Sometimes in life there are things we cannot control.

We cannot control the weather, for example, but we can control our preparation for rain or snow.

Fussy and high-needs babies are out of our control.  There may be some theories as to what can lead to a colicky or a fussy baby but, in all honesty, we do not truly know who will be destined to have the nursing all night, screaming, never-sleeping child.

It is hard coming to terms with the fact that our child’s temperament may be out of our control, that he or she has nothing biologically or physically wrong, that they are just “fussy”.

Sometimes we have to let go of our expectations and predictions and just be glad we survived the day.

We need to be proud of ourselves that we are parenting a fussy baby and that we are doing the best that we can.

There will always be those times when we have absolutely no idea what to do, how to calm a fussy baby, or how to handle a day of temper tantrums from a high-needs toddler. This is the time when it is okay, it is healthy, to admit defeat.

We cannot control every minute of every day.

I had a really hard time accepting that Tyler’s persistent personality was just that: persistent.

He is a beautiful, healthy, thriving boy, and yet I was so convinced something had to be wrong, he had to have some hidden ailment.

I had to have some control, some medication or some solution to this fussiness.

I still have many days when I have no clue what to do, or how to handle the situation, but with each challenge, comes a learning experience.

I had to accept that Tyler wouldn’t just magically stop fussing at the 12 week mark, or the 15 week mark, or the 30 week mark.

I remember having him sleep on me (the only place he would sleep) and have nothing better to do than “Google” EVERYTHING.

So one week I was sure he had “fore milk-hind milk imbalance”, the next week it must be gas, so let’s try gas drops, gas tablets, gripe water, etc.

I thought he had an ear infection at least three different times and we would take him to the doctors, only to be told that he was “just fine”.

After the colic didn’t improve, they diagnosed him with acid reflux, and the Zantac helped.

When he was about 4 months old, he started the Zantac and he was actually able to play on his back on the floor for more than 20 seconds. This was a huge improvement.

My theory is that an already high-needs, sensitive baby is going to be bothered by acid reflux more so than a “normal” baby.

Finally, after one too many trips to the ER, we received a letter from Tyler’s insurance company, reminding us that in fact the ER was for emergencies. That letter went in the baby book.

With each milestone he reaches, I truly do see some improvement.

I think back to the long days and nights of having to hold him nonstop, and then I find myself actually being able to go to the bathroom while he sits playing with his toys. Before I would have had to bring him and his bouncy sit with me.

I see a happier boy that I never thought would emerge.

I find it helps to learn what environments set him off and avoid them if at all possible.

He has a certain look that tells me, “hey mom, I am really not comfortable and you have about one millisecond to help me or I am going to scream”.

I am still learning what sets him off, but preparing for his fussiness helps me feel better. I always bring two pacifiers everywhere we go, sometimes three.

His temperament is out of my control, but whether I react negatively or positively is in my control.

I definitely still have quite a few days a week where I don’t think we will ever get past his neediness, and then he will have a random “good” day and I just cherish every moment.

Having a fussy baby is so hard, I could have never prepared for anything like this. However, I am in the midst of it, and Tyler lets me know what he needs (loudly and clearly).

I have to let go of the control sometimes and just enjoy the ride, as this too shall pass, and we will never get these moments back.

Nichelle is a stay at home mom, finishing her degree online in social science with an emphasis on early childhood education. She enjoy gardening and cooking, and reaching out to offer support and encouragement to families of fussy babies in her community.

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Yesterday marked my second Mother’s Day.

My Miriam Scarlett (Mira for short) – celebrated her first birthday on March 15. We have come so, so far since she came into the world. It was not only the beginning of her life, but the beginning of our lives as parents. Mira was the first for each of us.

My last trimester was a difficult one and she was born two weeks early at 5 pounds 13 ounces. She was tiny but intense from the beginning. Our first challenge, as it is for many, was breastfeeding. She simply refused – after two days she had dropped dangerously fast to under 5 pounds. Her pediatrician insisted we supplement with a bottle or she’d be classified as “failure to thrive” and not be allowed to leave the hospital.

