Everyone talks about how much joy having a baby brings. When I was 16, my dad told me he was ready for grandchildren. He was mostly joking. My dad remarried and had three amazing children after me, and the youngest was 2 at the time, so babies were his jam then. When my dad and my stepmother were expecting, every time they would see any unknown baby in a public place, my dad would lower his voice and say “oh, a little baaaaby”. He had things he said ritualistically to my siblings while they were in utero. For Noah, it was a song that went: “Come, baby Noah. Come and boogie-woogie with me.” For Kira, it was a simple announcement of: “This is your father speaking,” spoken directly into her mom’s belly, which seemed to me like the announcements airline pilots make when they finish the business of takeoff and tell everyone facts that they think people are going to want to know like the current altitude, wind direction and velocity, estimated arrival time, and weather at the destination, but mostly they do it just because they want to hear themselves talk to a captive audience. That said, it was also very loving, and I’m pretty sure Kira was into it. ;) I honestly don’t remember what he said or sang to Matt, but maybe Kristin can help me out with that.
So this is the thing a former coworker told me a few years ago: when you are considering whether to have a kid, your family is mostly thinking about these joys with nostalgia, and they want to experience them again, or they want to see you experience them for the first time, or maybe the good parts are just more present in their memories, so they are telling you: of course you should have a child. But not many people tell you how hard it is in the beginning unless they are still parents of little ones. A couple of friends did tell me how hard it was, but even having heard that, this has been way harder than I could have anticipated.
While we were in the hospital, Cioci Jeanne sent me this article from The Onion: Study Reveals: Babies are Stupid, which was helpful as a bit of comic relief. Another friend clued me into the concept of the “fourth trimester”, which is very appropriate because like all new parents, we were tasked with trying to recreate the experience of the womb by swaddling, feeding every hour or so, providing a virtual conveyor belt of diaper changes, and washing laundry every day or two.
Here are some screenshots from the app we have been using to track diapers, feedings, and sleep. I think this is not atypical / not bad for a ~5 week old, but then again, what do I know? I’ve just been muddling my way through this for 5 weeks.
Em has been doing the vast majority of the work taking care of this guy’s basic needs. Lately we have been putting Myron to sleep in the nursery with the door open while we both sleep in our bedroom, but one night when Myron was waking up hungry every hour or two, Em and I both slept on the futon in the nursery. It’s hard to describe what just one night of this kind of thing does to you. You start out fairly sleep-deprived already, and while you’re in a phase of sleep from which you have no business being woken up, you hear your baby cry, so you shake yourself alert quickly enough so that you don’t drop him when you pick him up. He’s hungry, and you’re trying to simultaneously soothe him and get him a bottle as quickly as possible because you don’t want him to cry-eat and swallow a bunch of air and then get gassy, so you end up holding him with one hand and trying to mix formula with the other, and then you spill formula and drop the nipple on the floor because he’s thrashing around and wailing. Then you try to wash the nipple with one hand because you don’t want to get your kid sick from whatever the nipple rolled over on the floor and coated itself with. You feed him the bottle. He poops. He starts to get sleepy. You change the diaper. He wakes up and gets hungry again. He poops again.
A couple of days after that night of all of us sleeping with interruptions in the nursery, I went back to work after my 4 weeks of leave. I wrote this in a chat to my coworkers:
It’s my first week back at work, and I am so foggy and can barely think or get anything done. My wife says “part of parenting is just getting used to getting less sleep”. Had to negotiate me taking a nap vs. her taking a shower last evening, and that resulted in some bad feelings. How do people do this???
They offered a lot of support and perspective – I think the most helpful thing was just being reminded that it gets better after a few months. In general, I am trying to be kinder in what I expect of myself, and my colleagues are supporting me in this. I am also gaining more appreciation for the nonstop work that Em is doing breastfeeding and caring for Myron all day and recognizing when she’s at her limit and needs a break – I think we have both become pretty familiar with being in that special place and have been sensitive to it when we see it in each other.
So it is hard, but there are many ways it could be a lot harder. Lots of people tell me I am lucky that men can take paid parental leave at all now. I would not say Myron is a difficult baby, and there is only one of him. My work situation is not super demanding at the moment, and Em is able to take a total of six months off, which is amazing. Friends and family visiting have been very helpful with projects and also just watching him for a bit to free up all four of Em’s and my hands. And we have had lots of folks drop off pre-made meals, which has been a lifesaver.
My challenge right now is being able to prioritize all the logistical tasks I’m trying to get done but also being present with Em and Myron. Every time Myron goes to sleep, it’s a game of roulette in which he could wake up hungry in any amount of time from 15 minutes to 3 hours, so that has forced me to prioritize my endless list. I think I am making progress.
Oh, you probably also came here for some baby photos, so here. ;)
