Thursday, April 20, 2017

Fatherhood, part 5

Well, N. has turned four months old and is well on his way to five. He is doing wonderfully, it's amazing how much fun it is to see him grow and make progress, bit by bit. Yesterday was his first day trying out baby food...things are happening. My last post just got me through the first three weeks of life, but N. is now 20 weeks old. Lots has happened.

One highlight is the smile. The books, blogs, articles, and friends were all totally right about this one. Just about when you are completely drained from the frequent wakings at night, the constant crying, and Livia was certainly emotionally and physically drained from the constant, fussy, unproductive feedings, he smiled. It is amazing. He's now started to chuckle a bit too, and one night last week when I was telling a story at the dinner table he really got into it and strung together a pretty hearty laugh. We've figured out how to kiss and tickle his belly to almost guarantee a laugh. It is so delightful. He's just so darn cute, and then you realize you can make him happy, it's a truly great feeling.

The sleeping troubles come and go, which is frustrating, and there are still some tense moments at two or three in the morning. What is very telling is that both of the baby/infant books I have, plus the few websites I've checked out review the many different sleep training methods/concepts. They may recommend one or two, but they make sure to review four or five different methods, and make a disclaimer that no method is clearly better than another. It's clear that there is no consensus about what makes babies wake up at night in their first few months of life. Nor is there consensus about the best way to get them to not keep waking up, nor about how to get them to back to sleep once they wake up. So we've been doing our best to talk it over, guess at what may be causing the problems and to agree on a strategy to get N. to stay asleep. There is close to consensus on the bedtime routine, and Livia has been doing a wonderful job at that since N. was six weeks old.

Diaper changes do get much easier and much less frequent, which has been a nice relief. He's down to about one dirty diaper per day, and is much more calm during most diaper changes. They are also less frequent, maybe five or six a day (which is half of what was happening the first two months). We still put the diaper rash cream on for most changes, but that has essentially ceased to exist. Livia has got N. into a loose routine, so in general a lot of things have calmed down. He is wonderful on walks, and as it's much nicer now we've been getting him out for walks pretty frequently. N. slept well for the past two nights, so that's probably a huge part of the reason I say things are calm. It really does dramatically affect everything when he does or doesn't sleep well.

One more thing I wanted to mention was that having N. is truly an extraordinary experience. I'm not going to lie, I was often the type of person who was not too enthused to have kids in the restaurants, stores, or other public venues. I was not afraid to complain about somebody's annoying, crying kids. That has totally changed, well, at least for N. Having your own kid totally changes the picture. I wish I could better explain it, and it's not like I don't get annoyed with his crying, but it's just different. I'm so excited for all the things he's going to do. It's so exciting just to see him grab a toy, or shake a rattle, or touch my face, or, honestly, do anything. He's so cute and innocent and defenseless, but yet gets so excited and full of smiles-just by seeing my face or hearing my voice. It is a lot of responsibility, no doubt, but it also kind of feels like Livia and I won an amazing prize-because he's ours, he's going to learn from us and (hopefully) look up to us. So the next time I see a kid throw a cup on the ground at a restaurant, I'll probably roll my eyes, but I'll also know that the parents might be just so, so excited, because that was the first time their daughter picked something up and threw it!

1 comment:

  1. Ken, you have transformed - so so cool! Love your posts and look forward to more.

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