When your mom and I brought you home from the hospital after you were born, the first night went really well. But then things started to go bad. You started cry a lot. At first we thought that your moms diet was upsetting your stomach or that we were feeding you too much.
We called the hospital but they told us that babies cry a lot when they are first born. They assured us that if you were pooping a peeing regularly that you were OK.
Having a baby makes you want to do the best job you can do in the world. But you quickly realize that even though you’ve read books and taken notes at the hospital, there are some things that you just don’t know because you have never experienced them. You feel unprepared no matter what. Particularly when your baby is crying a lot. And you were pissed, crying all the time. The only way I could get you to stop was to dance with you in my arms. My terrible dancing got you to calm down momentarily.
Eventually it became clear that you weren’t getting enough food (DUH!). But the nurses at the hospital told us that we should keep trying to breastfeed and to hold out on formula. At this point it had been a solid two days of crying. I was starting to loose it. I was stressed and I wanted to fix the problem but I couldn’t. We hadn’t slept in two days for more than about an hour or two. And you hadn’t really slept because you were freaking starving. The only way we could get you to sleep was on our chests. When you were asleep on us neither of us wanted to go to sleep because we were terrified that you were going to die of sids (another story).
Eventually, at around day four or five (it’s a blur four months later) we started spoon feeding you formula. You immediately went to sleep for the first time in your bassinet. I think your mom and I ate a meal together at our table. Neither of us said much we were so tired.
From that moment on things got better. Your moms milk didn’t come in for another month and we tried all sorts of things to get her milk in and to keep you fed. Your mom was a champ. Sometimes she would feed you for hours at a time. It amazes me how easily she did it too. She never stressed or asked for help. She just got it done. The only thing I really did was make sure she had food when she wanted it. I did some of my best cooking over those weeks.
Now, you’re just over four months and all of that feels like it was so long ago. You are well fed now. You sleep like a champion. And you are starting to babble and smile.
I took you on a walk today in the chest carrier. You still hate the wind and whenever a gust comes up you freak out. It’s a little funny because it is really windy in the spring here.
Anyway, I hope I always remember those early days. Now that I think back on it, even though you were starving you were relatively good to us.