Everyone always says parenting/having a baby is hard. I knew that. I thought that perhaps I was prepared for that. I don’t think anyone is truly prepared.
The first few weeks were stressful because my husband and I are both first time parents. There was paranoia and neither of us were entirely sure what we were doing. My in-laws did come over to help as much as they could. Since we were exhausted, we used a lot of that time to nap. Someone would watch Sonny and another person would do some housework for us, such as laundry, cleaning dishes, and trash. We were—and are—super thankful.
Eventually, we got into a groove. Things were getting easier to handle on our own. Then colic hit and was a nightmare for a while. My mother-in-law was even called in one night to help because my husband was at wit’s end. My husband went back to work after taking the month off, and we were both a little nervous about me spending the whole day by myself with the baby. I survived and being with Sonny all day is perfectly normal to me right now.
Of course, he’s in a new stage now. We used to be able to get him to sleep in the bassinet. Currently, however, he won’t sleep or be calm unless he’s attached to another human in some way. He could be in a deep sleep, but the moment you put him down, he knows and wakes up crying. He’s even been sleeping on my chest during the night (which is being done safely). We’ve both been doing fine with that.
The problem is, I can’t do anything during the day. I’m only showering like once a week now. I can’t put him in a seat or whatever while I shower because he’ll just be screaming the entire time. A screaming baby would ruin the whole shower experience for me. It’s supposed to be relaxing, hello. I’m on my second week of doing little 15 minute workouts at home, which he can’t stand. He screams during the whole thing. It doesn’t matter that he can see me. And it doesn’t matter if I put him on his play mat, in his swing or on his chair that rocks him back and forth. It’s just nonstop. Naturally, the workouts take longer than they’re supposed to because I have to keep pausing to try and soothe him. If I manage to soothe him, once I stop, it’s back to the screaming.
This past Sunday was the absolute worse when it comes to his screaming. It went on all day, and no matter what we did, it kept going. We’ve suspected for a while that he has reflux and/or constipation. Those could be reasons for the screaming. I also did some googling and found that maybe we were over feeding him a bit. The fun part about all three of those possible causes is that they share multiple symptoms: crying/fussing more frequently, spitting up, and arching the back. So how the hell are we supposed to tell which one it is? We’ve done what we can for the reflux or constipation, but we’ll need to know more. Thankfully, we see his doctor next week. When it comes to the over feeding, we recently started feeding him every four hours instead of every three. I’ve also been trying to watch carefully for his cues of being full. So, I’m not obsessing with making sure he finishes a certain amount of every bottle (of course I have the fear of under feeding a little). He does seem to be doing a little better since we started all that, though. I guess we’ll know more once we see the doctor.
Anyway, there’s been way less screaming these past few days. It’s helped keep me sane.
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