At home with baby finally.

July 4th, 2007 § 7 comments

Well, this should be an inter­est­ing ride. Mommy, baby and Daddy along with all three cats are now under one roof. I think all three of us need some sleep. I updated the flickr set with a bunch of pictures.

One of my favorite mem­o­ries so far? The hilar­ity of right after the birth, I’m madly emailing/calling/texting every­one from my iPhone to spread the good news, then most of the attendants/doctors stop and look at me, and say “is that an iPhone?”.

The surreal-ness of that ques­tion stems from the fact that my brand spank­ing new baby is lying there cry­ing and get­ting washed up and the world just sort of stops for 30 sec­onds while I’m cry­ing, my wife is cry­ing, the baby is cry­ing, etc.

I’m not entirely sure about how to go about this father­ing thing. This should really be interesting.

  • http://www.doughellmann.com/ Doug

    Con­grat­u­la­tions!

  • http://www.jessenoller.com jesse

    Thanks. I think the “oh crap I’m a dad” is sink­ing in…

  • http://www.dougma.com/ Doug Napoleone

    Con­grat­u­la­tions!!!

    Now some oblig­a­tory advice:
    (I know I said I wouldn’t but oh well…)

    For the next two months:

    Before any­one can see mom or the baby, and that means any­one.
    1. They must bring food (hot and reheat­able pre­ferred)
    2. They must do one house chore (laun­dry top of the list)
    3. They must wash their hands and face thor­oughly
    4. They get 20min max.

    Is the baby sleep­ing? why aren’t you? Seri­ously, no mat­ter the time, sleep. Find your­self with some free time? Why aren’t you sleeping?

    All the rest of it? doesn’t mat­ter, not important.

  • ss

    [I have a 14 month old and went through a very sim­i­lar “cog­ni­tive dis­lo­ca­tion”. ;) I’ll share a few tips to help you sur­vive your new life]

    The next 6 weeks are the hard­est. It gets a lit­tle eas­ier after that, but for now you have per­mis­sion to do just about any­thing required to get through the next 6 weeks.

    You and your wife will suf­fer sleep depri­va­tion. You won’t notice this for the first cou­ple of days because you are so damned busy and pre­oc­cu­pied. But when you get home and it’s just you three, well, the shock hits. At first it can feel like the world has ended. Really, it can be bad. HOWEVER, you will adjust! My best sug­ges­tion is to work out a sched­ule with your wife and other care-takers so that each of you can get at least a 4 hour block of sleep a day. For exam­ple, I would take feed­ings and dia­per changes from 8pm — 12am so my wife could sleep. Then my wife would take 12 am — 4 am so I could sleep.

    If she’s breast­feed­ing, get started with pump­ing now so that she can store the milk and you can do feedings.

    A moment will come (typ­i­cally around 3 or 4 AM) when you, your wife, or both of you break down and cry “I can’t do this! Can we just take her back?!”. This is okay. Say to that freaked-out part of you: “thank you for shar­ing”, and then focus on what you need to do to get through the next 5 min­utes. Repeat this until the panic sub­sides, the baby falls asleep, or both. ;)

    Eat. Since your nor­mal sleep sched­ule is gone, your appetite will go too. The lack of sleep com­bined with a lack of food will really turn you into a zom­bie. You _must_ ensure you and your wife con­sume enough calo­ries and do so with reg­u­lar­ity. If your wife is breast-feeding she needs to eat even more. Trust me on this, if you eat reg­u­larly both of you will feel a lit­tle more nor­mal. If there are rel­a­tives or friends that want to help, tell them to cook you food that freezes well. ;)

    Be care­ful with your back. Lots of new dads (includ­ing myself) painfully strain their backs with all of the lift­ing and twist­ing required with a new baby.

    Again, the panic, sur­re­al­ness, unre­al­ity, etc are NORMAL. You’ll get through it, you will adjust. Same goes for your wife, but it’s WAY harder for her because she’s rid­ing the post-partum hor­mone roller-coaster of life. It takes weeks if not months for her body to return to nor­mal, so pre­pare your­self. Be there for her. REMEMBER the baby may be per­ma­nent, but the way you feel right now is NOT. The way your wife feels is NOT. You will reach a new “nor­mal” that now includes the 3 of you, it takes time, but it will happen.

    Good luck, you can do it. Your wife can do it. Hang in there.

  • http://www.jessenoller.com jesse

    Thank you. Yes to the sleep. OH GOD. Night one in the apart­ment is “over” and by “over” I mean I might be hal­lu­ci­nat­ing with all up and down and lack of sleep. I need coffee.

  • http://www.jessenoller.com jesse

    Wow, thank you — I’m push­ing toward the 4 hour block think as I type, last night was crazy, and I feel ter­ri­ble my wife was up for 96% of it.

  • ss

    Yeah! Doug’s right, I for­got rule #1:

    SLEEP WHEN THE BABY SLEEPS.

    Laun­dry to do? It will still be there after you wake up. Not feel­ing tired? Lay down any­way and watch what hap­pens. Phone calls to return? They’ll wait. Need to blog? No, sleep. Hun­gry? Okay, eat and then lay down. ;)

    Become an Olympic-level napper!

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