Support group / resources for spirited baby?

Just for reassurance -- I had the baby who cried the most in the mother's group. Sometimes my partner joked "My, what a loud baby." They also were the first one to talk, and very bright in preschool and school. It did take them until about kindergarten to "settle" down, after which they continued to have a strong personality but could be reasoned with. They are now a very empathetic person and doing well as a young adult. What helped me was thinking about their feelings and intensity like the weather -- always changing with good weather around the corner. Also, I did have a lot of support from my partner, from friends, and starting at about nine months, a part-time babysitter.

I don't know if this is your first baby or not, but just a gentle reminder that 3mo is still an infant. So so young, and not fully capable of self-soothing. There is nothing wrong with your baby. At this age, their nervous system is still very immature and they mostly need a mature system (aka yours and other safe adults) to regulate. I also had a baby who was very alert and active during the day and could not sleep independently for naps. I don't know what we would have done if I'd had to return to a job, but if it helps to hear it from someone else, I contact napped with him until he stopped napping at age 2.5. I know those naps could be time when you do things for you, but his naps became my chance to catch up a little bit on my own rest and sleep. I will say that at 6 years old, he does not seem to have some of the sleep anxiety and disruptions that some of his peers have developed.

Please know that I'm not saying any of this easy or that I was often envious of parents who had babies who needed more sleep or took to independent sleep more easily. It can be really exhausting and frustrating. But please know that you cannot cuddle or contact your baby too much, especially at this very tender age. I hope you can bring in other adults who might take on some of this work so that you get more of a break. We were lucky enough to have a caregiver at that stage who would go on long walks with my son in the carrier so he could nap on her, for instance. This type of care exists!

Hang in there!

For reading material, I'd recommend "The Nuture Revolution" https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-nurture-revolution-grow-your-baby-s-br…

Everything you have mentioned about your 3 month old baby is normal baby behavior and not at all abnormal in any way. She is not 'high-needs', she is a baby and all babies have high needs, they are entirely dependent on you for literally everything. Of course she wants to be held all the time and rocked to sleep. A 3 month old is not capable of 'self-soothing'. It does sound like you need support so that you can have a bit more 'me' time but the expectations that you have for your baby may be too high. 

Hi! As a former nanny and the mom of three kids from a toddler to a teen each with certain areas of "high needs", I empathize and also: I kept double checking to be sure you meant three months and not three years. I remember the immediacy and urgency I felt with my first baby but from this perspective I see that you are at the very, very beginning. Your baby is so fresh. It is so, so normal that she wants to be held and rocked.  Can you have her in a carrier or wrap? Can you bounce on a yoga ball while responding to BPN posts (as I am doing now with my sick toddler)? It's so great that you have already figured out what she wants and what helps her soothe! I'm in my 40s and still learning to self-soothe so she is lucky she can rely on people around her to help for the next few years at least. 

You do need time for yourself to stay grounded, and also your ways of getting grounded may change and evolve, I think we can face pressure to have a certain level of autonomy that I have found it freeing to let go of. Your baby was just born, I hope you can be gentle with yourself and offer her so much comfort - she just got here, she will settle in as time passes, th routines and observations you have now will keep changing. I don't at all mean to pressure you not to seek what you need but just to gently remind you of the newness and temporary nature of this whole situation. 

This sounds, I’m sorry to say, developmentally normal for a three month old. The idea that babies that young should be able to self-soothe and sleep independently is, in my humble opinion, a myth designed to keep us feeling like failures. Some babies are fussier than others at this age, that is true, but I promise it will change soon. It might get worse first (the four month sleep regression is coming..) but it will eventually get better and probably not because of anything you do or don’t do.  I would recommend finding a baby wearing solution that is more comfortable for you (ergo baby with a newborn insert worked well for us), maybe looking into a Snoo if you’re losing it. Re resources, I read the happy sleeper and basically liked it, they have tips of things to try under 4 months when they’re too young to sleep train. My biggest regret from my early postpartum though was spending entire days in a dark room trying to teach my baby to nap in his crib because I thought it was the “right” way to sleep, and I wish I’d just strapped him on or headed out in the stroller and lived my life. Wishing you luck!

I don’t mean to offend…but at 3 months of age, these things sound…normal? 

