Highly Sensitive Babies and Sleeping

If you have a Sensitive baby who doesn’t behave as most other children do, take heart because you have been given a special gift, and you will eventually get some sleep!

Alexander our son was the perfect breastfed baby, sleeping eating, eating sleeping, until he was introduced to solid food and that’s when the nightmare began.

The calm perfect baby suddenly began crying (actually screaming) at about four o’clock in the afternoon almost every day; he also began to not sleep well at night. I took him to the doctor and to the Maternal Child and Health Centre, but they could find nothing wrong with him.

I knew something wasn’t right and as I was a kindergarten teacher, I knew about child development and as this was my second child, I thought I could figure it out. I listened to all the advice and tried everything: breastfeeding him again, putting him on his tummy with a hot water bottle, cuddling him, letting him cry, playing music, taking him for long drives in the car.

I was so tired and exhausted just functioning every day. Working part time, studying, looking after my three-year-old daughter and surviving while my husband worked long hours and was overseas for the occasional long stint.

Alexander began losing weight over the next few months and the maternal and child health nurse suggested visiting a paediatrician as he also had asthma and was often taking antibiotics for chest infections. My first visit was both an amazing relief and a trial. Following a battery of tests, including copious blood tests, the diagnosis was that he lacked the enzymes to break down sucrose. He was given a highly restrictive diet. This diet included no sugar, measuring almost everything including amounts of fruit and vegetables – down to the last teaspoon, reading every packet of breakfast cereal or processed food for ingredients listings.

Alexander’s sleep patterns at that time were weird and wonderful at the same time. He would often come into our bed for a conversation in the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep. He would hop into our bed and settle after the reassuring conversation about: “Had it rained in Africa and would the children there have water to drink now?” Other times he would wake us up announcing, “I have finished playing Lego and had my milk and snack of apple and cheese, and now I’m going to sleep”. It could be 11 pm and we had been asleep for a couple of hours!

Eventually after we learned to stop stressing about this he gradually began sleeping well and asking to go to bed ,or putting himself to bed. Try and stay calm, and trust your own instincts about your child, humans are all wired differently and need different levels of sleep. Children need encouragement and acceptance and for parents to confidently take the lead at bedtime in a confident non confronting manner.