Rob and I had been bracing ourselves for utter exhaustion as we anticipated little Owen’s arrival. Those first three months with Will were still vivid in our minds. No matter how many times we had been warned about sleepless nights, nothing prepared us for just how sleep-deprived we became tending to a kid who could scream for hours on end. He wailed when we changed his diaper, he wailed when we put him in his car seat, he wailed when we wished he would sleep at midnight and 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. as we danced him around the house in desperation.
Almost three years later, Owen arrives on the scene -- and sure he’ll fuss a little toward the end of a diaper change or when he’s ready to nurse. But his cries are easily addressed and he goes back to his sweet peaceful self. He’ll wake up a few times a night to nurse and go right back to sleep beside me (we’re going to co-sleep for a few months and then probably bring a halt to it before he learns to depend on it). Sometimes, Rob looks at me in the morning and asks if Owen ever woke up. We just can’t believe our luck.
Funny how many mothers have told me about their second babies being more peaceful than their first. I figured it might be because those moms, and their spouses, had figured something out along the way – maybe as seasoned parents they were no longer stressed out in their interactions with their infants or maybe they had learned not to dote on or over-stimulate their babies too much. But in this case, Owen seems to have just come to us a different kind of soul. We love Will’s spirit, but we’re kind of excited to have a mellower baby (assuming this isn’t just our newborn honeymoon).
My mom has a theory that first babies spend nine months in a tighter womb and emerge more stressed out because of it; then subsequent babies have just enough more wiggle room that they come out significantly more relaxed.
Whatever it is, it’s fascinating to see how the same mix of genes can create such totally different personalities even before environmental and parenting factors have time to kick in.
Plenty of parenting magazines, web sites and books offer baby quizzes to help you assess your baby’s temperament and then learn how to best deal with them accordingly. Dr. Vincent Iannelli talks about three categories of baby: “slow to warm up,” “adaptable,” and “feisty” at http://pediatrics.about.com/od/infantparentingtips/a/04_temperament.htm. For a run-down of some of the standard variables that psychologists use to study children's temperaments, go to http://www.drkutner.com/parenting/articles/baby.html. Tracy Hogg’s book “Secrets of the Baby Whisperer” offers a 20-question “Know Your Baby Quiz” to help you determine whether you have an angel baby, textbook baby, touchy baby, spirited baby, or grumpy baby. I’m not even bothering with the quiz specifics on newborn Owen (I’m not much for quizzes anyway and it’s too early to answer many of the questions for a one-week-old.) But I think I’ve got him pegged as a textbook/adaptable baby, who, after handling a very spirited/feisty baby looks like he came straight from angel baby land.
2 comments:
My brother's daughter was and still a feisty & energetic one at 3 years old while their 2nd child is a mellow boy. To reference an old infocommerical, they joke about handling Wesley, as to "Set it and Forget it", which means, you can just leave Wesley in his pen or on the floor, and he'll just mellow out. No real fussing from him.
Great job Annie!
Thanks for your comment, Dave. I'm already feeling occassionally guilty about the fact that "set it and forget it" works pretty well with Owen. Will definitely got more handling from us in the early weeks. But Rob says there's no need for guilt. He calls Owen's peaceful temperament "cosmic compensation."
-Annie
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