My husband and I experienced minor fertility problems. It took us 10 months of trying, which I thought was a long time for a healthy 28 and 30 year old. Just as we were starting to get tested for problems, I got pregnant the old fashioned way. We were thrilled.
I had bad morning sickness for 20 weeks, but the rest of my pregnancy was a piece of cake. Amelia was born 1 day after her due date. I was getting over a bad cold, but other than that her birth was pretty normal (though painful, as they all are). Right away, nurses and docs commented about her great muscle tone. She could hold her head up right away.
The first night she was home she screamed all night. Looking back I think she was just hungry, because my milk hadn't come in, but we were too clueless to figure this out.
The high need thing dawned on me slowly as time wore on. There were times in the first few months that she would nap for 3-4 hours, but it was unpredicable. When awake she needed to be held most of the time. I had the hardest time managing to have a meal or take a shower. We started trying to give her a bottle at 1 month. No success. We spent hundreds of dollars on nipples and everyone I knew gave it a shot. Nothing worked. To this day most people think we didn't try hard enough, but we tried EVERY day for 2 months. I was in tears of frustration most days because of it. She also HATED her car seat. She would scream the whole time. And forget putting her in a stoller. Like many of you I almost stopped going out unless I absolutely had to. We live on a mountain and the 30 minute drive to everywhere would leave us both in tears.
Towards the end of my maternity leave when she was about 3 months the high needs traits really hit. She stopped napping in her crib at all. Previously I could rock her to sleep and then place her in her crib. No longer, she had to lay on my chest to nap. There went any free time! Even on my chest, she would only nap 30 minutes at the most. I tried to take her to the at home day care that I had picked out when I was pregnant. The day care provider had no idea how to handle her. She thought that she could just put her in the swing and all would be fine. Amelia would start screaming not long after I walked out the door and would continue until I returned to breastfeed. I actually left her there for 5 hours thinking she would have to take the bottle. It didn't work.
The happy ending to this story is that I found a wonderful day care center. The head infant teacher has been doing it for 14 years and wasn't fazed at all by Amelia's demands. I also worked out with my job to be able to feed her 3 times/per day (its now down to one). We also introduced cereal very early (at 3 months) and she loved it immediately. She is also getting pretty good at the sippy cup which we started right before I returned to work. The first few days they actually brought an extra person in to try to give her a bottle until they realized it was useless.
Things got much better when I returned to work. Amelia seems very happy to spend her day at day care. I'm not sure if this is because she enjoys the stimulation or because I'm happier and she senses that. Maybe I would feel differently if she were lower need, but the truth is, I need the break work provides.
Currently we are learning to deal with all her high need traits pretty well. The sleep issue is the worst. She is learning to sleep in her crib sometimes, but naps still never last longer than 30 minutes. At night she'll sleep in her crib for anywhere from 2-6 hours, but as soon as she wakes up she won't go back down in her crib at all, and sleeps in our bed waking up every 1-2 hours for the rest of the night. She is pretty happy playing on her own at day care now that she can sit and play in the exesaucer, but when we get home she is usually tired and cranky and wants to be held. Lately my husband has been wearing her around in a backpack while he makes dinner. That makes her happy. The car seat is still an issue, though she has learning to fall asleep in it most of the time as long as the car is moving.
Well, that's about it. I have high hopes that things will get easier as she gets more mobile. I believe that a lot of her crying stems from frustration at not being able to control her own movement or communicate her needs. As a side note, my mom says she is just like me and my husband's mom says she is just like him, so I guess we were doomed by our genes. I'm just trying to be greatful that Amelia is strong enough to have such a mind of her own.
Stacey & Amelia