I don’t think I’ve ever really spoken much about Emma’s temper. She’s had an extremely bad temper since the day she was born. I remember when I would go see her in the NICU, she would scream and scream and scream, and I remember thinking, “What the heck am I going to do with this baby?” That might sound harsh, but the entire experience was very overwhelming. I had Ava who was happy and content, hardly cried, and then Emma who was the exact opposite. In the beginning I always felt sort of guilty, wondering if I would “like” Ava more than Emma because Emma seemed to be so “difficult”.
Well, turns out I like them equally the same - and I’m not just saying that to sound good! Emma’s temper is getting worse the older she gets. Let me give you a couple examples of her temper. She goes from 0 to 60 in a split second. She always has. One moment she will be happy the next she will be screaming at the top of her lungs. It’s a piercing scream, louder than I’ve ever heard any baby scream before. If she feels like she’s not getting what she wants when she wants it, she throws a bloody fit. We’re talking like, arms flailing, legs kicking, frothing at the mouth. Her temper has gotten much worse lately. The fits are magnified and I have a feeling she’s not going to cool down any time soon.
I’ve always had a feeling that Emma’s temper might be related to the fact that she’s a preemie baby. The reason I had them when I did is because Emma was on the verge of growth retardation - she had hardly any growth from one appointment to the next when they decided to take them early. They had two placentas, but for some reason Emma’s placenta stopped working properly and she wasn’t getting the nourishment she needed. Ava, on the other hand, displays no signs that she was premature. She has always acted like and developed like a full term baby.
So tonight I was browsing around and came across some interesting articles that have confirmed our suspicions. I’m convinced now that Emma does some of the things she does purely from her prematurity. It’s not just the temper that had stood out. She is very, very stubborn. She knows how to do something, but she won’t do it until she darn well feels like it. She’s also fairly lazy. It might seem odd to call a baby lazy, but it ties in with the stubbornness. She was capable of crawling “normally” much before she decided to actually do it. She would often just sit there and wait for you to give her what she wanted, or she would drag herself with one arm to where she wanted to be. We knew she could crawl on all fours because we had seen her do it, but she just didn’t want to the majority of the time. I’m pretty impressed though, she’s consistently crawling on all fours now. I can’t remember the last time she did the one arm crawl. Now if we could just convince her to walk… I think she is capable of standing on her own, maybe not walking yet, but I think she could stand on her own, she just doesn’t feel like she wants to yet. Sometimes you can catch her not paying attention and she’ll “accidently” stand without holding on to something. So I know she can, she just doesn’t want to.
Anyway, I read some studies on personalities of premature baby girls, and so much of it matched up exactly to how Emma is. It’s very clear that she possesses personality traits that are commonly found in premature babies. It’s frustrating to hear from a pediatrician that these types of things are not related to prematurity, but how can it not be? If you think about it, it makes total sense.
Some of the points in the articles that described Emma are:
(This is getting long so I’m going to put the rest behind a cut)

Many have temperament traits that were apparent from the first day of birth: irritable and cranky, stubborn, with a mind of their own; demanding and bossy; little or no self-motivation; self-centered; have frequent temper tantrums.

Difficulty delaying need satisfaction; all demands must be met now, this moment.

Many have sleep cycle disturbances: light sleepers, hard sleepers; wake up crabby; stay up late at night; hard to get to bed.

Often they do not respond to cultural systems of discipline. Yelling, spanking, take away, and anger in voice, makes them worse.

They are often less self-reliant, depending on adults more than fullterm children.

Tend to be more shy than their fullterm peers.

In amount of activity premature children seem to go to two extremes. On the one hand [they] are tense, jumpy, hyperactive little creatures that seem to be mounted on springs; and on the other [they] are floppy, soggy, lazy babies and sluggish, clumsy children, slow and deliberate in their motions.

Manual motor control: [delays in] use of index finger for pointing and for pincer grasp. Prehension is often carried out with all four digits opposing the thumb, rather than merely with thumb and index finger, which is more commonly used by fullterm babies…Often after prolonged effort to reach they exhibit tremor. Their play with toys is executed with choppy, slap-dash movements. They over-reach, spill, scatter; [and]…have a passion for throwing toys to the floor or brushing them aside with petulant gestures…Sometimes prematures work at such a task exerting the utmost effort to make the precise coordinations, until their reserve of patience and nervous control is at an end and they ‘go all to pieces.’

Emotionality: …irascible, petulant, and more often shy and negativistic than the term child. Prematures are upset by slighter stimuli; they are capable of standing just so much, then they explode in a tantrum or a panic.

Attention: The attention span of the premature is very short; he flits from toy to toy in the playroom; and at the test situation he is extremely susceptible to distraction. It is often difficult to get him to stick to a difficult task and to see it through, particularly if it is possible for him to appeal for adult help in finishing it. Conversely — and this seems a contradiction — the premature sometimes works to the point of nervous exhaustion on a difficult motor task. He continues working at a high level of interest and coordination until he collapses in rage from fatigue and frustration.

Childhood development has always been very interesting to me, and I know this is getting long, but I just wanted to share incase any other readers have preemies that display the same kinds of things. Like I said, it can be frustrating to have a baby with such a horrible temper for no apparent reason. I don’t know about others, but it makes it much easier for me to handle when I know that Emma really isn’t just “throwing a fit” or “being a brat” and that she really just cannot help herself. Of course I’m speaking in terms relative to her age, I know that in general 14 month olds are not capable of understanding how to not throw a fit. But in relation to others her age, she is very extreme.
I’m just wondering if she’ll have any other issues to overcome the older she gets. She’s not old enough to display any type of real learning problems. I just pray that she won’t have a difficult time when it comes to school and things like that. Bless her heart, she’s such a sweet, sweet baby with one BAD temper. Sometimes I just feel so bad for her when she gets into the arms and legs kicking frothing at the mouth screaming bloody murder fits because I know she can’t control herself. And I feel helpless because I don’t know what I can really do to help her.
Anyway, that’s what’s been on my mind this evening.