Mira refused me for a full six weeks despite the intervention of a spattering of experts and professionals. Every three hours, I’d try to nurse her for an hour. During that hour, she’d rage. So not to confuse her, I’d then hand her off to someone else for the bottle. Each time it felt like I was handing her off for someone else to satisfy and comfort.

It broke me.

About two weeks after her birth, my husband found me within her nursery weeping in the rocker, desperately trying to get her to latch. He promptly got a bottle, handed it to me and spoke three words: “Feed your daughter”.

That moment was significant. From the outside it must have seemed a small thing, a logical thing. For me it was permission. Liberation. It was as if I’d been suffocating for days and someone finally opened a window. Whatever damage might come from “nipple confusion” – it certainly couldn’t be more detrimental than the sad cycle Mira and I had created in the effort of its prevention.

I continued to pump and try to nurse, but it never did happen for us. At six weeks, I had surgery and was hospitalized for two nights. At that point, I abandoned the breast feeding effort. I simply made peace with it. I had neither the physical strength nor the emotional reserves to keep trying.

While feeding became easier, the pattern of our days looked very little like that of my friends and family with infants. Mira cried if she was awake and slept very, very little. She almost never napped and nights were a constant battle. While she cried virtually all day, in the evenings – she raged: back-arched, purple screams for 6-7 hours at a stretch.

My husband is a police officer who works 12-hour shifts. He picked up a ton of overtime to replace the lost income during my maternity leave. He was exhausted all the time and virtually never home. He is a wonderful, kind man and he loves his daughter, but he had such difficulty in those early months. He is made to fix things, and there was no “fixing” whatever vague, shadowy thing was plaguing our daughter. There were many, many hours I felt entirely on my own.

I returned to work three months after she was born. Several weeks after she started daycare, as I picked her up, her primary caretaker pulled me aside. She crossed her arms like someone about to make a confession. “Heidi,” she said, “I’ve been doing this a lot of years and I’ve never met one like her. What can we do when she’s having an episode like that?” I fumbled through a list of things. They felt false on my lips. I was this baby’s mother and all I could offer was a sad string of attempts that never really worked for me.

At four months, things gradually got better. Though “better” was still not close to everyone else’s “normal”. My cousin has a beautiful, sweet little boy just a few months older than my Miriam. I loved to wrap my arms around his soft quiet warmth and wondered what it would be to hold my own that way. Miriam was still only when she slept. Otherwise, she twisted and pulled and thrashed as if she were battling something the rest of us couldn’t see.

At six months, I started to feel like there was hope and things were getting better. And they were.

That was the turning point for us. Six months.

She is still intense. She still isn’t much for cuddling. But that intensity has evolved to something more akin to strength or determination. She walked at 10 months and literally dances now. She chooses not to cuddle because she’d rather stretch and move and wonder at the world. For the first few months, it was so hard for even me to connect to her. The only face she presented to the world was one of sadness or anger. Today – she smiles and laughs and sings. She loves books and believes she can read them. Music fills her and she bounces and claps and twirls to its rhythms.

Ours is a love story – but she made me earn it.

All babies fuss. All babies cry. But most babies give you some beautiful sweet spots in between. Mira didn’t. Not many anyway. Not in those early months. But I appreciate the sweetness of her now all the more for it. No man appreciates water like he who has known the deepest thirst. It’s like that for us.

That’s our story. Hang in there and know that it does get better. It does get easier. Whatever you are going through now will end – and you’ll always be able to remind him or her of this when he or she is older. It might get you some incredible mother’s day gifts.

Peace to you this Mother’s Day and love to my own mother. She wrapped me in patience during my own colic then reminded me through Miriam’s that we rotten babies can turn out OK.

