How to handle super kvetchy babies

amother

Honeydew

Thu, Aug 13 2015, 2:11 pm

Just HOW do you deal with a super kvetchy baby? How about 2? My twins are 5 months old and are SO difficult. I find that I'm shorter tempered with my other kids because of this...
Maybe I should get afternoon help for when the kids come home? Who?
Any advice?

amother

Puce

Thu, Aug 13 2015, 2:36 pm

I have just one and I totally relate. I have 4 kids in total and I haven't been alone with all of them since the youngest was born. Dreading this time. Following this thread for tricks...

(don't you feel like, having raised other kids, you are supposed to be prepared for this? But somehow you are not?)

Dolly Welsh

Thu, Aug 13 2015, 3:11 pm

Definitely get help for when the older ones come home.

Some of that will be having the helper hold the youngest, who may actually respond better than to you, out of sheer curiosity. Well, for a short while.

If you can wear the kvetchy one, it might be good.

The house may be too hot.

Put a T shirt you wore with no perfume or deodorant around the baby.

The baby or babies may need sensory stimulation.

Take the kvetchy one(s) in a carriage or stroller outside to the street and let the babies get used to the sounds of the wider world, traffic, strangers' voices, all that. Not for long. They will come to understand the house as the safe place, and feel better for understanding what it is, their family's, and not public.

Put on soothing music, maybe.

They may need sunlight.

They may need to hear you talking companionably to another adult. If it's just you and the kids at home, they don't get that experience. There is a need to understand social relationships, among adults. Have a friend over. Chat with her in the same room as the child, not another room.

water_bear88

Thu, Aug 13 2015, 3:14 pm

What Dolly said.

Were they in the nicu for any length of time? They may have grown used to lots of noise (beeping monitors etc) at all hours, which makes it even harder to adjust.

Dolly Welsh

Thu, Aug 13 2015, 3:32 pm

And light, endless light. No day-night cycle. In time they will straighten out. Don't ignore them and don't train them to cry either. In the middle. Love them all the time whether they are kvetchy or not and they will calm down. DON'T only respond to kvetching and nothing else, or they will kvetch forever because that's what worked.