Our now almost 4-year-old was like this at that age. Honestly, on the sleep front, we would just hold her during the day and read books, listen to podcasts, etc. Essentially, we just accepted it. As she got a little older (maybe around 6 months), it became easier to rock her to sleep, wait 15 minutes for her to be deeply asleep, and then very gently set her down in her crib. Even then, it was maybe 50/50 whether she would wake up after one sleep cycle and want us to hold her again, or if she would make it her full 1.5 hour nap without further intervention. After a while, we also began to co-sleep at night. Usually we could hold her until she fell asleep and then set her down and leave the room, which gave us some adult time in the evening. While we weren't a hard no to sleep training, it was clear that this wasn't going to work for her. 

Now, as an almost 4-year-old, I'd say our daughter is probably "gifted" (I mean that in the high IQ sense, although this is an unfortunate and loaded term). Alertness at a very young age, as well as intensity and more trouble around sleep (may be due to difficulty shutting their brains off) are often early signs. It's too early to truly know, but I recommend reading Dr. Deborah Ruf's work, which may provide some context and reassurance if this is the boat you are in: https://fivelevelsofgifted.com/

Giftedness is a form of neurodivergence, and while it can at times be delightful (our daughter's vocabulary is huge, and she has continued to be extremely alert and observant, which can make her very fun to be around), the intensity is no joke. I sometimes watch moms with chiller kids and envy the quiet that they seem to achieve on a more regular basis. Our daughter wakes up with a mental jetpack on every morning and flies through her day nonstop until I tell her a long, original invented story at bedtime to help her shut her brain off and fall asleep. The struggle is real. 

This sounds like a normal 3 month old to me. Many babies only want to sleep with contact naps, are not capable of self-soothing, and are easily overstimulated. I think having a support group for yourself would be more helpful than trying to force sleep training on a baby that is too young to understand it. 

If she's having these issues when she's older -- like toddler age -- that could be a different story. But for now, I don't think there's anything wrong with your daughter. 

Just want to validate your feelings here. I know a lot of replies said your baby is completely "typical," but I believe you when you say you have observed that your baby, as young as she is, is intense and perceptive for her age. I had the opposite, what I fondly describe as a "potato baby"--sleepy, chill, content, not intense. Unlike you, I never quite had the feeling that she was "fun" to interact with at that age because she mostly lay there, haha. She was an easy baby and, generally speaking, easily learned to self-soothe and sleep on her own. I don't think this was "typical" and I can't take any credit for it; I think it was just how she came out. Anyway, I am sure you know what you're talking about when you say your baby is more "spirited" than the typical 3-month-old, and that it's just how she came out.

We were able to support our baby in learning to self-soothe by using a pacifier first. She found her thumb around 4 months, but she began using the pacifier well before, around 1 or 2 months old. We were reluctant to use a pacifier at first, because we didn't want to have to wean off of it, but after reading resources from Taking Cara Babies and Precious Little Sleep, both of which strongly recommended pacifiers for babies under 6 months, we started using them for naps and night sleep (there's also evidence that using a pacifier to fall asleep lowers the risk of SIDS). We tried several types but the only one that worked for us was the Tommee Tippee Ultra Light silicone pacifier (anecdotally, a lot of friends have said the same about the Tommee Tippee working well for them). Our lactation consultant also looked at it and said it was a fine choice for a breastfeeding baby. Our baby just turned 1 and still occasionally uses the pacifier if she's very grumpy (crying a lot) or we're taking a nap on the go, but 90% of the time she sleeps without it and weaning off of it has not been an issue.

A Snoo, as another parent suggested, could also be helpful! We used one for the first 10 weeks of our baby's life and it helped when she was having trouble falling asleep.

Lastly, we used SITBACK from Taking Cara Babies to teach our baby self-soothing early on. At 3 months, we did each step for just 30-60 seconds. It's just a method to wait and give your baby a chance to try self-soothing, with increasing interventions from the parents. It worked well for our baby and, while we were planning to sleep train at 5 months, we ended up never needing to because our baby learned to self-soothe and connect sleep cycles before then.

Hope this helps! Feel free to DM if you'd like to discuss further. Sleep is SO HUGE to mama's mental health and it's great you are reaching out for support.

