Demanding
Parenting a high needs baby is like being taken by helicopter to the middle of an ocean while wearing a bikini (or mankini, whatever your preference!) with only a snorkel and a compass and being told to find your way to the nearest land mass. Not even a rubber dingy or a lilo to keep you afloat. Well, that’s definitely how it felt to me when I first realised that I was raising a high needs baby. I had probably only had my precious little boy home from the hospital a few days when I realised he was nothing like the other babies I had seen or experienced before. Don’t get me wrong, I hadn’t had much experience with babies in general but I was definitely well read. In preparation for the arrival of Shepherd I had read countless books from breastfeeding to weaning to discipline but nothing could prepare me for what I was about to face by having a high needs baby.
The first thing I noticed about my son was how demanding he was. I had read many times about what people referred to as the “sleepy baby bubble”. I was fully prepared to experience that for myself. That meant having a baby that was sleeping most of the time where I was able to spend a lot of time doing my own things and just pausing to feed or cuddle the baby. But this is not how it was with my son. AT ALL. Shepherd was incredibly demanding from the moment he was born.
Due to some health issues, both me and him were kept in the hospital for five days after I had given birth. During this time my husband was not able to stay as Covid was still in swing and the hospital were very concerned about the transmission of infections. That meant I had to deal with a newborn by myself for five whole days and five nights. And not just any newborn, a high needs one.
Shepherd was incredibly demanding. He would want milk every two hours exactly on the hour. But the problem was he took so long to drink a bottle of milk that it meant there was very little time in between when he would then want another one. During the time in between sometimes he slept, but a lot of the time he was awake and just generally grumpy.
Eventually it was time to take him home from the hospital. Things were no better. I had been looking forward to people talking about how much time a newborn sleeps, but Shepherd was not like that. I kept a diary at the time which was meant to be recording the joys of motherhood, and what a wonderful time it was, but in the end, it ended up being somewhere where I could write down my feelings of struggle during this time. One of the entries was when Shepherd was only six weeks old and he stayed awake the entire night. Literally from 10pm to 6 am. After already having dealt with him for the past six weeks and had very little sleep during this time, this was just too much.
During this time my husband and I ended up having to take shifts. I would go to sleep at around 8pm until 3 am. My husband would stay up until 3 am and then we would swap over and he would sleep until around 10 in the morning. We were like ships in the night during this time and we hardly saw each other except for the shift change over.
Shepherd is now almost 3 and I can honestly say he is no less demanding. He still wakes up at least twice in the night for milk, sometimes more. I’m incredibly envious of my friends who say their babies have slept through the night since three or six months old. I recently experienced someone else who also has high needs baby. His baby was six months old and he said to me he feels like it might be a long time until he sleeps through the night. I had to laugh and say even though my son is almost 3 I still feel the same way!!
Grumpy
Another trait that I noticed with Shepherd is how incredibly grumpy he always was. It was like his mind was way ahead of his body and he wanted to get out and see the world, being completely independent even though he was only a few weeks old!
The only thing that seemed to make him happy was being held up and walked around so that he could see the world around him. At just a few months old one of his favourite things to do was to be held up in a standing position. This was the only time he was happy and relaxed. The minute you sat him down or laid him down again he would start to winge and cry until you held him up in a standing position again.
Obviously this is completely exhausting, and as a result, I was drained as a mother and as a person.
Draining
Another trait of a high means baby is that they are incredibly draining. High needs babies are so draining to the people that are responsible for looking after them. This is because they never seem to be happy or satisfied with anything.
As I said Shepherd was only ever happy as a baby when he was being carried around or stood up. And he was like this from just a few months old. Sleep was also a major issue in his life. He hated going to bed at night. I had read countless books before having him on the subject of sleep training and getting babies to sleep through the night so I felt fully prepared when I brought him home. I was so ready to get into a normal routine, getting him to sleep early and starting to get some kind of a life back. But Shepherd had other ideas, and those ideas did not involve sleep.
I am by nature an early to bed, early to rise kind of person. Most times I would be in bed by 9:30 and asleep by 10pm. After 10pm, I really start to flag. Never in a million years did I think that it would be a baby that would keep me up late at night because they didn’t want to go to sleep.
Everyone with a child has probably heard of the famous sleep regression. And it used to drive me mad when people would say to me that they were sure Shepherd’s behaviour at night was only a phase. Unfortunately Shepherd’s behaviour was not a phase. Every night bedtime was a battle. A battle almost to the death. Despite having a solid bedtime routine having milk and cuddles before bed, a nice relaxing bath and even a little bit of soothing pillow spray, Shepard would decide that he was not going to sleep.
