I have a difficult baby and I'm not ashamed to say it

Monday 12 May 2013

*Welcoming back Buddyboo's laid back disposition.

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Lol... I started this post almost two months ago.. It's now actually July.... and I seriously don't know where that laid back position has gone or what I was even going to write about.... Because I must have stopped typing in response to a cry that has turned into a two month grumbly cranky crying period which has robbed me of any opportunity to even start a single sentence of what was to be a happy post.

Goddam, I've just realised like a slap in the face with a fish.. I have a difficult baby.

At the moment he cries about everything. He cries when I change his nappy, he cries when he's feeding, he cries when he's sleeping. It's just a war zone here and the enemy is the grumbles.

Of course there are heaps of rewards in between for all the hard slog. He laughs now, even sometimes in his sleep. He laughs when he thinks I'm hilarious which is most of the time when he's not crying. He makes noises like he thinks he is talking back to you like he really believes he's having a conversation. In reality it just sounds like "wowowwowwow" baby speak. Pretty cute.

I'm told not to call him a "difficult" baby because all the books say there's no such thing, only that parents are not giving the individual baby his needs. Well eff off please because for example, a lot of  these books suggest "light shushing" as a calming technique for when your baby is "unsettled". 

Well blow me down. I have cooed a 25minute long "ooooohhhhmmmmm" into the baby's ear while holding him swaddled (which is a challenge to put on in itself btw), erstwhile bouncing on a giant bouncy ball with a white noise machine blaring at full blast carefully holding that at the perfect angle to the babys ear without dropping said baby.

I have devised hundreds of different creative techniques to calm my baby for hours and hours on end I try them all one by one in infinite combinations. I've tried gripe waters, oils, massages everything short of a witch doctor. In the end I have no idea if any of them work or whether the baby has just had enough of my shenanigans and gave up the fight and slept.

I just want to go back to that prenatal parenting class all those months ago and right at the point when the midwife taught us eager to learn pregnant-never-been-mums to "gently lay your drowsy baby down to his cot, pat him gently and walk away" ... I would just pause there, stop the class and yell "HAAAAAA!!!" with an accusatory finger right at the midwives know it all face.

And swiftly I would whip my baby out and demonstrate hours of coaxing to sleep and battling cluster bombs of yelling, and the finally drowsy baby shooting his eyes awake and scream like no tomorrow at the touch of the slightest fray of cotton from the cot as though I was laying him across hot coals instead of an expensive latex matress I bought him not realising that babies don't give a shit what material it is if it isn't your arms.

I am sleep deprived, tired but totally obsessed and dedicated to doing right for my baby.

So please, do not tell me that I can't call my baby difficult. 

I love him with all my heart and still I cannot grasp just how much I could love someone this much. Even in the hardest times, I cling to his crying body, cry with him and whisper to him just how much I love him. I see him for what he is: a love hungry, sweet, genteel baby boy who will grow to be a sensitive and kind man. So please baby book gurus, don't judge me just because I am finding this difficult. I have a difficult baby because at the moment its hard for both of us finding our way.

So mums out there, don't feel ashamed to admit that your baby is difficult. I struggle so much with feeling like I'm doing something wrong because he is so cranky. But really I know I should take heart in knowing I am doing my best and I have a healthy boy who gives me his beautiful gummy smiles every morning to show for it.