i am elsie, hear me moo.
[Rosie Perez] is the life force.
I forgot to mention the best part of taking care of a baby's basic needs: baby snot. You get to pick your baby's nose (at least, the part of the nose nearest the nostril, since you can't possibly fit your finger up there, nor should you even try). Baby snot is cute. It's small and is generally adorable, like all things about your baby are.
Soon baby snot will be replaced by toddler snot, which has never appeared to be adorable on toddlers I've seen. I hope I am wrong and all things about Sophia-as-toddler are adorable.
Currently Sophia is driving me nuts. This is not Sophia's fault. She is just being who she has to be.
Every night at 7 she goes off on a crying jag. She even adjusted for daylight savings time tonight. The crying lasts about 3 hours. The pediatrician said things will get better in a month. Or so. I am still told this is not colic, but she's generally inconsolable during this period. She cries as though we're engaging in Baby Torture®. The sound of her crying affects me much worse than it does Darin, so he usually ends up dealing with her.
This is not a fair division of labor, I know. I rationalize it by saying I keep her away from him while he works, unless he explicitly asks for her.
Yesterday Fernando joined us for brunch at John O'Groats. Rather than sleep the entire time, the way we've expected (beware of expecting anything with a newborn), she was up and crying. I nursed her, right there in the restaurant, using the sling -- it's amazing how fast you can master something tricky like a sling if you think you're going to need to -- and Darin got the joy of changing her diaper in a restroom that had no changing table. (You get to kneel on an oh-so-clean floor and do it.)
Today we went to breakfast at the Daily Grill. Not only did I get the joy of changing her diaper this time -- and she had had a Poop Explosion; how can someone so tiny produce so much? -- but I had to nurse her for a very long time. I ended up eating my Eggs Benedict with a spoon, because I couldn't balance the food on a fork.
Then we went for a drive out to Malibu, and she wasn't much happy through that either. Trying to drive with a crying pookie in the backseat -- I don't recommend it.
We discovered that changing a baby in the trunk of an SUV is much better than trying to do so in a sedan, but neither one is high enough for Darin, who had to bend over to change her.
I got the exciting experience of nursing her in the backseat. Yes, I am becoming a regular old pro at this nursing thing. I don't need the optimum conditions any more -- now it's more like "Put baby A somewhere in the vicinity of nipple B and watch the magnetic attraction between the two!"
I can even do side-lying nursing, which Binky the lactation consultant described as "a graduate position" (because it's relatively tricky). It gets a lot easier if the baby can latch on by herself, which she can do pretty well for the most part now. So I may get some more sleep in the coming nights. I know, this is not very exciting for you, but given where I was with nursing her a very short time ago, I am thrilled.
In the hospital they taught us the hierarchy of baby complaints/comforts.
- Diaper. For the first few weeks we didn't notice any correlation between Sophia's mood and the state of her diaper, but that's changing...rapidly.
- Clothes. Are they wet, twisted, poking into her? Polyester blend and your tot can only handle cotton? Trés unchic? Change 'em.
- Swaddling. Most babies -- not all, but most -- like to be tightly swaddled. Perhaps it reminds them of the womb. We were taught to swaddle Sophia with her arms bound across her chest, which she likes quite a lot.
- Food. Only if the first three don't pan out should you try feeding her.
Babies like to suck as a comforting mechanism, so some sucking will calm the baby down...for a little while. Then the screaming starts again. When this happens, we start with the dancing/singing routine, which is why sometimes in the mornings and usually in the evenings you can hear either Darin or me singing absolute nonsense to Sophia, who's stopped crying long enough to stare at us with abject baby horror.
I usually started with nursing in the beginning, which is why I ended up with the milk supply from hell. I have learned, believe you me. Only when I see definite signs of "Feed me, Mommy!" do I feed her now.
Sticking something -- nipple, bottle, or pacifier -- in the baby's mouth will shut the baby up for a little while. But if there's something else wrong with the baby, you will have a very upset but forcibly quieted baby, rather than a happy baby.
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Copyright 2000 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com