Dr. Sears Says

So Im up late one night breastfeeding. It must be close to dawn, because the sky is changing to indigo, and the outlines of the trees are black.
I have the duck clamp lamp on. The dog is snoring at the foot of the bed. Amanda is tossing and turning in her sleep. The baby is grunting at my breast.
I am reading a Dr. Sears book my sister loaned me. I come across a chapter called "High Needs Babies". Could this be Jace?
High needs includes never wanting to be put down, crying at most everything, not liking for others to hold them...
This could be my son...
What cures high needs?
Co-sleeping, Babywearing, Breastfeeding.
I wonder to myself as I am up with the dawn, how did I get a fussy baby? I have felt myself relax exponentially since I've had my son. I never thought I'd be the one with a very unhappy baby. All of my girlfriends who have had children say infancy is when they are easiest. All they do is sleep and eat.
Not our son. He sleeps or not, cries at everything and nurses.


So this is how we came about curing Jace's High Needs attitude...

Co-Sleeping
Co-sleeping can include anything from your baby sleeping in a bassinet or swing, or whatever he'll sleep in at the side of your bed to the more extreme- baby sleeping in bed with you.
We started off with Jace sleeping next to our bed. We had great intentions for the bassinet. It made its way into our room before he was even born. We would look at it and smile. Soon it would be filled with our own bundle of joy.
Wrong.
Jace hates the bassinet. Mostly all we can get from it, is a few short minutes, where he cries, and we rock him in it, trying in vain to get him to sleep.
Then came the swing. We realized we could get a few short hours of sleep if Jace was in his swing. But he had to be going warp speed. Sometimes with the vibration on. Sometimes he would want his paci, and we would play a game where he would suckle it, spit it out, cry, we would put it back in his mouth, and this would repeat itself constantly.
Fast forward to a few sleepless weeks.
Several times a night Jace would cry to eat. I would get up quickly, change his cute little butt and take him to bed with me to breastfeed. Being as tired as I was, I would nurse his sweet, warm, baby smelling self, and rapidly nod out, like a drunk in an alley, or an old person in a recliner. I would wake up with a start! Had I dropped my baby, rolled over on him, smothered him as Drs would like you to believe? No.
There he would be, lovely as ever, sleeping in my arms.
There might be something to this, I would tell myself.
Next time I laid his little body next to mine, there in the half light of our bedroom, nursed him and we fell asleep together, as one family.
When I awoke, I realized something glorious. We had all slept great. Including Jace. My heart soared. When I say we slept great, I mean for several hours, no one cried including me. I mean the baby nursed when he needed, and seemed to sleep great, nestled there in our bed.
I know co-sleeping isn't for everyone. And there has to be some common sense attatched. If you lack that, simply don't do it.
Guard rails must be involved. Tight fitting sheets. No blankets or pillows near to smother baby. If you or your partner have been drinking or taking medication - Don't do it. Plain and simple.
But for us it is working. So far. Until it doesn't. And then we will find something else. Because for the baby to be better rested, and happy, that to me is priceless.
Besides, women have been sleeping with their babies for centuries. We are not idiots. We know how to care for, and keep alive, our children. Don't let the doctors and Tv and whomever else tell you that you are stupid and incapable. Because you are not. Make your own informed decisions, and lastly, do what feels right.

Breastfeeding

This is a given. Do it when baby asks. That means on demand. And be present. Look into his little blue eyes, talk to him. Stroke his hair or his feet or his sweet baby skin. It will instill confidence in him and create a stronger bond.
Simple as that.

Babywearing

So Co-sleeping kinda took care of nights. Babywearing also happened mostly by accident for days.
As I mentioned before, Jace cannot be put down. I mean like EVER. This resulted in me holding him all day, getting no housework done, because it's just impossible to do without hands, and then handing him off to Amanda the very nanosecond she walked through the door. It was hard to eat, hard to use the facilities. Hard to do anything but hold the baby and breastfeed.
I had four slings. I tried each and every one. Until I found one that worked for us. It was some mesh number that the baby clipped into. He faces me, his chest to mine. Because he's so small still, there's a little ledge to hold his neck up. He really wasn't fond of it at first. Each and every time, even now, I kinda gotta settle him into it, by bouncing him, speaking to him in soft tones, and sometimes offering a pacifier.
This allows me to sweep, eat, do laundry, let the dogs outside. Ya know, not a lot of stuff, but enough stuff so that by the time Amanda gets home to relieve us, I have less of a chore list to knock off.
However, just as with co-sleeping there are some things that are off limits when you wear your baby.
Anything involving hot water. Cooking on a stove. Using cleaning products. Any common sense thing that could harm baby.
Here are a few things I don't reccomend. Not because they harm baby but because they're awkward.
1. Putting on makeup. Look down. Baby will have flecks of eyeliner, blush, bronzer and eyeshadow on his head. He will look like a drag queen, or a circus clown.
2. Brushing your long hair. It will get into babies face. And baby will give you a "get it out of my personal space" look.
3. Eating popcorn. Long after you un-sling baby, you will find bits of popcorn in his diaper, his arm pits, under your boobs. Everywhere, as if you were eating it like a maniac. And probably you were.


So maybe there's something to what Dr. Sears says after all about comforting a High Needs baby. Don't take his word for it, or mine. Try it. Especially if you're dealing with a stressed out baby like we are. And try everything else under the sun until you find things that comfort your child. Because you want him to be happy as he can be. It's a ripple effect. It makes you happier, and your partner happier, and eventually, after some time, the whole High Needs baby thing will have seemed like a lifetime ago...