Fussy Infant or Child?

Could this be sensory experience differences?

Sometimes bedtimes are exceptionally tough. You feel like you’ve tried everything, you are completely exhausted and have no idea how to satisfy your infant or child's needs to support them in getting to sleep. In this post, I am going to share with you some signs and experiences that might just mean that you need to play by an alternative parenting “rulebook” or follow a different “roadmap”. I will be discussing the experiences of our children when they have sensory differences so that it may help you to navigate where to go to for support.

This post is by no means an exhaustive discussion, nor is it a source for indicating that your infant or child definitely has sensory challenges.  If on reading this, you feel there are signs that your infant or child has some sensory difficulties or needs that are beyond what may be considered typical, please discuss this with a trusted healthcare provider.  As a mother to two people, both with sensory processing differences and a human being who has sensory processing differences myself, I can tell you that having these differences is no call to panic but it is a need to get support with, and understanding on.  Seeing your child through the lens of what they experience, greatly improves your ability to attune with them, connect with them and figure out the whys to determine the hows. 

All behaviour is communication. To go one step further with this, there are no bad kids.

Seeing your child and loving them for who they are, helps your child to love themselves for exactly who they are which will set them up to a very bright future.

Maybe just getting them out of the house is a challenge…

Picture this, your infant is and always has been a fussy baby.  You know that your friends' babies have fussy times, like when they are tired, hungry, going through those challenging progression/ “regressions” or they are ill, but they aren’t on the same level as your baby or the same level of fussiness occurring as your baby.  Your baby may have long screaming periods way past the point of it being “the witching hour”.  Their doctor has described them as “colicky”. You dread diaper and outfit changes because your baby hates it.  Or they may be limpet babies, who are okay so long as they are always being carried by you.  When you are invited to a coffee shop date with your mom friends, do you shrink just thinking about how difficult it will be with your baby?  Maybe just getting them out of the house is a challenge. Do you wonder why everyone else can do, but you can’t? I’m here to discuss why this probably really isn’t on you. It’s not a case of “if you just do x,y,z, it’ll be fine”, it’s a case of, you have a highly sensitive infant that has different or more needs than the average, typical infant does.

These things may or may not be signaling sensory differences for your child. Before I go any further, I would like to add, having a sensory processing difference does not mean that your child has autism. I know the two are closely linked. The truth is though that although stereotypes will tell you this, not all people with sensory processing differences have autism and not all people with autism have SPD.

Sensory processing differences don’t always present like this, but these are some things to be aware of.

For babies who have sensory challenges or unmet sensory integration, they may appear to be fussy most, if not all the time (not limited to periods of tiredness, illness or developmental spurts), they might need more help to calm down than what is typically expected, they might need more co-regulation from their caregivers and struggle to be put down.  They typically are the people who take in all the world. These babies can be ALERT. Maybe yours appears wiser than their age. They may be the babies that need big movements and big noises to get to sleep.  Or they may need the exact circumstances, complete silence and a pitch dark room, with needs reminiscent of The Princess and The Pea to be able to sleep well.  They may even struggle with being held or picked up.  Getting changed, whether it be a full-on outfit change or maybe a diaper change might be exceptionally distressing to your infant or you might find that you just can’t take them to certain places without them crying for the majority of the time.  These are the babies and children who cry when in public bathrooms with loud flushes and air driers, they are the people for whom a supermarket trip is hell.  Maybe they are the infants who scream murder if you try to babywear.

Typically with highly sensitive toddlers and beyond, you may find that your infant or child is wired at bedtime. They’re hyperactive, climbing the walls, bouncing off everything - and you.  They might be climbing all over you, pulling at your body and clothing, and really struggling to stay still and lay down.  With babies, they may need much, much more time and movement to settle to sleep.  Alternatively, they not be as big into movement as other infants and children, these are the kids who are sometimes perceived as lazy and lethargic, they may spend a lot of time appearing in rest mode, but maybe sleep is difficult to achieve for them.

