Lazy Baby

Recently I was part of a conversation with a new Mom concerning her child with Down syndrome and the trouble she was having getting her child to nurse. This lady was given the advice that there were no lazy babies and that if a baby didn't eat, there must be a reason. I would agree with that if we were talking about a child who did not have Down syndrome. But when it comes to children with Down syndrome, laziness, unfortunately, is a reason.

This is probably not the case with a non-Down syndrome child. With my four healthy children, practically everything came naturally. They learned to nurse easily and they met their milestones on or around the time supposed to. I didn't have to push them along. They didn't need to woken up at feeding time. One thing I have learned in my physical therapy career is that people are not inclined to do what comes hard for them whether it be babies or adults.

This has been one of the more difficult concepts for people to understand; I know it was difficult for Joy and I to learn this when we began our journey. So I will try to explain by telling a little about our experience with John.

When John was born and Joy started nursing him at the hospital, John had trouble latching on which I have written about in earlier posts (refer to August postings). Here we are at 3 months of age and while nursing and bottle feeding is going well and John is gaining weight, it still requires a lot of time and patience some times for us to get through one bottle (4 oz.). This being the fact that children with Ds have low muscle tone which causes them to tire quickly.

John would also sleep through feeding times which we learned early on that Ds children tend to be very sleepy. As we saw his weight either decreasing or staying the same, we knew that we had to start waking him up every three hours to feed him. This is where raising a baby with Ds was more physically exhausting. This went on for about a month. Something with John just seemed to click and he began waking himself up to feed. I am happy to say that at 3 months of age, we don't have to be as diligent about waking him up although there are still days that he sleeps more than normal during the day and I get paranoid about him not getting enough to eat but usually he will make up for lost time later that evening. And also, he is gaining weight which I check it frequently.

I have also noticed this in his physical therapy treatments that he and I do. He is much more quick to give up on a skill whether it be holding his head up, twisting his body, etc. He may start out good but when the going gets tough, he is quick to lay his head down on the mat and go limp on me.

Well, I am here to tell you that he was born into the wrong family for that. This Daddy does not give up. There are some that will say that I push him too much, but when they see him, they can see the progress that he has made - and it hasn't hurt him. The bond that John and I share is probably stronger today because of the time that we spend together. He knows that I love him.

So, in answer to the question whether or not there are lazy babies, my answer would have to be yes. But just because they may be lazy doesn't mean they have to stay lazy and that is my goal for my son. I want to teach him that we don't give up just because something may come difficult.