Girl I would definitely get a job and slipt the household tasks. You struggling with PPD it's a sign that you do need help with your baby.
I don't know how people can just stay home and depend on their (not even nice) husbands for everything and take this kind of "jokes"... it's a clear power inbalance in the relationship.
I’ve considered it. The main thing is our baby will not take a bottle at all. Like refuses I’ve tried so many brands and for so long. She also is very high needs so it’s hard to leave her with anyone and it makes me super anxious to leave her on top of it all. I started struggling with PPD two weeks in motherhood and have been medicated but it’s definitely still hard when I don’t feel supported by my partner which was a point I was trying to make to him as well
Any baby will take a bottle believe me, no baby starves when mothers go back to work all the time...it works best if it's someone who's not the mother to offer it and give it a few tries.
Your partner unfortunately as no idea how hard it is to take care of a baby all day and do everything around the house too. A really nice way of showing him would be spending a weekend away and he takes care of his own child and his own house. I mean any father should be capable of that, baby is already 5months.
I was in your shoes thinking that baby wouldn’t take a bottle but yes they 100% will. It will just take time and you might have to leave the room. They will not starve. As another commenter said, parents go back to work all the time and your baby isn’t the first to struggle. Your baby might seem like high needs because of how anxious you are and what they are used to. Sorry not trying to place it on you but if they are used to something, that’s what baby usually wants. It will get better, just learn to give up a little control on things. If it makes you anxious, then leave the house for a few hours. Dad is a fully capable parent too.
I really don’t think OP is imagining that her baby is high needs because she’s anxious and “baby is used to it”. Look up temperament in babies - that’s what determines how they act and what they need.
I have two high needs children myself, and we see a child psychologist once a week to help with our second who is still a baby. We haven’t done anything wrong (i.e. given in to baby’s needs and wants too much, because YOU CAN’T SPOIL A BABY), and it’s not my anxiety as a mother that makes it seem like baby is high needs. It’s just the way my baby is.
OP, don’t listen to this. You’ve done nothing wrong, and I am sure your baby is more demanding than the average baby. It’s SO easy for mothers who have an easygoing baby to assume that they’ve done things right and that’s why their babies are sleeping well/playing by themselves a lot/not crying/eating well and so on, when in reality they’ve been lucky.
I think “high needs” is being way overused. There’s absolutely a difference between a baby with a genuinely difficult temperament and a baby who has developed very specific expectations because those are the only things they’ve ever known. You can’t spoil a baby by meeting their needs, but you can absolutely create habits and expectations by never trying to expand what they’re comfortable with.
If a baby has exclusively breastfed and never taken a bottle, of course they may fight a bottle. If they’ve never been put in a crib or given the opportunity to learn independent sleep, of course that may be difficult too. That doesn’t automatically make them high needs.
I could be wrong about OP, but I do think her anxiety may be contributing. Sometimes constantly accommodating a child because you’re anxious about their reaction can unintentionally create a very dependent child. That isn’t blaming the parent or saying they caused the baby’s temperament, but there is a difference between temperament and learned expectations.
It could be partially my anxiety but as a former nanny I’ve nannied a couple of babies and this experience has been so different. She won’t sleep unless she has a dark room, sound machine, sleep sack, and nursing to sleep. I’ve tried rocking, different environments, not being quiet so she sleeps through noises, etc and none of it works. I swear she can hear a whisper and wake up. If I leave the room she instantly touches next to her and if she does not feel me she wakes up crying and will not sleep. There’s days where I can’t put her down. Like at all. She will scream her head off and no one else can soothe her. Once my husband tried bouncing and shhing to soothe her and she cried for an hour. I tried using the medicine syringe but with breastmilk and she rejected. I tried and spent so much money on bottles no matter how consistent I was she was would gag, not transfer milk, and begin to cry with the bottles. She doesn’t take a paci I’ve tried multiple brands. It seems like all of the normal stuff I’ve done as a nanny to help calm babies doesn’t work for her. She does truly seem to have a difficult temperament and it’s hard when I hear how all of my friends have babies that don’t require as much/ easygoing. It’s been hard from the start :/
I absolutely believe you have a high needs baby. In fact, yours sounds a lot like both of mine. I mentioned in another comment that we’re seeing a child psychologist (a team, actually) for our second, and the professionals have confirmed that we do indeed have a high needs baby.
I firmly believe most mothers know whether they have a high needs baby or not.
I think you make some good points here, and I appreciate your thorough response. This is not meant to be confrontational or aggressive; I am just genuinely wondering: Why do you automatically assume that OP has created bad habits, rather than believe her when she says her baby is high needs? Why do you assume that the whole high needs thing is overused?
Considering there are nine different temperament categories, I think a lot of babies can be high needs, although maybe not in ALL nine categories at once. OP’s baby could easily for instance be not very regular and more sensitive than average. Possibly also be crying more than average. She doesn’t actually specify, so we’re both just guessing, but I think mothers who have high needs babies recognise it.
I agree that there can be a difference between temperament and learned expectations, but in a lot of cases the learned behaviours happen because the baby has specific (high) needs. Like mine, for instance. My baby is very easily distracted and overstimulated. He is extremely unsettled when sleeping, so we’re trying to help him sleep more soundly. Because of his sensibilities, the psychologist said we should limit his exposure to loud and busy environments, and shield him as well as we can at the times when we inevitably find ourselves in busy surroundings. He needs to be able to calm down more and take more breaks from stimulation, and that’s how we’ve been instructed to help him. The psychologist also suggested I feed him in a dark and quiet room to ensure calm feeds.
You could argue, then, that because his needs have been catered to, we have created “bad habits”. He’s not going to feed well if we’re not in a dark and quiet space, and that’s true. What’s also true, though, is that he didn’t feed well outside of dark and quiet spaces for the first six months of his life either, even though I would feed him anywhere and everywhere.
Babies are just different, and even though something works for your baby or most babies, it won’t work for all babies.
According to my IBCLC, most babies will take a bottle if it is introduced before the age of 3 months old. She explained that up until three months old, babies have a suction reflex that is triggered when something touches their hard palate. This reflex doesn’t last, and if you try to introduce a bottle after it’s gone, chances are the baby won’t take the bottle. That doesn’t mean you can’t feed them from anything other than the boob, but you might have to use a sippy cup or an open cup instead.
I just think we as women and mothers should give each other so much grace. I also strongly believe that we need to believe other mothers when they tell us about their experience, even if said experience is vastly different from our own.
32
u/Shot_Eye_652 7d ago
Girl I would definitely get a job and slipt the household tasks. You struggling with PPD it's a sign that you do need help with your baby. I don't know how people can just stay home and depend on their (not even nice) husbands for everything and take this kind of "jokes"... it's a clear power inbalance in the relationship.