He would roll around on the bed. Try to climb out of the bed, tangle himself up in the covers or the pillow, play with any toys he could find or just be a general nuisance. Anything that meant he didn’t have to sleep. He also hated being alone. I couldn’t even just leave him in his cot and go do something because he would cry and cry and cry. The one time we did attempt to leave him in his cot and cry it out he only lasted around two minutes and then he made himself sick. My husband and I decided that was the last time we would ever do that.
The late nights lasted almost 2 1/2 years. It was only around then that Shepherd started to understand the concept of sleep and bedtime. These days he still has nights where he doesn’t want to go to sleep until very late, but thankfully they are few and far between.
High Energy
Another trait of a high needs baby is that they are incredibly high energy. Even before Shepherd could walk, he still showed traits of being very high energy. Before he could walk, or even roll he would lay in his bed, throw his legs up into the air, and then back down onto the mattress. Sometimes, so hard, he caused the cot and even the floor to shake. His bouncer was his best friend once he was old enough to use it. He would spend ages in his bouncer and it was the only place he seem to be happy.
He even went through a phase where he would bounce himself to sleep! While this is not an approach that I would recommend, there was a time where this was the only thing that would get him to sleep. We would do his bath and milk and then stick him in the bouncer turning the lights down and he would bounce himself to sleep in around 20 or so minutes. Desperate times call for desperate measures!
Now that Shepherd is almost 3, he has the ability to run around and burn off some of that energy. He is non-stop! He runs around and plays all day long. In fact he struggles to sit still for longer than around 30 seconds. Shepherd’s favourite games involve reenacting things he’s seen or read. He loves to build a house and go in and out of that house no matter what it’s made out of. Blankets, cardboard boxes, sheet forts, anything where he can be physical and run around. He also loves the outdoors. He has a trampoline in the back garden and he uses this a lot. He can bounce for ages running around in circles rolling on the trampoline mat and just generally behaving like an animal!
Clingy
Another trait that is often seen with high needs babies is how clingy they are. When Shepherd was a newborn he was completely unaffectionate. I often blamed myself for not breastfeeding him and thought this is why he completely lacked the desire for affection. While he liked to be held, standing up or carried around so that he could see things, he was not cuddly at all. He hated being kissed and cuddled and any kind of affection that I felt like a normal baby should want.
However, this is something that Shepherd definitely grew out of. The issues we had with his sleep meant that I had had to move him from his cot to our bed when he got slightly older. We started out with a co sleep cot, which I felt was the safest option while he was a newborn. When he outgrew this, we tried to put him in a big cot and he outright refused to sleep in it. I then started to sleep with him on a double bed mattress on the floor. It was then he decided that he loved to cuddle.
Now that he’s almost 3 he loves to cuddle in the night. In fact, that’s the only way he’ll go off to sleep. He has his milk and comes and lays right up next to me and he falls asleep no problem.
Shepherd definitely lacks the ability to self soothe at this point. As I said earlier we did try sleep training once and he got himself in such a state he ended up throwing up. That was only after a few minutes of being left in his cot by himself. As a mother, despite how demanding he was, I decided I could never do that again. I did not want to deny him attention, just because he wasn’t conforming to what my idea of a baby should have been.
Summary
In summary, high needs babies are really really really hard work. They are not for the fainthearted and they can make you completely lose sight of who you are, and what you’re doing. If I could’ve chosen a high needs baby or a regular baby, I would’ve definitely not chosen the high needs variety!
But having said that I wouldn’t change Shepherd for the world. He has been incredibly hard work and he has pushed me to my absolute limits. But he’s also taught me so many valuable lessons.
He’s taught me about the things in life that matter. He completely took my time in the evenings when he wouldn’t sleep and I had to give up many of the things that I thought were important to me. But he also helped me learn who I truly am. He taught me that all these things that I thought were important and made me who I am, they mean nothing ultimately. Who I am is within me and it doesn’t matter what I do, nothing can take that away from me.
He also showed me how strong I truly am. Looking back I can’t quite believe how I made it through some of these tough times. I was exhausted, emotionally drained and didn’t know how I could go through another day and yet I did. In fact I went through many. I’ve been through almost 3 years now.
So one thing I will say to any mothers or fathers of high needs babies is no matter how hard it feels just keep going. Just do another day and then another, and then another, and then another. You will get through this I promise. It won’t be like this forever either.
As I said, Shepherd is vastly improved now and while he is still incredibly high energy, not the best sleeper and has a tendency to be on the grumpy side, he also has many amazing qualities that I think can only be seen in high needs babies. For example, even though he’s not even 3 he can have a full on conversation with a grown adult. His speech is amazing and he has an incredible sense of humour already. He makes me laugh on a daily basis and has a really sassy little attitude!
Parents of high needs babies definitely get the raw end of the deal but it’s totally worth it for the amazing little people we end up with afterwards!