Heidi shares a chunk of wooded hillside in the Black Hills of South Dakota with her husband and daughter, Miriam Scarlett. When she’s not working at her real job in marketing, she’s splitting her time between a master’s thesis, a mostly done novel, two needy cats, a garden and a 100 pound Alaskan Malamute. The two blogs she started were quickly abandoned when she remembered her daughter never sleeps. Please subscribe to them. Her daughter sleeps now. You will be the incentive for her to write again.

You can find Heidi at Finding the Sacred in a Common Life and The Making of a Novel, or on Twitter.

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I remember my first Mother’s Day well, and it wasn’t for the reason that lots of other moms remember their first Mother’s Day.

My daughter was just shy of 3 months old and screaming up a storm while we were surrounded by family and friends at our big annual Mother’s Day brunch. Little kids were running around everywhere  and playing, and I was holding my screaming child.

At that point my husband and I were still barely getting any sleep, and as I have admitted in previous blog posts, I hadn’t yet bonded with my poor colicky baby girl.

I have a distinct recollection of sitting on the couch while some wonderful family member held my baby to give me a break. I looked over at my then 4 year old niece and was filled with love for her. And then, immediately, I was filled with sadness. I love my niece dearly, and, at that moment, I genuinely loved her more than my old child.

I feel terrible saying that, and I felt terrible feeling that. But I would do a disservice to mothers, who I know have struggled with these very same feelings, to not admit that.

The picture above is of me holding my daughter on my first Mother’s Day, and I look oddly rested and happy. I love that I have this picture because it masks what I remember feeling like when it was taken.

I felt love for my niece, but at that point in my early days of motherhood, I felt mostly responsibility and duty for my own child.

Everyone was wishing me a happy Mother’s Day and I had to hold back tears, because I didn’t feel like celebrating the day. I didn’t feel like celebrating being a mother.

How awful is that?

There is something harrowing about colic. There is something cruel about a mother’s introduction to mommyhood being so devoid of moments of calm and happiness. There were few if any moments of motherhood leading up to that first Mother’s Day where I had time, energy or emotional expense enough to look lovingly at that precious little girl and feel anything more than exhaustion.

If today me could talk to then me, I wouldn’t try to tell myself to smile, because it would have just made me feel worse that I didn’t much feel like it. But I would give me a hug and say I understand and that it won’t always feel this way. I would tell myself that my feelings were not as unnatural as I was convinced they were and that there was joy to be had being a mom. I would have told myself not to beat myself up for not feeling it yet.

Mother’s Day is different for me now. Having my rambunctious three year old running around and my ever-smiling one year old crawling at my feet, I feel so far removed from the sad woman who tried to ‘celebrate’ that first Mother’s Day.

Motherhood is hard at the best of times, and in the early days of dealing with a colicky and fussy baby, it can be hard, if not impossible to find joy when there isn’t a lot to feel joy about. It hit me like a ton of bricks that Mother’s Day that, at that point, I didn’t feel like much of a mother. I hadn’t felt like I had done very much ‘mothering’ at all.

But I had. I had held my baby when she cried (which was all. the. time.). I had fed her and clothed her and taken care of her. Even though I hadn’t emotionally felt like a mom yet, the fact I was a mom and felt it deep down was evident in the actions I took every second of her life up until that point.

Happy Mother’s Day to every mother reading our blog. Whether you are in the early days of motherhood and handling a fussy or colicky baby, or have other children to deal with while also handling a colicky baby, or if you have older spirited kids, or if you got through colic in the past, or if you just face every normal everyday challenges we as mothers face raising our children, Happy Mother’s Day.

It’s a tough job, often thankless, and sometimes with few tangible rewards.

But once you get through the early days, once you can see evidence of your efforts, even in small ways, in the people your children become, you will see and really know and realize that you deserve to be celebrated and honoured.

I honour all mothers today.

Have a wonderful Mother’s Day.

