of your caressing and interacting with words and eye contact rather than actual physical touching. When you do hold your baby, learn which way seems least
annoying (tight or loose, for example). Observe closely to see what feels good and what doesn’t.
Smell sensitivity. Unusual odors aren’t likely to bother a very young infant, but some children begin to show a negative reaction to certain scents before the end of the first year. The aroma of frying onions, the smell of a diaper rash medicine, the fragrance of mom’s new perfume or dad’s new aftershave lotion, can all make such a baby restless and unhappy. If your baby seems sensitive to smells, limit strong odors when you can.
Stimulation sensitivity. Too much stimulation of any kind seems to trigger trouble for some infants.
These babies need to be handled gently and slowly. Loud talk, hurried movements, too many
playthings, too many people around, too much activity in a day—these can all be upsetting. To help such a baby sleep better, avoid active play just before bedtime, substituting a soothing, warm bath followed by quiet storytelling or lullabies. Soft recorded music can often help such a baby to settle down, too.
Taking the extra steps that keep a very demanding baby happy isn’t easy, but it’s almost always worth the effort. Keep in mind, however, that there will be times when you won’t realistically be able to put baby’s special needs first (baby dislikes bright lights and noise, but you have to take him or her to a family Christmas party with you). That’s fine, too—though you may have to deal with the crying consequences. Keep in mind, also, that most “challenging” symptoms tend to lessen considerably as a child gets older.
Before you decide your baby is one of the challenging ones, however, you should be sure that there isn’t some underlying physical cause of his or her troubling behavior. Describe it to the doctor so that any possible medical explanation—illness or allergy, for example—can be ruled out.
Sometimes a baby who seems to be especially demanding is simply colicky, teething, ill, or allergic
to her formula. For descriptions of other types of challenging babies, see the box on page 238.
BABY WON’T SLEEP ON BACK
“I know I should put my baby to sleep on his back to protect against SIDS. But he sleeps terribly in that position. Once, when I put him on his tummy to play, he fell asleep and took his longest nap ever. Is it safe to switch?”
Often babies know what’s best for them (as when they stop eating when they’re no longer hungry, or they tune out overly enthusiastic parents when they’ve had too much stimulation). But, unfortunately, not when it comes to sleeping positions. Most babies naturally prefer the tummy position for sleeping;
it’s more comfortable, it’s cozier, and it makes them less likely to startle. And for all those reasons, it also ensures longer sleeps and fewer wakings.
But it’s clearly not best for baby. Tummy sleeping is linked to a much higher incidence of SIDS—
particularly in babies who are not accustomed to the position (because, like yours, they started out on their backs from birth). Most babies get used to the back position quickly, especially if they’ve never known another sleeping position; others continue to fuss a bit on their backs; and a few, like yours, don’t seem able to settle down for a good night’s sleep when they’re tummy up. Almost all babies would sleep better on their tummies given the chance, which is one of the reasons why scientists believe SIDS is more likely to strike tummy-sleeping babies. Because infants sleep more deeply on their tummies, their arousal responses are muted, preventing them, scientists theorize, from waking up during episodes of sleep apnea and resuming normal breathing patterns.
The first thing you should do is discuss the problem with your pediatrician. He or she might want to look into why your baby dislikes the back position so much. Rarely a baby has a physical or
anatomical reason that makes being on his back unusually uncomfortable. Much more likely, your baby just plain doesn’t like the way it feels. If that’s the case, try some of these tips for keeping your baby happy on his back:
Consider swaddling before bedtime. Research shows that infants who are swaddled before
they’re put on their backs sleep more contentedly—and cry less. They’re also less likely to startle and to be woken up by those normal, jerky movements. But don’t swaddle once your baby is active enough to kick off the blanket (loose bedding in the crib poses a safety hazard). Some babies can manage this as early as the second month. Also make sure the room is cool enough when you’re swaddling; overheating is another risk factor for SIDS.
Prop up the head of the mattress slightly (with a pillow or rolled blanket under the mattress) so baby isn’t flat on his back. This may make him more comfortable. But don’t prop baby with any pillows or other soft bedding inside the crib.
Slowly train your baby to be more comfortable sleeping on his back. If falling asleep in that position is tough for him, try putting him in his infant seat to sleep or rocking him to sleep before transferring him to the crib once he’s asleep (on his back).
Stick with it. Consistency almost always pays off when it comes to babies. Eventually, he’ll probably get used to sleeping on his back.
Check again with the doctor if baby’s still miserable on his back. If nothing you do seems to make your son a happy back-sleeper, the doctor might suggest letting baby sleep on his side, with a
wedge that prevents him from rolling onto his stomach (but not his back). While it’s not the recommended sleeping position, it’s still safer than tummy down, and may allow you both to get some sleep.
Once your baby can roll over by himself, chances are he’ll flip over into his preferred sleeping position even when you’ve put him down on his back (see page 355).
What It’s Important to Know: STIMULATING YOUR BABY IN THE EARLY MONTHS
In our achievement-oriented society, many parents worry about turning out babies who can keep up with the baby down the street—and they begin worrying early. They worry that if he doesn’t smile by the time he’s four weeks old, he may not get into the right preschool program. They worry that if she hasn’t turned over by two months, she may not make the high school tennis team. Somewhat of an exaggeration? Well, somewhat. In fact, there are parents who worry that unless they do everything right, they won’t be successful in turning the basically unresponsive lump they just delivered into a candidate for an Ivy League sheepskin.
Actually, they have little reason to worry. Babies—even those destined for that coveted sheepskin
—develop at different rates, and those who get off to a somewhat slower start often excel later. And parents—even those who are chronically insecure—usually do a thoroughly competent job of
stimulating their offspring, often without making a conscious effort.
Yet, as comforting as this knowledge should be, it doesn’t always stop the worry. For many parents, there is the nagging fear that doing what comes naturally when it comes to parenting may not be quite enough. So, if you’d like to check what you’ve already been doing instinctively to see if you’re on the right track, the following tips for creating the right atmosphere for learning and for supplying sensory stimulation should be helpful to you. Also see Making the Most of the First Three Years, pages 224–225.
CREATING A GOOD ENVIRONMENT
It’s a lot easier than you might think. Here’s all there is to it:
Love your baby. Nothing helps a baby grow and thrive as much as being loved. A close relationship with a parent, or parents, and/or a substitute parent is crucial for normal development. Love should be unconditional, too—the no-strings-attached variety. It should be communicated as clearly (though it may not come as easily) during a colic bout or a toddler temper tantrum (and, later, during a teenage tempest) as during a moment of angelic behavior.
Relate to your baby. Take every opportunity to talk, sing, or coo to your baby—while you’re changing a diaper, giving a bath, shopping for groceries, or driving the car. These casual but
stimulating exchanges go further in making a brighter baby than forcing computer learning programs.
And even the most educational toys are useless if baby doesn’t have you (the best of all toys) to play with part of the time. Your goal at this point isn’t to “teach” your baby but to be involved with him or her.