Originally Posted by Cricket2
Originally Posted by islandofapples
I told DH... you know, maybe the other parents look at our daughter and think she has a dazed look on her face, too. We just think she is alert and there because we are used to her. Maybe no one else notices DD's alertness and thinks their child is the most aware one there...
I don't know if I paid much attention to the level of alertness of other babies or toddlers when dds were young, but I do know that other people did notice at least dd13's unusual alertness when she was a baby so I suspect that it isn't just that all parents think that their babies are more alert than typical. I had people commenting regularly to me when dd13 was very little about how alert she was.

The other thing that sticks in my mind was from when she was about 6 months old. I was a single mom at the time and in grad school and exhausted by the fact that dd never slept and cried so much. I finally gave in to trying the "cry it out approach," which was a terrible failure with dd b/c she screamed all night for 2-3 days straight at which point I gave up.

I recall at the end of this awful attempt taking her to somewhere like Target. She was in her baby carrier in the shopping cart and the lady in line behind me made a comment about what a cute little sleepy looking baby she was. I had never had anyone describe her as looking sleepy in her life. Her eyes were always wide open and she was clearly paying attention to everything around her. The comment, honestly, made me worry b/c that wasn't my baby. I leaned in to kiss her and dd turned her face away from me with a look that totally looked like she was snubbing me. That was the end of my attempts to get her to "self soothe."

Awww! DH and I have already agreed "cry it out" would never ever work with our kid, either. She'll cry it out until she either passes out (while hyperventilating and from sheer exhaustion) or you come get her... I know from our carseat experiences.

Our in-laws called DD "the owl" as a newborn and it was a very accurate nickname. We got comments about her being alert, a lot, too. Lots of people asked how old she was and usually guessed about double whatever her age was. So maybe we aren't imagining things... but I don't know. Now that we are out of the sleepy baby stage, I don't get why the toddlers still appear sleepy to us. Which is why I'm wondering if we are just biased.

Last edited by islandofapples; 02/08/12 12:25 PM.