Leslie lives in Toronto with her husband, her 3 year old daughter and 1 year old son. She is presently on maternity leave and enjoying the hectic and harried life with two young children

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Sooner or later it will be time – perhaps not yet, but one day you’re going to recognize that it’s time to come out of your hole.

You’ll step tentatively at first, maybe squint a bit.

You might even be surprised to see what your partner looks like by the light of day, not as a father at midnight madly trying to hush a baby back to sleep, but as the man you chose to spend your life with, the one with whom you made the colossal decision to have these socially ostracizing creatures in the first place.

Oh yes, sooner or later it will be time.

Having young children can make you forget yourself, or at least much of yourself.

We have camping gear that’s been sitting in our storage area for years. It hasn’t been used since Chloe was born.

Before we had kids we’d try to get out at least twice a season, on a backpacking hike into the woods or a canoe trip in Algonquin Park. It was a big part of our lives. Now it seems a distant memory.

I once complained to Julie that we were too busy socializing every weekend and didn’t have any room on our calendar to make other plans. Well, the calendar now has plenty of white space.

Getting together with friends meant a lot of work and inconvenience. Seeing a movie required finding a babysitter. As time passed, we became comfortable in our roles and routines – not satisfied or happy necessarily, but complacent.

It was just easier to resign ourselves to our situation.

Children, especially fussy children, force you to re-juggle your priorities. You realize very quickly that in order to survive young parenthood, you need to hunker down, keep your eye on the ball, and just get through it.

Every time a scheduled nap is missed, or they go to bed late at Grandma and Grandpa’s, it’s you that pays later when they wake at 4:00 screaming.

So you give up on other priorities – especially anything that requires the least bit of flexibility. After all, if baby ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

This withdrawal is normal. It’s a necessary coping mechanism, especially when your baby isn’t “that baby “ – the one who magically slept through the night at 12 weeks old who sits happily on the floor smiling contentedly at everyone who walks by.

I’ve heard tales of parents who took their babies with them to parties and rocked them gently under the table with their foot while they continued to visit.

They’re the same parents who tell you very assuredly that you should be less rigid and not stick so religiously to sleep schedules.

“Of course,” I think. “That’s what it is. I’m getting a kick out of being rigid and uptight.”

What I should have done was take Chloe to one of those parties and rock her with my big toe while she screamed blue murder all evening under the dinner table.

But fussy baby or not, there is a time when, as parents, when we should take a step back and widen our focus.

It’s okay to hunker down in the short term, to recognize the immediate, acute needs of your new young family. But it isn’t healthy in the long-term.

In North America we already drink the Kool-Aid that says we are solely responsible for our children’s’ upbringing, success, and happiness – as though the rest of the world in which they spend so much of their time has very little to do with it.

I would venture to say that our single-minded obsession with our kids does little to help them grow and understand themselves and the world around them.

Believing that our kids cannot learn to thrive without us is as dangerous as believing that we cannot thrive without them.

From the moment our children are born, it’s our job to start letting them go, a little at a time. When we teach them to take risks, but assure them they have a soft place to land when the fall, we are teaching them to be human teaching them both to strive for what they almost dare not wish, and to support those around them when support is most needed.

But to truly teach these lessons we must teach by example. In short, we must reach for our own heights, demonstrate our own grace in failure, and engage in the communities around us.

As young parents struggling with small children, we re-prioritize our lives to focus on a monumental task, as we always do when faced with an immediate and crucial need. But in the long term, our children should not be our only or even our number one focus.

It is often said that children are like sponges. They learn by observing and by mimicking. What can a parent, no matter how attentive, possibly teach a child in the long run if he or she isn’t taking the time to know herself, to dust off her childhood wonder , and to embrace new challenges?

So here is my challenge to all of us, when it’s the right time: Make time for yourselves. Make time for your spouses. Make time for your friends.

Take the time to remember what it means to be you and to explore those things that were important to you before you had children.

