Your favourite names (in any language)

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Varislintu
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Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby Varislintu » 2017-05-13, 18:56

Aurinĭa wrote:Varislintu, thanks for the elaborate answer, it was interesting to read, and I can definitely understand your reasons for preferring to pass on the mother's name.


No prob. :)

Aurinĭa wrote:If you ever find out, I'd be interested in hearing it.


Okay, I will! :)

Aurinĭa wrote:
Varislintu wrote:I haven't mentioned this before here, but our baby fits pretty well into what is described as the high needs temperament. It has required me to invest physically even more than an average, easier baby requires. I haven't, for example, slept a longer stretch than two hours more than a handful of times in the last 8 months. This will affect my health long term. I'm wearing the baby in a manduca right now because he can't sleep without my physical presense. (This is actually a huge improvement -- until 6 months of age he didn't like the manduca and was not able to sleep in a sling either. :P )

I wonder how you'd cope if you only had three months maternity leave, like here.


I think high needs babies are kind of screwed in a system like that, to put it frankly. Actually, I think they have probably been screwed all throughout agricultured and industrialised history. They would just have to have their little spirits broken and molded into something more convenient for the adults that are taking care of them. They would be let cry until they withdraw within themselves and give up on a close relationship to a parent. That is, unless they'd just be thrown out of the hut/cottage/worker's flat to die before that. We had a reasonably mild case of high need baby, but they are very draining, and very vocal about their discomforts. Ours did sleep in the pram, thank god, but otherwise only with me physically next to him (and he'd check often). He refused both the bottle and the pacifier, only booby was good enough. Any discomfort or boredom was communicated with a desperate cry that would make us think there was something very wrong with him. Once we took him to the doctor sure that he had an ear infection, after a full week of symptoms. He had ear wax. :P

In my worst nightmares our baby would have been unwanted, but carried to term and put up for adoption. I cannot imagine anyone else than me being prepared to cater for his high needs those first few months. He would have had such a bad start in life. With us, he didn't really cry that much, but that's because we spent every one of his waking moments entertaining him somehow. I learned quite a few songs. I could sing some of them while reading other stuff. :P I read baby poetry to him. I waved my arms above him while making up long stories. A break in entertainment meant crying. I can't imagine how the foster system might have labelled a baby like that. Very few people who haven't had a high needs baby themselves have never heard of it, and people who have only had non-high-needs babies often find it hard to believe that they really don't work the same way. To stay sane sometimes we'd watch baby care videos on YouTube and marvel at the babies in them that were so chilled and relaxed and tranquil, and laugh at the advise given ("pick your baby up and he will stop crying" :lol: ).

Three months would not have been enough, but at around 6 months a surprisingly normal baby hatched out of our high needs infant. He could self-entertain first moments, then minutes. Those first times it happened felt so weird. I don't have to sing, swing him, or show a new toy every few seconds? What's wrong with him? :silly: At around that time the days stopped being so draining and now it's only the interrupted sleep that's left, so I've been able to slowly emerge from the fog. :P

Well, this stretched into an essay. I guess I wrote such a long thing because I felt the need to explain what a high needs baby is like, to illustrate how three months really would not be enough time for all such babies. :hmm: A lot of people don't really believe us when we say these things, or think we're just confused first time parents, or coddle our baby too much.

Aurinĭa wrote:That's a very good point, and it is indeed sad that that gift wouldn't be recognised by society as a gift. Did CoBB get any comments about how "generous" it was of him to "let you" pass on your name? Do you think some people might think you "selfish" for "insisting" that the child gets your name?


Oh yes. CoBB didn't even get praise, he got criticised for being way too lenient and not claiming his right. And I did get called selfish, yes. And unappreciative. *really freezing cold smile* I don't want to make politics out of my son's name, but after those comments I felt this was the rightest freaking right and important thing I could possibly have done. It sort of became politics after the fact, on others' initiative... :roll:

Aurinĭa wrote:Better two easy, decent names to choose between than two difficult or less-than-nice names, no? :P


True, what would we have done then?? :mrgreen:

vijayjohn
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Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-05-13, 19:35

Varislintu wrote:I guess I wrote such a long thing because I felt the need to explain what a high needs baby is like, to illustrate how three months really would not be enough time for all such babies. :hmm: A lot of people don't really believe us when we say these things, or think we're just confused first time parents, or coddle our baby too much.

I'm glad you wrote this because my niece is a high needs baby, too; she has acid reflux like my brother does. She's already about a year and a half old now but still doesn't really drink her milk and doesn't seem to sleep too well, either. Before she turned a year old, at least, she was really cranky (because she was so tired and hungry), and my brother and sister-in-law had to spend hours every day (and night) pacing back and forth while holding her to a pre-recording on repeat of her mother singing to her just to get her to sleep. (The first day I visited him, I witnessed my brother doing this, and I almost fell asleep way before she did! :lol:). My parents didn't believe them at least at first when they complained about it and were like "oh, they're just new parents. Babies not drinking milk? Not sleeping? We had to put up with all this, too!" Fortunately, they seem a little more sympathetic now.

cheng12
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Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby cheng12 » 2017-05-30, 9:25

Sven is a nice name to be used in other languages than Scandinavians where it's just too common.


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