‘Maybe there is something wrong with him?’
There are times in my life that I so clearly remember where I was when something big happened or was said to me. When this message came up on the antenatal WhatsApp group one morning, it may not seem like a huge life event, but it shook me and I still remember reading it 7 years later.
I had messaged, yet again, telling my support group that my 6 month old had woken up every 20 minutes to be breastfed back to sleep, and one fellow mum said ‘Maybe there is something wrong with him. Maybe he should see a doctor’.
This stopped me in my tracks. Is there something wrong with him? What could be wrong? Is he ill? Is it some sort of developmental condition? Will he be like this forever? And suddenly my brain went into overdrive.
I thought long and hard about the comment. He was gaining weight well. He was meeting milestones. Surely I would know if something was seriously wrong. I didn’t take him to the doctors to be checked out as a 6 month old baby because I knew deep down in my heart that there was nothing ‘wrong’ with him that needed to be fixed with medicines and doctors and that he was just an innocent little baby who only knew how to fall asleep feeding! Of course he was going to wake and need me to help him get back to sleep.
By doing a lot of research and teaching him to fall asleep without feeding, he slept so much better and no longer woke every 20 minutes! Infact, he slept through the night and the rest is history! So the point of this post is to say that chances are, your little one isn’t broken and needs medical support, they may just need a few tweaks to their routine and some gentle support towards sleeping independently. And that little baby who someone thought needed medical help? He’s now a clever, independent 7 year old exceeding all age related expectations and can play the piano and clarinet so…🤣🎉
