Maybe I’m dense, but it took me two months to realize I have a high need baby. He’s the only baby I’ve ever had. Since having Wyatt, I have been in awe of my mother and grandmother for having four and nine children respectively. They had natural labors and stayed home with all their kids. My mother breastfed all of us. But my mother started making comments, like, “Does he always nurse so frequently?” When I replied defensively that the hospital lactation consultant said it was normal for Wyatt to go through marathon feeding sessions during growth spurts, she said, “I don’t remember the marathon feeding.” I kept quiet about my own nervous thought that Wyatt nearly always seemed to be going through a growth spurt. Then there was the visit with my grandmother, when my father asked her what my mother was like as a baby. “Quiet. Good. All of mine were good. They were either taking a bottle or going to sleep.” It made me feel better to realize that Grandma did not have nine babies in a row who needed to be held 24/7. I’m glad she had nine easy babies. And there was the email exchange with my sister-in-law who, after getting my description of my days with Wyatt, replied that my niece Anna had been a high need baby, too. After enough comments like this, I googled “high need baby” and read Dr. Sears’ wonderful articles about them.

Wyatt fits the description, though he is thankfully at the easy end of the spectrum of high need babies. At least he doesn’t cry unconsolably like some fussy babies do. Some cry for an hour, two, three or more every day. In fact, he doesn’t cry very much at all, most of the time, but keeping him happy is a pretty relentless and all-consuming job. He won’t sleep alone in his bassinet except in the late evening, when I put him down around 9:30. During the day, he only sleeps with me wearing him in the sling. I can put him down for 5-20 minutes at a time in his infant seat as long as he can see me. He’s usually not content in his swing longer than 10 minutes at a time. He spits out pacifiers. When neither eating nor sleeping and in an alert and active mood, he gets easily bored and requires frequent changes of scenery. At night, he sleeps next to me, except for during his late evening nap which usually lasts 4-5 hours but occasionally lasts 6. Once in a while he becomes a little insomniac and I just take him to bed with me without being able to put him down at all. Dinner time is tricky every evening. We’ve developed a ritual that we usually follow with moderate success. My husband feeds Wyatt with a bottle while I fix dinner. Then I put Wyatt in his swing while we wolf down our meal, trying to finish before he begins to get fussy. He usually poopies once or twice while in his swing and wants his diaper changed within a few minutes. For some reason, the swing seems to have a laxative effect on him. Either that, or maybe it’s just the timing. There are only three consistent and reliable things that he likes more than 90% of the time. One is breastfeeding, two is sleeping or quietly observing the world while being worn in the sling, and three is being carried around upright so he can see the world over my shoulder.

The breastfeeding, while the number one reliable soother, ties me down more than I ever anticipated it would. On average, Wyatt wants to eat every two hours, and he prolongs each feeding to last about a half hour on each side. I realized yesterday how much time I spend feeding Wyatt when I was able to finish the entire book, The Fussy Baby, in one day, mostly while feeding him but partially while sitting in the rocking chair while he napped in the sling. While it’s possible to read or watch TV while feeding him, I don’t like to spend so much of my time rooted to the rocking chair. I’d like not only to be able to go places out of the house more easily, but also to spend time on my computer while feeding him. I have ordered a ring sling that will allow me to breastfeed him while he is in the sling, and I figure once I learn how to manage that, I can spend several hours a day at my computer. It could turn out to be an advantage that he spends so much time at the tap. It’s the easiest way to keep him occupied while he is awake, and he has a tendency to drop off to sleep afterwards. Once he drops off to sleep in the sling, it will hopefully prove to be a simple matter to re-arrange the sling for his nap without waking him. Not only that, but supposedly it will allow me to discreetly breastfeed him while out in public, since to the world they won’t know whether he’s in there sleeping or eating.

A sling is great, but I can’t do everything in the sling. I can’t take a shower, clean the bathroom, change the kitty litter, reach up high on a shelf, reach deeply into the freezer or washing machine, carry a load of laundry or do many other things. That causes me to push many tasks into the late evening after I have put Wyatt into his bassinet to sleep. I seldom go to bed before midnight. These late hours wouldn’t bother me at all, except for the fact that my husband’s work hours begin at 5:00 AM. With these issues in mind, I’ve been considering purchasing an Amby Baby Motion Bed. It’s supposed to mimic the motion of a mother, moving in three dimensions and not just one. I bet Wyatt would be able to sleep in it as well as he sleeps in the sling, but if he didn’t, I would have wasted $250. If I had known a few months ago what I know now, I would have skipped the crib and the Mini Arms Reach Co-sleeper and bought the Amby Baby Motion Bed. I hate to keep on forking out money in desperation, recalling my second day home with Wyatt, when my husband went to Babys R Us with a list from me and came home having spent over $700. But it would be worth the money if Wyatt really napped in it and if he could use it for the next two years. I would hate to spend that kind of money on something we’d only get a month or two of use out of. Then too, knowing how Wyatt tends to reject any substitute for me, I’m not so sure he’d be content in it. I wonder if it would really be lulling enough to him that he wouldn’t sense that he was not being held by me.

I wonder if they make Amby Motion beds for adults, too? I really hate my current mattress because of its memory foam holes. I like a lot of Wyatt’s things. I like his swing, too. He so does not appreciate how good he has it. I would happily spend an hour at a time in an adult version of his little swing. His swing has stars and moons that project lights onto a canopy that surrounds him. It has a mobile that goes around in circles, and it plays music. An adult version of the swing would play music while having a psychedelic light show. I think I could relax in something like that once in a while. But would I like it if I wanted to cuddle with my husband or have a conversation with him, and instead, he placed me in the swing, and I was strapped into it and unable to get out by myself? I suppose maybe that is an analogy to what Wyatt may feel like when he gets fussy in his swing.