BayDad

We’ve been home with baby number 2 (no cute nicknames yet, maybe Ms. Squirmy?), anyway, I’m actually really surprised with how well things have been going so far. She eats well, she sleeps well, we sleep well, and we’re all hanging together pretty well.

Having a newborn around the house again has this sort of surrealistic deja-vu feeling to it. On the one hand, we’re still doing our same routines with Mr. Busy. He’s mostly sleeping the same schedule, getting up around 6:45am or so, playing, showering, drawing, trains, eating, etc. Our nanny arrives at 8:30, and he’s off to start his day.

At the same time, we’re up a few times each night with Ms. Squirmy, but she’s been quite easy so far. The last few nights, she’s only been up twice (~1am, ~3am) all night, and with our usual early bedtime (9pm or so) things are seeming pretty good. Ms. Squirmy doesn’t really like her crib very much yet, and we’re going to be working on that. In the mean time, she sleeps in the bed with us. This is something that we tried with Mr. Busy in the early days, but both of us were so worried about SIDS and rolling over on to him that it was more stressful than restful.

But, with Ms. Squirmy, we’ve sort of grown to enjoy it. We trade her off in the middle of the night so that we each get our times “on duty” sleeping with her (yes, I know, this isn’t actually true some nights, but I think this is what we should be working towards). SIDS is still scary, but not sleeping at all is even scarier.

The pacifier issue hasn’t been so much of an issue either. She usually falls asleep after feeding, and that’s usually without anything in her mouth. Even when it is with something in her mouth, she doesn’t protest when it’s removed. At night, things can sometimes be a bit harder if she thinks it would be a good time to be awake, so there’s a bit of finger sucking during those times, but it’s not actually that bad.

Just as a measure of how much sleep we’re getting: I’ve felt almost no need for a nap for the last 2 days. But, without a morning coffee, I’m pretty non-functional, which was true before Ms. Squirmy was born.

Mr. Busy is a little jealous, with some fits of “I want to be carried around by whoever’s currently holding the baby.” but those have been getting less over the last couple of days. He’s giggled at her crying a couple of times, and once woke up in the morning with his usualy monologue adding “baby cry cry cry,” which we both thought was pretty funny.

I’m in the process of uploading photos, so there will be plenty to see soon, hopefully by this evening, but I can’t promise anything since I don’t have a good progress meter for the process. Maybe tomorrow morning?

Just like last time, we’ve had more wonderful food donations than we could ever imagine. Our neighbors are totally awesome, and we’re so very grateful for their help. Finding time to shop & cook would still be particularly difficult, especially on the weekends when we’re “fulltime” parents.

That last sentence pretty much sums up how it seems — like a newborn is about half as much work as it was for the first. Maybe it’s that we’re used to keeping up the energy level, or maybe it’s that we’ve settled in to an “early to bed, early to rise” routine with Mr. Busy, or maybe it’s that we were mentally prepared, or that we’re more relaxed this time around. Anyway, I feel like my parental leave is actually really enjoyable this time. Spending time nesting at home is just what the Dr. ordered.

This entry was posted on January 21, 2009 at 5:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.