It’s no secret that Hudson has been a difficult baby. With the stay in special care, the silent reflux, the hip dysplasia and pretty constant whingeing we have been challenged at every turn as to what we thought parenthood would be for baby number 2.
At the moment I’m struggling the most with the assault on my expectations. Last time around it went so smoothly in the sense that Eli had no major health issues and thrived on developmental challenges. Eli was six months around Christmas and I remember it almost as slow motion film footage with family around and Eli saying new sounds and learning new things daily… apart from the pervasive teething rash at the same time. I know the difficult things fade in hindsight but right now it is just really tough.
Yesterday it was all about the brace. I thought if I could just take the brace off he would turn into a happy baby. Then we took the brace off and little changed. It’s almost worse now because at least before I had something to blame it on. I know this is as much about me as it is about him, but that doesn’t change my outlook.
I feel like he takes one look at me and starts crying. I shouldn’t take it personally but that sucks. Dave is great with him, so is everyone else it seems, but his mother has failed. To cope I try to block out his crying but that just makes it worse. Right now I’m trying to feed him dinner but he is just crying as soon as he finishes swallowing.
Today I searched ‘dealing with a difficult baby’ on Google. I found that difficult babies can make great children and that really my experience of difficult is not that bad… at least he sleeps reasonably well. The issue is that I can rationally tell myself these things but emotionally all he has to do is cry as soon as I look at him and I’m back to square one.
I’m not quite sure how to fix this one, but in the meantime at least I have a supportive husband and housemates to take over when things get too tough…
