Life with a Gifted Baby

There’s no doubt that little bundle of joy that you brought home a few months ago is adorable and wonderful. Now that you are settling into life with your new little one, perhaps you are noticing little things about your baby that you weren’t quite expecting.

Maybe your tiny baby seems far more alert than you thought she would be. More alert, in fact, than any other baby that you have spent time around. It may be that it seems to you that your baby never wants to sleep, and is staying awake longer and longer during the day, her naps becoming shorter and few and far between. Before long, she may be sleeping all night, but staying awake all day long. She watches your every move intently. In fact, she watches everything intently.

Could it be that you have noticed that your baby seems fussier than you ever expected? Not fussy in a colicky sort of way, but fussy in a discontented way. As though she is bored. Oh, she’s happy as a clam as long as Mom or Dad will carry her around, show her lots of things, tell her all about everything, and give her their undivided attention. Stray from this scenario at all, however, and your baby is not a happy camper!

If this sounds like your baby, you may be thinking that you have a “difficult” baby on your hands. It is likely, though, that this little wiggle work (you did mention that she doesn’t like to be “still”, didn’t you?) is actually demonstrating the most common signs of giftedness among infants.

These infants often have very definite preferences when it comes to clothing, as well. For instance, they may cry unless you tuck their feet snugly into their infant gown, even in warm Summer weather. Or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, they may scream and cry and kick their feet in protest if you put socks on them. Some of these infants have an absolute intolerance to being even the slightest bit too warm or cool. They may be equally intolerant of any piece of clothing that feels binding. Elastic on the ankles or wrists are often a no-go with them.

If you’re beginning to wonder if your child was actually spied on and observed expressly for the purpose of writing this article, you may very well have a gifted infant on your hands. Should you be happy? Of course! Your child is happy and inquisitive. Should you assume she will be the model child and be easier than the average kid to parent? Not a chance! Buckle up, because you are in for the ride of your life.

Gifted babies often present themselves as very needy babies. They need to be carried more, they need to be talked to more, they need to see more, they need to experience more, they need to be stimulated more. It is a lot of work. A more positive term to describe these little personalities, is “High Need”. If you use the word “gifted” to describe your infant to “outsiders”, they may not understand. If you really believe you may have a gifted child on your hands, you will need to accept that you will not meet many people who understand really well what a gifted child is like. Many people disregard the term all together, and refuse to even consider that these children really are outside the realm of average. To avoid useless arguments, you may not want to tout the title “gifted child” too much outside your family or close friends. You may decide you don’t want to use it at all.

Gifted babies commonly develop at an accelerated rate, at least in some areas of cognitive or motor development. They may roll, sit up, and walk quite early. Or, they may have a vocabulary of fifteen words by the time they are seven months old, several of which they use in order to correctly identify objects they are familiar with, but not bother to walk until after their first birthday. Some will be nine months old before they put forth the effort to sit up alone (especially if they insist on be carried 95% of the time…), but at the same age, be able to correctly identify and say the names for every object depicted on a 50 count set of baby flashcards. It’s not that these babies do everything early, but it does become clear quite early that they have superior and accelerated abilities in some areas of development.

So what should you do? Well, for one, love your baby for exactly who they are. They may not be the easiest baby to live with, day after napless day, but they will amaze you each day just the same. Next, learn all that you can about gifted children. You may want to learn more about High Need children, because the “High Needs” part of them does not diminish as they grow older, it just changes. Also, learning about Dabrowski’s Super Sensitivities would probably be helpful in giving you just a little more insight into the kind of gifted toddler, gifted preschooler, gifted elementary school aged child, gifted teen, and eventually, gifted adult, that your article, as it contains many useful strategies for enhancing the learning potential of all infants, paying special attention to the aspects of life with a gifted baby.article