Month two was all about wrestling for control. December is never the straightforward month. The holiday season means more socializing and more family. I.e. less time to and for yourself. This year was no different. In fact, with the little one, our house felt a little like the location of a very popular attraction. Which, I suppose, it literally was. We didn’t have a single week/weekend without visitors and/or social engagements. Which made the other times feel incredibly precious.
I realized I had to get my butt in gear if I didn’t want to lose my mind. Abhi’s still quite young and even though he’s the best baby in the world, he has his off days when he wakes up every hour and/or will only sleep if someone holds him. And even on the good days, he’s not on any kind of schedule. Irregular 2-4 hour increments turn out to be difficult to build a life around.
And then it got hard.
Around the six week mark, we started thinking about sleep training. And that’s also when he started getting fussier. It was harder to get him to get to sleep. Nursing seemed to be the only thing that would keep him quiet. And his feeding patterns changed. I started to question everything and my reading took on a sort of desperation:
- The Nursing Mother’s Companion
- Breastfeeding Made Simple
- Your Fussy Baby
- Health Sleep Habits, Happy Child
I’m used to being good at things. Even when stuff doesn’t come easily or right away, I’ve been able to figure out how to make it work, get better at it, etc. This whole baby thing is a goddamn mystery. And it’s a highly individualized mystery. I’ve read so many baby/first year books, it makes my head spin. But they are all so general and vague in their commiseration that it’s basically useless. Patience and forbearance. Patience and forbearance. But it’s a funny thing about patience and forbearance. It turns out I don’t have an infinite supply.
But I’ve been told that after 8 weeks, it settles back down again. We’ll see. I am hopeful. It’ll be nice to be able to look back on all that.
The bottom line…
Pros:
- Real life with a baby begins (now that my mom is gone)
- He’s sleeping longer at night
- We’ve got the nursery all set up, and he’s sleeping in there
- SMILES!!!
Cons:
- My mom is no longer around to help
- He takes a lot more effort to put down
- I’m more tired than ever
Prose Home Movies 
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