It’s been five long years since there’s been a newborn baby in our house. Five long years where I’ve managed to forget most everything I previously knew about having a newborn baby in our house, and that wasn’t much to start with. But boy, is it ever all flooding back.
It all started with a planned C-section on Wednesday. This one went much more smoothly than Thing 1’s emergency C-section five years prior, off the back of being two weeks overdue, and six days of failed induction. That one was not a pleasant experience – exhaustion, pain, nausea: I experienced it all (arf). This time was a much different affair. We turned up at the hospital at 7.30; by 11.30 we were the proud parents of Thing 2, a boy, and by 15.00 the following day, we were home, bundle of screaming, pooping, joy in arms.
The brain is a clever old thing. It’s got the one-up on us at all times. I have evidence: if our brains allowed us to remember what torture it is bringing a newborn home, and the ensuing first few weeks, we’d never do it more than once. As it is, our brains subtly drop those terrible memories of sleepless nights, black tar poo, and milky vomit (oh, that smell…) from our data banks, allowing us to drift back into those first few weeks with blissful thoughts of strolls in the park with the new arrival; fun mornings at the coffee shop, tiffin and latte in hand, marvelling at how peacefully the youngling is sleeping; and gentle nights, broken every three hours or so for a gentle feed, and a peaceful return to sleep for everyone.
No. This is not what happens. No, no, a thousand times no. Don’t believe what NCT tells you. Don’t believe your friends when they tell you that “little Fifi Trixabelle slept five hours last night, woke for a 15-minute feed, then slipped right back off to sleep for another four hours,” because they’re lying to you. Maybe it’s some misguided idea that bringing up a child is a competition and that admitting that the first week or so is pure survival is some kind of weakness that makes these people trot out these nonsenses.
As for Thing 2, things started out OK. He seemed liked quite a sleepy baby, so the first 36 hours passed without much incident. There was a lot of breast-feeding, and a few dirty nappies, but no semblance of a routine – everything in the first few weeks is on-demand (I’m a big fan of routines, but the first few weeks certainly isn’t the time for that). But babies can sense complacency. They can smell it on a naive parent. Just when you think that things are going nicely, BAM, it’s sleepless nights all round. The second night of being home, Thing 2 was up from 20.00 until 23.00, then 1.00 until 4.30, and only managed three hours sleep after that. Ick. We were exhausted, but it’s important to recognise that this is to be expected in the first few weeks. Newborns don’t respect the time of day, or whether you desperately need a shower after three days of slumming it in your tracky-Bs, or please-dammit-stop-crying-whilst-I’m-on-the-crapper-this-is-all-very-off-putting.
So the first week thus far has been survival. We’ve had a couple of good nights, where he’s slept for two three-hour chunks, with feeds at either end and in the middle of those chunks; a couple of average nights, where it’s been every couple of hours feeding; and a couple of truly terrible nights, where he’s been up for hours at a time, unconsolable from messy nappy after messy nappy (and yes, I’m so enjoying the full spectrum change of poo colours from black tar to mustard (with seeds) to salmon paste), longing for a feed.
But we’ve survived. We’ve even been out, albeit only to the supermarket (for more nappy bags, natch). And I think that’s all you can ask for in the early days. We’ve been notably less uptight with Thing 2 than we were with his older brother at the same age – a combination of perspective that this is all just a phase that will pass, and that we can’t just drop everything to pander to his whims immediately, as Thing 1 still needs taking to school, or to karate, or his book bag sorting, or his tea making etc. – with the exception of trying to shield Thing 1 one from his new younger brother’s nighttime caterwauling. One crying child in the middle of the night is bad enough. Two would be a disaster.
So, the first week in summary: newborns create a lot of noise, smells, and mess, and your life might well be bordering on the terrible for this first week. They will, however, melt your heart a thousand times when, with a clean nappy and a full belly, they nuzzle up to you whilst you’re cuddling them, or gaze up at you with slightly crossed eyes and a quizzical expression that says, “Dad, I have no idea where I am, or what’s going on, but would you mind holding me and loving me and never letting me go?” And you’ll answer yes, yes, a thousand times yes, and you’ll pull them a little closer to you with a satisfied smile on your face.
What Did You Do, Ray? 