Читать книгу The Fussy Baby Book: Parenting your high-need child from birth to five - Martha Sears - Страница 15

Hayden didn’t fit any of the usual labels. She really wasn’t a “fussy” baby, as long as we held her and attended to her needs. “Demanding”, was just another way of saying, “spoiled”. She wasn’t “colicky”, since she didn’t seem to be in pain. Nor did the tag “difficult” ring true; some may beg to differ, but we were finding that holding and being near a baby to whom we were becoming so attached was not all that difficult. Besides, these labels were too negative for this little person who seemed to know so positively what she needed and how to get it. It wasn’t until five years later, after talking with other parents of babies who also needed to feed so often, needed to be held a lot, needed human contact at night, that the term “high-need child” came to us. It best describes the kind of baby Hayden was and the level of parenting she needed.

In my paediatric practice, I discovered that the term “high-need child” was P.C. – psychologically correct. By the time drained parents came to me for counselling about their demanding baby, they had already been on the receiving end of a barrage of negatives: “You hold her too much.” “It must be your milk.” “She’s controlling you.” All this advice left parents with the underlying message of “bad baby because of bad parenting”. They felt it was somehow their fault their baby acted this way. As soon as I offered the description “high-need child”, I could see a look of relief on the faces of the parents. Finally, someone had something nice to say about their baby. “High-need” sounds special, intelligent, unique, and it shifts the focus to the baby’s personality, relieving parents from the guilt of believing that their baby acts this way because of their parenting. Further, “high-need” suggests that there is something parents can do to help this baby. It underscores the idea that these babies simply need more: more touch, more understanding, more sensitivity, more creative parenting.