Hello, it sounds really hard! I was concerned that my baby had higher needs but other parents and pediatrician kept telling said her behavior was “normal”. No one meant to shame me but I felt inadequate because I thought that I wasn’t enough for my baby and that caring for her was too draining. She was 3-1/2 before these same parents started to not want to be around my daughter or include her in play dates because she was “too much”. 
Trust your intuition! If your baby needs more support that other babies, you must find a way to give it to her. And rest and healing for you. I did most of this out-of-pocket including OT, neurodevelopmental movement, home-schooling through 5th grade and more. I had to change my life to accommodate her. 
You may need to hold her all the time and possibly co-sleep. And get help - emotional, spiritual, physical, what ever you need so YOU can be regulated. Your baybe cannot calm her nervous system if yours is not.   My girl is 17 now and she still needs extra support with “normal” things but she is maturing on track and will be fine. I’m sending peaceful thoughts. Good Luck! 

I wanted to add to the many responses because i noticed few of them pointed to resources, which is what you're asking for. I'd like to offer at least one that I know of! Hey Sleepy Baby (@heysleepybaby) has a lot of good explanations about baby temperament and how it affects sleep. She has free content and also paid workshops and e-guides that can really help.

Your baby sounds like a pretty typical 3 month old, but precisely because this is such a common experience, there are many resources to help! It takes some work but look through all the baby channels on instagram etc. lots of people out there raising babies like yours!

I want to note: it is sounds like either your baby is the first baby you have spent a serious amount of time with, or worse, you have known just one or two babies before yours and they happened to be very easygoing babies. The latter situation is rough because it creates so many expectations and comparisons. Your baby is totally normal and sounds like most three month olds. That said, there do exist babies who are more "chill" and sleep very easily. So if you're comparing your baby to a friend's or someone else you know, and it feels like she's just a little more high needs than that baby, it's probably true! Doesn't mean there is anything wrong or abnormal. Lots of babies (most babies) are like her.

Your baby sounds very similar to mine, and unfortunateIy I also got a lot of similar responses to my concerns and requests for help  (she's normal, no one said it would be easy etc.) Extremely difficult to soothe,witching hour later for hours every night,   naps only  lasted about 20 minutes,  reflux, refused pacifier and bottles, very perceptive.

I don't think anyone means to be, but these comments made me feel dismissed and ashamed that i couldn't "take it" as a mom. Looking back almost 2 years later and comparing notes with other parents... yeah, she was more difficult. Maybe within range of "normal", but absolutely a different  experience. I wish now that I'd advocated more for myself, like you're doing, but I didn't know what was normal! Babyis almost 2 now and still "spirited", but so so much fun because she's so bright and now able to verbalize   her needs. 

Taking Cara Babies was helpful.  Not sure what insurance you have, but Kristina Ahmed at Berkeley kaiser is a wonderful feeding and sleep specialist.  

 We hired a postpartum doula, butwhat ithink wereally neededwas a mother's helper. Literally just a warm body that baby could contact nap on so i could do anything else. Support Group for Mother in emeryville was wonderful, I'm still good friends with my group.  

A game changer was baby wearing so i could take long walks with the dog while she napped on me. Setting up "shifts" of baby duty at night was also helpful to make sure my partner and I could each get solid sleep. Last but not least, medication for my  PPA. I resisted until baby turned 1 year, and I wish I'd takenthe leap sooner. It helps me not immediately go into fight or flight and I'm a much better parent for it. 

Sending you hugs, hang in there!

First and foremost, this is so hard.  While all babies are “high needs”, your feelings and instinct are valid. Some babies are indeed higher needs and it is so ridiculously exhausting.

Our kid was similar — “the works”. They cried more, louder, slept less, etc. 

I felt like a mama gorilla. I wore the baby a lot. At night the baby slept in a moving swing. We bounced the baby for a billion hours. Sleep was so difficult and so short. We ended up cosleeping in the end because it was the only way I could get enough sleep to function. 

As soon as it is safe, introduce a lovey which helped with soothing. 
 

You could try sleep training / sleep consultant. We never could do it. 

My kid is older now, With each developmental leap, you will experience regression and utterly exhausting challenges. And then it gets better and suddenly you notice your baby has grown!

I think if you could have a mother’s helper, babysitter, a postpartum doula, that would be very helpful. During my maternity leave, I had a wonderful doula come twice a week for 2-3 hours. She cooked and took care of the baby while I took a bath or napped. 

If you have a coparent/partner, your partner needs to share the caretaking even though they may be working full time. 

It is very common for gifted and/or neurodivergent kids to sleep less, have a hard time falling sleep, and be spirited as babies. Our kiddo is 2E (gifted and ADHD). 
Hang in there! It does get better.