The Bauer Confidential

I became a parent knowing full-well that I knew next-to-nothing. We went to some birthing and baby-care classes, got lots of advice (mostly unsolicited), did some reading, and these things gave us a general idea of what was to come. I did a bit of baby-sitting growing up and the youngest of my brothers is ten years my junior so I wasn’t exactly a stranger to some of the less fun aspects of babies, but nothing really prepares you for being the sole source of nourishment, necessities, and comfort for another human being. Still there were somethings I never really considered because they seemed to be obvious, and, boy, was I wrong about pretty much all of them.
Sleep: I assumed that when babies get tired, they go to sleep. There’s nothing keeping them awake necessarily, no stresses or things that have to be done. And there’s the famous “sleep like a baby” which made me think that sleeping would just come naturally to Jocelyn and that I wouldn’t have to do anything about it. That was wrong on so many levels. The first issue we had with sleep was not lack on Jocelyn’s part, but sleeping too easily. When feeding she would drift off to sleep after only a couple minutes, then wake back up, eat a little more, doze off again, repeat this pattern so that each feeding was taking over an hour. In the beginning she needed to eat every two hours or so (from the start of the last feeding), this meant I had usually less than an hour between feedings before starting again. This was also the time when we were having some serious feeding issues. Luckily this phase has passed and given way to a different sleep issue.
This issue was probably there all along, when Jocelyn is tired, really tired, instead of going to sleep, she cries hysterically. Early on I took these cries to mean she was still hungry and would try to feed her. This worked out OK because she would fall asleep eventually while feeding and then I could put her to bed. With time she stopped her sleep eating and would refuse to eat anymore, but still cry like she was in pain. We thought it was gas and gave her gas drops, spent long periods of time trying to get her to burp. When this didn’t work, I would try feeding her again, which generally put her to sleep since the whole process had taken long enough to create a bit of room in her tummy. I finally realized that she was crying because she was tired, not hungry or gassy. So I would try to put her to sleep, but you can’t just set down a crying baby and expect them to drift off to dream-land. About this time we finally got the video The Happiest Baby on the Block by Dr. Karp (this is a really great resource, I recommend it for anyone who is pregnant or has a baby under three months of age). We’d had to wait our turn for the library copy and I’m so glad we got the video when we did. I was watching it and tried the holds they showed and they quieted Jocelyn instantly (it was a little spooky). Soon we’d figured out how to get her to sleep when she’s upset. I’m not saying it’s easy, she still fights sleeping, and it’s definitely not quick. I just spent an hour and a half with her drifting off and waking back up before she finally went to sleep soundly. She sleeps really well in her swing, and will wake up if it stops. This gives me a little time during the day which I cherish. She does pretty well at night, usually needing a feeding or two, but will go back to sleep with only a little work in between.
Diapering: The woman teaching our baby-care class said that new parents become obsessed with the number of wet diapers and bowel movements their little angels have, often boring or grossing out others with their discussions on the matter. Perhaps this part of this post is my version of that. They tell you a newborn should have three to four bowel movements a day, this was never Jocelyn’s style. She was a one poopie girl until the age of about one month. After our initial feeding issues, once she was gaining weight well we stopped worrying about this, but because she only did it once a day, it was usually impressive. I called Matthew at work one day to tell him that I’d just had to deal with a poopie Vesuvius: just as I’d finish cleaning her up more poo would erupt, this went on for more than ten minutes. As babies get older, they poop less frequently. Jocelyn went from once a day to once every three, four or even seven days. When my mom was visiting Jocelyn went seven days between bowel movements, and when it finally came we had another volcano on our hands, with an eruption that shot about two feet across the changing table. I wish she’d spread it out a little, but she doesn’t seem to be interested in that, so every few days we have a massive mess on our hands.
Guilt: Holy cow is this a doozie. Everyone has an opinion on parenting, and a good percentage of those people will think your chosen method is wrong and you’re a terrible person for using it. And there’s no avoiding the well meaning advice, which you probably didn’t ask for and definitely don’t want, because it will probably make you feel like crap. Books you read on parenting will give you conflicting information and make you feel like a terrible parent if you’re not doing exactly as they say, not to mention setting your child up to be a failure. You’ll read things that you should never do, realize you’ve already done them, and in your hormonal postpartum state cry hysterically because you worry you’ve physically or psychologically damaged your baby. I’m hopping I’ll toughen up on this one soon!
There are more things that have surprised me, and I’m sure there’s a lot left I’ve yet to experience. Whenever I get too upset about the last item, I look at Jocelyn’s smile and reassure myself I’m doing the best I can and Jocelyn seems to be thriving (she smiles, is alert and started rolling over at just five weeks), I can’t have damaged her too badly, at least not yet