The Second Tough First Year
When my second baby was 4 months old, he caught chickenpox (they don’t vaccinate for CP in the UK). It was really tough on him, he had infected spots and was clearly in a lot of pain and discomfort. He got over it in fairly usual timing though but then as his immune system was suppressed, he picked up every single bug that came his way until he was 12mths old. Literally, he would be just over the hump with one thing - coughs, colds, chest infections, ear infections, tonsillitis, stomach bugs, and the next thing would start appearing. I would hardly see my friends because my baby was always sick. My baby was nursing and waking like a newborn all the way until he turned one. I also had a toddler at home with undiagnosed neurodiversity and not having the accommodations made for him meant that there was a lot of behavioural challenges (because we didn’t know he didn’t need these supports, we just felt like we were bad parents who didn’t know how to support our first-born adequately with the arrival of a sibling and starting preschool). I won’t bore you with the details but it was so. Unbelievably. Hard.
What helped me get through it was going completely baby and child led. Nursing on demand. Bedsharing by taking off one of the cotbed sides and attaching it to my bed. Having a double bed in my older son’s room so my husband could bedshare with him to support him through his experiences through this through the night. Not being around people who would question my choices for sleep or feeding. Not being around people that I felt judged by. Going as minimal as I could. I gave away, sold and threw out a whole bunch of stuff and utilized as much of my loft space as possible. The less stuff there was around was not only a break for tidying and cleaning it up but it also made me feel calmer to not be faced with all this stuff - everywhere. I couldn’t find much calm and so I needed visual calm.
What I wish I had done: Asked and accepted more help.
My older son was really challenging and so we didn’t feel that we could request that the family look after him to give us a little breathing space. My baby was always sick and so I didn’t want to be away from him and I didn’t want my eldest feel like we were sending him away. Because we didn’t ask, I don’t think people thought to offer. This meant that my son didn’t form strong bonds with others and others didn’t form strong bonds with him, my son and my family were robbed of that relationship. I didn’t think of asking for help from that perspective. I thought of how hard he was for my husband and I and that we couldn’t ask others to take that on for a few hours each weekend, but really, maybe he would have been completely different for them and that he might have appreciated the break from the crying baby and his exhausted parents.
Hindsight can be such an incredible gift to learn from the mistakes of the past. I’m still - six years on - learning from these life experiences.
