What moms of high needs babies want you to know. What would your input be?

Question

Thinking about writing a blog, not really for anyone to read, but just to vent my frustrations about parenting a difficult/high needs baby. If your baby is like mine, what would you say to non-parents and moms with easy babies? What do you wish they would be a little more compassionate about?
Mine would be that the unsolicited advice everyone hates is doubly insulting to us. When you call my baby spoiled when I try to comfort her. When you say "why don't you just [insert thing here I've tried a million times but just does not work for my baby]?" When you say, well MY BABY does this and this, and all I have to do is ______. My mom guilt is on high alert every day because all this "advice" makes me feel like such a crappy mom, even if it comes with good intentions, because I literally spend hours every day trying all those things and my baby just doesn't like them.
I would also say that I love my baby dearly but I am so jealous of yours sometimes. "He falls asleep instantly during car rides." "All I do is lay her down at naptime and give her a paci and she's out!" "He naps well enough or entertains himself in his swing/bouncer/etc for me to take a shower during the day." I'm not telling you to stop bragging about your baby because you're a mom, of course you're proud! But secretly inside I just want to cry and/or punch you in the face when I hear things like that.
What would you include on this list??

Answer

It doesn't help when mom's try to give you tips but it just makes you feel worse.  Example: 'I give my baby a bath and book every night and my baby has slept 12 hours a night since he came home from the hospital. Try that. You must be doing something wrong.' That is not helping. Or when mom's complain about their baby only sleeping 4-6 hours,  I'd love to sleeo hour an hr! The comments of just let him cry it out, just give him a bottle, give a paci, don't cuddle him,  give him rice cereal.  I'm struggling enough and feel like a bad mom.  I would instead like others to offer physical help, not tips, not judgement.  I would like someone to hold the baby while I take a nap, help clean my house, let me have a shower.  I would include different ways to help a mom and not give any judgement.

Answer

Oh god this is a topic that gets me heated. My daughter is EXTREMELY high need AND she has horrific reflux on top of that. Her reflux was so bad as a newborn I had to stop breastfeeding and give her formula with rice cereal. I got major flack for that. She always wanted to be held or she would cry and I always got told she's "spoiled" and "let her cry". My favorite is "put her in her swing" SHE HATES HER FUCKIN SWING HOW MANY TIMES WILL YOU GIVE ME SHITTY ADVICE?! (This makes me heated, if you can't tell. I've heard it way too much) and the always "she's hungry!!" No. she's not. She has acid reflux she hurts! :( my favorite recently is about how "she's not hungry and she's not tired!" Okay, I know my baby. She IS hungry and exhausted. Her reflux makes her fight the bottle. I have to pop it in her mouth while she's screaming and sometimes have to try a few times until she actually takes it. Then she starts falling asleep. Wow imagine that, I know my baby. I can say that I just want time to make myself lunch or even just sit and breathe and it's "put her in her swing in her bouncer she will calm down" no. she. won't. She will scream until she vomits if I don't pick her up. I thank the lord himself she is 6 months now and this has all passed except she loves me and wants to be held a lot lol. Being a mother of a high needs baby is hard and people with easy babies do not understand.

Answer

Don't tell me to use more hand sanitizer if I have a kid prone to ear infections.  Hand sanitizer does not improve the angle of Eustachian tubes.

Don't tell me that you have a calm baby because you did a good job reading and talking to the baby in utero.  We did that too dude.

Answer

My brother is autistic and I remember going to the grocery store with my mum and he was screaming. A older man came and told my mother that she doesn't know how to discipline her son. He offered to hit my brother to "knock some manners into him". He was 9 months old.
My brother is 26 now so that was before autism was so widely known about but seriously!? 
We were also asked by a receptionist at a doctor's office to wait outside, in the snow, because he was screaming.

If someone is out with a crying baby, don't give any advice and don't judge. You don't know that baby, you don't know that situation and sometimes you just have to get errands done.

Answer

After replying to posts on this topic, this comes up on my Facebook newsfeed. The list included, rocking, singing, pacifiers... If only I had thought to try those!!!! 😒

What moms of high needs babies want you to know. What would your input be?

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