Do all of this, not in spite of your children, but for your children. They don’t need you to just be nannies –a nanny is a position, a job, not a person, and certainly not a parent. Children need parents. And parents are individuals first, and nannies second.

Sean Sutton lives in Ottawa, Canada with his wife and two children, Chloe and Emily. He spent much of this year on paternity leave following Emily’s birth and started a blog to document his experience.

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When baby isn’t sleeping, you may be willing to try anything to get those little eyes to close. And while well-meaning friends and family always have their best advice handy, many parents compound the sleep problem by following the wrong advice.

Here are 5 common sleep myths you’ll want to avoid:

Myth #1:
“If I put my baby to bed later, she will sleep later the next morning.”

Reality Check: Adults can compensate for a late bedtime by sleeping in the next morning. Babies often cannot.

A pattern of too-late bedtimes may mean earlier waking and sleep deprivation for baby. Overtired bodies respond by releasing hormones, such as the stress hormone cortisol, creating more difficulties in falling asleep and staying asleep.

Surprisingly, the fix is an earlier bedtime. Try it! Your child may sleep better and longer.

Myth #2:
“If my child naps less during the day, he will sleep better at night.”

Reality Check: Following this guidance creates a vicious cycle of over-tiredness. Nap deprivation can cause difficulty settling, short naps, frequent night wakings, and early risings.

Improve your success rate by setting an appropriate bedtime.

Newborns must sleep about every 1-2 hours. For a fussy baby, try to start the soothing routine well ahead of sleep time.

Babies 6 months or older must sleep every 2-3 hours.

Toddlers can stretch 4-5 hours between naps. Figuring out your baby’s “sleep window” can mean smoother and longer nap times.

Myth #3:
“My child just needs less sleep than most children his age.”

Reality Check: Yes, total sleep requirements vary from child to child. Some children reach developmental milestones earlier and seem to need less sleep. You know your child best, and no ‘rule’ can substitute for your own good sense.

But remember, some very alert children actually need more sleep, but are better at hiding signs of tiredness, and more tenacious in fighting sleep and routine. It’s less about how many actual hours of sleep your child needs and more about consistency and routine.

Myth #4:
“I can’t sleep train my baby because I ‘m not ready to stop nursing or co- sleeping.”

Reality Check: Sleep is a learned skill that can be practiced within any sleeping or feeding arrangement. Co-sleeping creates additional challenges, but shouldn’t stop you from helping your baby learn healthy sleep habits.

If you enjoy nursing and want to continue, that’s great! However, allow baby to practice falling asleep without the breast too. Again, to achieve success, create a schedule that doesn’t pressure you or baby.

Myth #5:
“I can’t sleep-train because I can’t stand to let her cry it out.”

Reality Check: The ‘cry it out’ debate has raged on for years. But it doesn’t work for everyone and gentler, more gradual methods exist that work just as well.

Certainly, be prepared for a few tears, but you can limit those tears and support your little one with, you guessed it, consistency! Choose a method that suits your lifestyle so you can follow through regularly.

It would be lovely to believe that, once your baby is sleep trained, you’ll never have to do it again. However, developmental milestones, especially in the early years, can temporarily disrupt even the best sleeper’s good habits.

Shake things up with travel, illness, moving, or a new sibling, and you may find you have to begin again.

Don’t worry – these changes are almost always temporary. Just think — one day, your baby will be a teen, and you’ll be looking for guidance on how to get him out of bed.

Erica Desper is a postpartum doula and sleep consultant in the Philadelphia area. For over ten years she has been supporting families through the choices and challenges that come with parenting. Erica can be contacted via her Confident Parenting website and on Facebook.

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You may remember my recent review of the Miracle Baby Sleep System.  

Since then, a number of our readers and Facebook members have emailed me with questions about the system, or to tell me they are planning to try it out with their sleep-challenged baby or toddler.

