This increasing neurological organization helps babies gain control over their bodies and use their hands and limbs for soothing and entertaining themselves.
Between six and nine months, babies begin to sit up by themselves and progress from sitting to crawling. This may be the first time that you are able to set your baby down and enjoy a few minutes of having both arms free. As babies’ motor skills start to take off, they begin to literally move out of their upsetting behaviour. From nine to twelve months, the ability to pick up objects using the thumb and forefinger together broadens babies’ play and feeding skills. They can do many more things all by themselves.
The next major turning point comes between twelve and eighteen months, when babies begin to walk, and then to run and climb. Babies’ increasing ability to get around on their own means they drain less energy from you because they can do more to entertain and help themselves. This is a good time, weather permitting, to spend as much time outdoors as you can. Park yourself on a blanket under a tree with a good book and let baby explore in a safely enclosed area. In bad weather, spread the blanket indoors. You might manage to do some reading, and the two of you will have a better time when you don’t spend all day trying to “get something done”. Now is the time when you can get things done if you figure out a way to have baby be a part of the action. Whether you are cleaning house, gardening, or paying bills, toddlers are ecstatic if they can imitate you.
One of the highest energy-output stages in child rearing comes between fourteen and eighteen months. This is the time to draft some well-nurtured four-to six-year-olds to play with your toddler. They have tremendous energy for entertaining a baby, and you get to relax and simply supervise.
From eighteen to twenty-four months, language skills emerge, allowing the toddler to begin expressing frustrations in words. Annoying behaviours such as whining, screaming, biting, and temper tantrums subside between two and three years, once the child has enough verbal skills to communicate his needs by words rather than undesirable behaviours. As developmental skills progress, neediness lessens, at least somewhat. Yet remember, for many children, their needs do not really decrease, they only change. As a child develops, management responsibility shifts: in the early years, you help the child manage her challenging behaviour so that eventually she can manage it herself. In those middle years, you’ll spend many hours preparing your child for adult life. And remember, for most high-need children, their brains seem way ahead of their bodies.
Jonathan is now a lovable, cuddly, sensitive, intelligent boy. He always had these qualities; they were just trapped inside the body of a baby. When he learned to walk and talk he became less frustrated with his world, and with our world too. Jim and I now enjoy a life with him that we never thought possible. Our high-need baby has very definitely yielded us a high level of returns.
the changing personality profile of the high-need child
The words you use to describe your high-need child will change over the years, as the traits that so exhausted you during infancy are channelled into qualities that will make your child an interesting, dynamic adult. Try to think of your child’s personality in a positive light and look ahead. Labels that seem like negatives will be positive traits in your child’s future personality.
your baby’s cry – what it means, how to listen
At some time during the early months of living with a fussy baby, a well-meaning adviser almost certainly will suggest that you, “let your baby cry it out – he’s got to learn sometime”. This is misguided advice. It shows not only a misunderstanding of the communication value of the infant’s cry, but also a devaluing of the mother’s sensitivity.
Mothers are not designed to let their babies cry, nor are babies’ cries designed to go unanswered.
“If only my baby could talk instead of cry I would know what she wants”, said Jane, a new mother of a fussy baby. “Your baby can talk”, we advised. “The key is for you to learn how to listen.” Consider how much more aware you have to be when you are in a foreign country struggling to understand someone. You have to pay attention to body language and be more discerning, so that you can use all available clues to figure out what this person is saying. Once you pay attention to the clues, communicating still requires effort, but you quickly get the gist.
A baby’s cry ensures the survival of the infant and promotes the development of the parent. It’s a two-way communication system designed to get infants whatever they need to thrive, and to teach parents how to interpret their baby’s language.
But what am I?An infant crying in the night:An infant crying for the light:And with no language but a cry. ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
When you learn the special language of your baby’s cry, you will be able to respond sensitively. Here are some listening tips that will help you discover what your baby is trying to say when he cries.
an infant’s cry – the perfect signal
Scientists have long appreciated that the sound of an infant’s cry has all four features of a perfect signal. First, a perfect signal is automatic. A newborn cries by reflex. The infant senses a need, which triggers a sudden inspiration of air followed by a forceful expelling of that air through vocal cords, which vibrate to produce the sound we call a cry. In the early months, the tiny infant does not think, “What kind of cry will get me fed?” He just automatically cries. Second, the cry is easily generated. Once his lungs are full of air, the infant can initiate crying with very little effort. Third, the cry is appropriately disturbing: ear-piercing enough to get the caregiver’s attention and make him or her try to stop the cry but not so disturbing as to make the listener want to avoid the sound altogether. Fourth, the cry can be modified as both the sender and the listener learn ways to make the signal more precise.
responding to baby’s cries is biologically correct
A mother is biologically programmed to give a nurturant response to her newborn’s cries and not to restrain herself. Fascinating biological changes take place in a mother’s body in response to her infant’s cry. Upon hearing her baby cry, the blood flow to a mother’s breasts increases, accompanied by a biological urge to “pick up and feed”. The act of breast-feeding itself causes a surge in prolactin, a hormone that we feel forms the biological basis of the term “mother’s intuition”. Oxytocin, the hormone that causes a mother’s milk to let down, brings feelings of relaxation and pleasure, a pleasant release from the tension built up by the baby’s cry. These feelings help you love your baby. Mothers, listen to the biological cues of your body when your baby cries rather than to advisers who would tell you to turn a deaf ear. These biological happenings explain why it’s easy for those advisers to say such a thing. They are not biologically connected to your baby. Nothing happens to their hormones when your baby cries.
Each baby’s signal is unique. A baby’s cry is a baby’s language, and each baby cries differently. Voice researchers call these unique sounds “cry prints”, which are as unique for babies as their fingerprints are.
Once you appreciate the special signal value of your baby’s cry, the important thing is what you do about it. You have two basic options: ignore or respond. Ignoring your baby’s cry is usually a lose-lose situation. A more