Читать книгу The Fussy Baby Book: Parenting your high-need child from birth to five - Martha Sears - Страница 44

A unique feature of high-need children is that what appears to be a “negative” personality trait can turn out to be positive. For every hour of sleep you lose in the early years, you are likely to get an extra hour of sleep when the child is a teen. For every ounce of distress the infant gives you, you are likely to get back at least an equal amount of delight. The same behavioural traits that earn these infants various negative labels are the ones that help their personality blossom. Early on, it’s normal for parents to be overwhelmed with the negatives: loss of freedom, loss of sleep, and loss of energy. (See Chapter 7, “Mother Burnout”.) Yet the sooner you can turn these negative attitudes into positive ones, the easier living with your high-need child will become. Don’t think of your child as a difficult sleeper; think of her as active or alert. Don’t think of him as clingy; think of him as a baby who values being with you. This is a tough challenge, one that requires self-discipline, but the rewards are great. Try to spend as much of your day focusing on the uniqueness of your child, identifying and reinforcing the child’s positive character traits so that they will work to the child’s advantage, and to yours. In addition, you’ll get the added bonus of learning, by necessity, to take better care of yourself – a life skill that will benefit your whole family.