Parental responses to Difficult Infants

Parental responses to Difficult Infants
Many parents with “difficult” infants find ways to reduce their irritability. Some find that containing techniques, such as holding the baby a great deal or swaddling him tightly in blankets, reduces irritability and increases security.

Others discover that their “difficult: infant is hypersensitive to stimuli and in response take steps to reduce new stimuli or slow the pace of events in the infant’s environment.

Or they interact with him using only one sensory modality at a time; instead of over-stimulating him by talking to him and jiggling him simultaneously, they talk to him while holding him still.

These example of the concept of “goodness of fit” in the sense that the parent responds adaptively to the infant’s difficultness.

Some parents with difficult infants, on the other hand respond with frustration, irritation or anxiety to the infant’s constant fussiness and disregulation.

They experience their baby as impossible to console and may blame themselves or the baby.

These parents may not responds adaptively and instead express anger, handle the baby roughly or abruptly or emotional withdraw and leave the baby to “cry it out.”

In such cases, the parents behavior reinforces the infant’s temperamental tendencies toward irritability, hypersensitivity and disregulation.

A cycle of mutually negative feedback can be established which in turn interferes with secure attachment.
Parental responses to Difficult Infants