When we care for people with a different experience of life’s senses, quite often, the playbook so often used by parents and professionals, just doesn't work for our children.  To give an example, I know that a bath before bed is touted as being great for the bedtime routine, that it makes “all children” sleepy.  And the science behind that largely works. Being in warm water tends to be relaxing, maybe even a pressure on our bodies that we enjoy, maybe it’s the buoyancy, and then we get out and our body temperature drops, which then helps the body to signal to the brain, it’s nighttime, let’s gets sleepy and then melatonin is produced. But if the sympathetic nervous system (heightened stress response meaning arousal of the body and emotions, it could be physical movement or fight or flight) is activated with the sensory challenge of; a new room, often brightly lit, shiny tiles and often slightly echoey, having clothes taken off, air against the skin, into a new temperature, noises in the room, surprises of splashing, maybe water on the face, which can be a shock and if you are already activated, that shock doens’t tend to leave the body as it may normally do so. Potentially, there are strong smells associated with bathtime. Maybe the products in the bathroom or may the products for getting clean or the bubble bath or the bath bomb. Then there is getting out and getting cold. There’s the texture of the towel on skin, and the putting on cold, fresh crisp clothes on. And it can feel like too much arousal to feel safe with.  Those are just the senses that are more easily identified but there are three senses which we often don’t hear about much: proprioception, vestibular and interception, and because they are within the body, it can be really hard to identify, as a parent what your child’s experiences are. Often, infants and children with sensory differences can also struggle to feel where their bodies are in space.  Laying down in the water and having their hair washed can feel incredibly unsafe and disorientating, which then put a child into flight mode. If I didn’t ring this home, what I’m saying is, for some, a bath is exactly the opposite of what your child needs to help them relax and surrender into sleep.

Another example, but away from bathtime, might be that you tried to swaddle your baby (which I don’t recommend BTW), but when you did, your baby screamed blue murder. Or maybe, when everyone recommended you babywear to help with reflux, colic, bonding, crying, wind or just to be able to get things done, your baby gave it a hard pass, constantly pushing off from you and making it very clear that this was not going to work out.

The good news is that when you know if your infant or child is struggling with their sensory experiences, there are a lot of ways and accommodations that will make your child’s - and your experiences, way better and easier.  I mean, take the bathtime as an example.  What if you swap out lightbulbs or use a lamp in the room to make the light more calming, what if you warm up towels and clothes before using them, what if you do some sensory supportive movements before bathtime to help your infant or child’s senses to balance in a way that helps the transition? And then, what about the bedtime experience of toddlers and children that are WIRED? Heavy-pressure play is where it’s at. Knowledge is power and empowering parents with the knowledge of their child’s individuality is exactly what both parent and child need in order to thrive.

When your infant or child is overwhelmed and overstimulated from the day, by the time bedtime rocks up, your child is so high up on the arousal scale that it’s a long way down, and getting them to sleep is an exceptionally long and often a hair-pullingly tedious and exhausting affair.  When you can identify what the issue is, you can accommodate as necessary.  A good occupational therapist is worth their weight in gold for helping to identify the whys and in giving fun and engaging activities that suits your child’s temperament and needs. As a non-medical infant and family sleep specialist, I love working with OTs. It’s exceptionally enlightening for figuring out what that individual person (your child) needs to be able to regulate and relax enough to surrender to sleep.

In the meantime, the best thing I would suggest you do is spend time connecting with your child.  Stay curious about behaviour because all behaviour is communication.  Work on feelings of safety for your child, validate their experiences and emotions and believe them when they are signaling that they aren’t feeling safe or comfortable. Even if you can see no reason for their challenges. We can never see what someone is experiencing on the inside.

For those infants and children who like to be held, when in doubt, with permission, hug it out.  Heavy-pressure play can work wonders. Rough housing can be a fantastic way to release a lot of the pent-up emotions for the day.  And please, know that if your infant or child doesn’t like to be held or picked up, it isn’t you, and there are other ways to show them that you are there for them.  Sit with them, maybe they would like to hold hands, maybe they would like to have a foot on your lap, show them with your body language that you love and care for them, and that they are safe. Work on ways to signal safety, such as predictability and feelings of belonging. I often work with demand-avoidant children and so I don’t always go with routines, sometimes family rituals and if the child or family is in extreme burnout, we look for other ways to signal safety and belonging.

Even with predictable and calm environments and routines, co-regulation with nurturing, and responsive, reliable care, we still will not be able to stop our infant or child’s stress responses from being activated through sensory experiences.  If you suspect that your child has sensory processing differences, the first direction for you to go to might be your family doctor who can signpost or refer you to the appropriate local care provider, your local child development centre, or paediatric occupational therapist. 

As a mother to highly sensitive, neurodivergent children, I recommend that you vet your providers to ensure they work on the basis of responsive care and do not work with behaviourist models (try to change behaviour to make it more socially acceptable, instead of investigating the root cause of the behaviour and challenging the whys behind what is deemed as “socially acceptable” - because most of the time, that’s BS anyway).

No matter where you are on this journey, if you are having difficulties around sleep with your child, I can support you.  If you aren’t sure if or how I can help and would like to know more, please get in touch and we can set up a free call to discuss.