So now I’m a few days in and I’m comfortable with the crisis management, the fear is waning and I’m getting into the rhythm of child rearing. Rearing’s a funny word, isn’t it? Yes there is a natural rhythm to all of this; the cycles being feeding, changing, sleeping, feeding, changing, sleeping. My sister in law, whom I love dearly, taught me something here. Regiment. She taught me that having patterns or establishing a program of regimented behavior is important; that way your child can resonate with that regiment and feel and do better. Afterall, don’t we all work well within boundaries?
I can say now that it’s completely foolish, unless you’re my sister in law, who is superwoman, to think I can establish anything the kid is going to resonate with. The kid is going to establish the patterns and I have to resonate. The frequency will modulate as well. The feedings don’t occur at 3:00, 6:00, 9:00 and 12:00. They might be 4:30, 7:15, 10:40, and 1:12. Once in awhile, I get back to the 3,6,9,12 and feel good about myself and the world, for a day or so, but the frequency WILL modulate. Bottom line is, you gotta feed that kid on a very regular basis (ours is about every 3 hours) and change it when the diaper is dirty. It’s that simple. When we complicate it further is when it gets complicated. I have come to appreciate the KISS approach. Keep It Simple Stupid.
I’m going to toss in a bit about crying here. I’ve talked to a few guys about this, and there are generally 2 schools of thought; either the baby’s crying is “music to my ears” or “like fingernails on a chalkboard”. I am easily and completely in the latter group. You see, I’ve been a technician in one way or another for over 20 years. I have learned that things make noise when something’s wrong. It’s my job to find the noise, fix the problem, and restore normal operation. This is DEEPLY engrained in me. So, when this Brand New Human Being starts to cry, I am forced into action. It hurts me when I hear an engine about to throw a rod, or a repeater about to fry its power supply. It hurts MUCH MORE when I know my baby is crying. This is flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood in crisis, in need. In need of me. In need of me to act. Now. I can tell you the whole world can be coming down around me, if my daughter is crying, I will be by her side. I’m getting a little spiritual here, but that’s how I feel about the crying. I NEED to stop it. Now, I’m not going to stop it at all costs, no shaking here! NONE! Remember my checklist from a few posts ago? I mentioned some things you can do to stop crying? Well, I added one more thing to the list. That is – Sometimes Babies Just Cry. That’s brilliant, huh? That’s been the one of the toughest things for me; understanding that sometimes they just cry.
It makes sense somehow to throw in a note about breastfeeding here too. I will NOT launch into unnecessarily long drivel about the subject unlike every other manuscript out there. Our experience with breastfeeding started with my wife wanting to feed the child naturally. I believe in the beauty of the human body and the natural way of things so I completely agreed. Once we had child in hand, the story turned out differently. The “latching” is the method by which this Brand New Human Being somehow figures out how to place her mouth, tongue, gums, etc around it’s mothers nipple to facilitate the sucking so that the maximum amount of material within the breast makes it into the stomach of the little one. When I thought about it, it started to feel WAY too complicated. But what did I know, right? Well – at the hospital the Breast Nazis descend on you like roaches on a moldy sandwich. They feel the need to get all up in your business and suddenly this “natural” and “beautiful” thing turns into something clinical and forced. I mean, they told us that “you must bring child to breast every 2 hours” (!). Every 2 HOURS? ARE YOU F#$%ING KIDDING ME? Let’s do a little math here: if it takes 30 – 45 mins each feeding, that means my wife would be spending about 1 out of every 2 hours with this baby attached to her breasts. Yeah, ok, all nature and beauty aside that really sucks. Every 2 hours… you Breast Nazis can kiss my patootie. So, we decided that pumping the breast milk into bottles to feed Joy would be better. Better method to regulate and monitor the delivery and better for my wife and better for our marriage. Make yourself happy here; it’s a personal decision, and ours was to pump. Not saying what’s right or wrong. Bottom line; feed the kid.
So I’m home with Joy, my wife is working (fortunately she can work from home) in our home office upstairs. I’ve got the baby changed, fed, and in her “regular” clothes, which usually consists of a “onesie” and some additional full coverage “footie” I won’t go into clothing here; google it if you want to know. We’re in the rec room in the basement, and I’m feeling pretty good about myself. This baby is kicking and cooing and doing all the things a baby should do. So… ahh… what do we do now? Stay tuned...
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