Oh BABY!

The first two months of John Parker's life have seemed to go faster than any period of time I have experienced.  I can't remember a time without the joys of this beautiful baby boy - I honestly don't know what I did to fill up my time!  John and I have learned more about childcare including feeding, diapering, sleeping, naps, and baby clothing than we ever knew possible.  This is some of what we have learned.


You absolutely cannot wake up a sleeping baby for any reason, and you absolutely cannot put a wide awake baby to sleep.  It was noticed very early on that these attributes occurred at slightly mixed up times.  We first discovered this fact the first night John Parker was home.  He has slept peacefully ALL DAY and every visitor eagerly commented on how pleasant he was - he had to be woken to eat and we just barely got him awake long enough for that necessity.  He was passed around by what seemed like 100s of visitors and never cracked an eye.  We just knew we were going to be in the lucky group of parents who got to sleep all night from the beginning.  Darkness fell.  It was time for us, two very prideful parents, to put our pleasant baby to sleep for the night. I nursed him and changed him and we place him in his bassinet, which we had conveniently placed at the foot of our bed.  We crawled into bed, exhausted, and flipped off the lights.  Five minutes later, we heard the first cry.  We hadn't planned for this - we had NO CLUE what to do.  I rocked him, he quieted and fell asleep, and as soon as I laid him back in his bassinet, more crying.  John rocked him while I sat up watching, hoping for sweet sleep.  Again, quiet, we placed him back in his bed - instant crying...  We were at a loss.  We had spent two hours trying to get him to sleep and he was only happy in our arms.  It was time to feed him, so I was confident he would sleep after this 2am feeding.  Let me just go ahead and make a long story short.  None of the three of us closed an eye until 6:30 the next morning.  We learned very quickly that we had to have a plan - we didn't both need to be awake.  And we learned that although he had slept all day with no hope of waking, he could just as easily be awake all night with no hope of sleeping.

Baby boys will pee - on you, on their clothes, on your dog...
I had heard the "man the hose" philosophy with baby boys, but had no idea what it really meant. Let's just say we changed clothes at least 3 times a day for the first two weeks before we finally changed diaper brands (Huggies DO NOT work).  I have just a quick funny story to elaborate the point.  John had been back to work for a couple of days and John Parker and I had just gotten up from our "morning nap".  I was changing his diaper and left it open too long (which isn't long for a two week old baby boy, I promise), and suddenly we had a shooting fountain. It was hitting John Parker in the face and simultaneously hitting our dog, Dandy, who had decided to lay right behind his head.  Dandy and JP were both so confused and had the funniest looks on their faces.  Priceless.

You CANNOT get a newborn baby on a schedule.
Just when we thought we had him all figured out . . .  He changed it up on  us.  I had never heard of a baby growth spurt; therefore, I was totally thrown for a loop when suddenly he was screaming to nurse every 1.5 - 2 hours instead of me having to wake him up to eat every 3 hours.  We went through a few days of those spurts at 3 weeks, 4 weeks, and 6 weeks.  Just when he would sleep 4.5-5 hours straight at night, he would wake up every 2 hours the next night and stay awake for 2 hours after eating.  I stressed and cried several times wondering if I would be able to go back to work at the 8 week mark, wondering if he would ever be more consistent.  At 3 days prior to re-entering the work world, I feel much more confident.  We still aren't getting consistent sleep but I have come to terms with the fact that it won't be like this for long, and I'm trying to cherish every moment.  This week he slept for 7 hours two nights, 5.5 hours two nights, and 5 hours two nights.  The last two nights were rough because of shots, but hopefully we will get on a schedule soon :)