Well, I have good news for you!

SmartWav, the company that produces the system, has offered to award a Sleep System to one of our lucky readers.

To enter, you just need to ‘like’ us! Here’s how:

1.  Go to the official Facebook page of the Miracle Baby Sleep System, and click ‘like’.

2. If you aren’t already a fan of The Fussy Baby Site Facebook page, become a fan now.

3. Go to our review of the system, and like, share, OR tweet the post.

4. Finally, leave a comment on this post saying you’ve done #1-3 (be sure to use a valid email address when you comment so we know how to contact you.)

That’s it!

*Just make sure you’ve completed each of the 4 steps so you’re not accidentally disqualified!

Fine Print

• Must be a resident of Canada or the US.
• Contest ends Wednesday, May 2 at 5pm PST

Exclusive Discount for Members of the Fussy Baby Site

If you just can’t wait, SmartWav has also offered a special 30% discount only for members of the Fussy Baby Site.

To use the discount, enter the code: CALMBABY at checkout until Friday, May 4.

Buy the Baby Sleep System now.

Good luck!

Contest posted at Contest Canada | Canadian Free Stuff

*Updated: Contest is now closed.

And the winner is….Jessica Cooke!  Jessica, email me and I will make sure you get your sleep system asap!

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From the moment Tyler was out of the womb he had his own ideas, and we soon found that us even trying to do things the way that we had planned was just not going to work.

It became such a frustrating time of trying to maintain what we thought was  “best” for Tyler and trying to maintain our sanity. Sleep deprivation usually only allows for one challenge at a time.

When we were about 4 months away from the due date, my husband and I sat down and talked about the kind of baby we were going to raise. We were going to plan now so there would be no surprises:

Our baby would NOT sleep in our bed.  He would sleep in his crib, from day one, forever.

Our baby would NOT be a baby that would have to be held all the time.

Our baby would NOT run the show. He would be on a schedule.

Our baby WOULD sleep through the night.

Our baby WOULD go to sleep on his own, just by laying him in his crib.

Our baby WOULD do great in the car.  We couldn’t wait to take him places.

Well, Tyler thought he should nurse every 30-60 minutes, fall asleep while nursing, in bed with me, in my arms, and would wake up to scream for more. This was day one.

I began to realize, slowly and painfully, that our plans might just have to be thrown out the window.

My labor should have been the indicator that things do not always go as we hope. I wanted a pain-free childbirth.  I wanted it to be peaceful and relaxing.

My birth plan requested that the nurses didn’t even ask me my pain levels so that the idea of medication would be as far from my mind as possible. I ended up with Demerol, an epidural, and a c-section.

Thankfully, a couple of hours after Tyler was born, he latched on on the first try (but never wanted to let go).

We went into survival mode those first 3 months of Tyler’s life. We began doing anything and everything just to get more than an hour of sleep at a time.

This meant that, for three weeks straight, I slept in the recliner with Tyler in my arms, basically nursing him back to sleep anytime he woke up. Then we moved to our bed and Tyler slept in between us.

Tyler ate when he wanted, we carried him nonstop, and he still hates the car at 6 months.

I will never forget that night that Tyler finally, finally, fell asleep, (after crying for four hours straight), at midnight.

When Tyler started stirring around in my arms, I nervously turned my head to look at the clock, it was 8AM! I felt so good that day. It is amazing what sleep does to an exhausted mommy.

Fussy babies are hard to cope with, and they tend to drain all the energy out of already sleepy parents.

Sometimes, any sleep at all is more important than where the sleep occurs.

Sometimes, we have to give up the “rules” we so foolishly think our fussy babies will follow.

And sometimes, surrendering to a fussy baby is better than butting heads with one.

Nichelle is a stay at home mom, finishing her degree online in social science with an emphasis on early childhood education. She enjoy gardening and cooking, and reaching out to offer support and encouragement to families of fussy babies in her community.

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