Diary of a Third Time Dad

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WEEK FOUR - MARCH 2002

Mar. 14 - I'm glad I don't have breasts

Last night was one of those nights when I was glad I am the dad. My wife told me this morning that Joshua was up five times to nurse last night (he had slept for most of the day before, so he needed a lot of catch-up nursing). Of course, I was completely oblivious to this. I needed my beauty sleep.

Whenever I am talking to a mom in my office whose baby is up all night nursing, I will often ask, "Well, can't your husband get up with the baby sometimes, and give you a break?" Most women just look at me as though I am crazy, and I think to myself, "Why won't these dads get up and do their share?"

Right. Now I am one of those dads. Now, it's not that I WON'T get up with the baby at night, it's that Cheryl knows darn well that the baby will simply scream until he gets the breast.

Actually, in our ten years of marriage, and nine years of having kids, I have almost never gotten up during the night with our babies as long as they were breastfed. (This is why I encouraged Cheryl to keep breastfeeding for a few years with our first two). Why don't I do my share at night, you ask? Let me tell you what happened the first (and only) time I got up with our first son, Andrew. He was a couple weeks old, and he was fussing in our bed and wouldn't nurse. Cheryl nudged (then poked) me awake, handed me the baby, and told me to go rock him back to sleep. Half-asleep, I stumbled into the living room, laid Andrew down on the couch, stumbled back into our bedroom, and got back in bed all warm and snuggly under the covers. Cheryl sat up and exclaimed, "Where's the baby?!?!" "I don't know," I mumbled back. She shot out of bed, flew into the living room, and came back with our crying baby in her arms. I don't need to relate to you the look she gave me.

Needless to say, that was the last time I got up with the baby at night.

Please understand, I didn't do this on purpose just to get out of it. I simply don't wake up easily at night.

Now, in my defense, I think I am a pretty good dad. I am more of a help-get-the-kids-ready-for-school-in-the-morning, drive-them-to-school, pick-them-up-from-school, play-with-the-kids, help-with-dinner, get-them-ready-for-bed, brush-their-teeth, read-them-stories, and lay-down-with-them-while-they-fall-asleep kind of dad. I simply am not a get-up-with-the-baby-in-the-middle-of-the-night kind of dad.

I don't have breasts. I know this. Cheryl knows this. The baby knows this. I'm just not much help in this area.

Mar. 15 - Missin' my baby

Now most dads get to go to work and not be around babies all day. I, on the other hand, get to play with babies all day long. But ever since Joshua came along, every time I see a little one or two-month old cooing, gurgling, grunting, snuffing and crying, I think to myself, "I wish I were at home right now hearing all this from my own baby." It makes me a bit sad, but that's life.

Mar. 16 - Hey, we better call the doctor!

Cheryl and I have an ongoing joke. Every time the baby does something unusual, we say, "Oh no! He might be sick. We better page the doctor right away!" Some of these things include his stuffy nose last week, his mild cough, the way his little arms sometimes shake, the bleeding from his umbilical cord, his occasional green stools, the list goes on. We laugh at this because these are actually all reasons that parents have urgently paged me late at night.

Now, it's easy for me to know exactly what situation is serious and what is not. I'm a doctor. I see things like this all the time. I understand why worried parents page me for these situations because they can seem serious to any new parent. It's just kind of funny to see these things happen almost daily in my own child and know that there are thousands of other parents around the world paging their own doctor that same minute for the exact same situation.

I just hope not too many of those people are my patients. I don't get enough sleep as it is.

Mar. 17 - "Wrong person, dad!"

I try to hold Joshua every chance I get. One of my favorite times is when he's just woken up after a long nap. The only problem is, he's usually hungry when he wakes up, and starts making sucking motions with his mouth and tongue. So when Cheryl hands him to me in this situation, he gives me the funniest look. His eyebrows furrow, his forehead wrinkles, and he looks at me with this confused expression on his face, as if he's thinking, "Wait a minute, that person with the food just had me a second ago, but now this other person WITHOUT the food is holding me. Wrong person, dad! Give me back to mom. I'm hungry!" He lasts about five minutes in this fun mode before I have to give him back.

Mar. 18 - Diaper Bags: The Next Generation.

I remember nine years ago, with our first child, we had a monster of a diaper bag. We could fit anything in there. Cheryl insisted on being prepared for anything. We stuffed 15 diapers, a hundred wipes, 3 extra outfits (one for warm weather, one for cold weather, and one for medium weather), three diaper changing pads, diaper rash ointment, extra diaper rash ointment, an emergency outfit in case we went through the other three, three bibs, Tylenol, three blankets, two water bottles, several bags of snacks, and spit-up rags (you can never have too many spit-ups rags). The whole thing weighed about 50 pounds, and guess whose job it was to carry it around? But, we were prepared for anything. If there was an earthquake, tornado, or hurricane, and we were stranded anywhere for a week, the baby would have plenty of supplies.

Well, we've come a long way since then. Now, we have this shoulder bag that's about the size of a camera bag. It holds only four diapers, one blanket, one changing pad, one extra outfit, a small pack of wipes, travel sized diaper cream, and Cheryl's wallet. That's it. It weighs about 3 pounds and fits comfortably on my shoulder.

And I'm not the only one. I see many patients in my office now with a small diaper bag. We are the next generation of diaper bags users.

And if there's an earthquake, and we are stranded somewhere, well then, we will be bummed.

Mar. 19 - A new found respect for my wife.

I get two mornings off each week when I like to do a bunch of stuff around the house: go through my email, write, pay bills, fix a leaky faucet, whatever needs being done. Well, today I tried to do these things, but with one big difference - there was a baby "slinged" to my chest. It was actually very tough. There are certain things I could do, but trying to make a phone call (he would always start to squirm and fuss), trying to sit down and do some typing (he would always start to squirm and fuss), trying to fold some laundry (he would need his diaper changed), or trying to pay the bills (you guessed it, more squirming and fussing) was futile. As long as I moved around doing things, he would stay asleep. But try to sit down for more than a few minutes, and I would hear the little grunting, snorting and squirming that would soon escalate if I didn't get up.

Ever since Joshua was born, our house has kind of fallen behind - laundry piling up, dishes to be done, toys everywhere. Whenever I come home from work, I think to myself, "Doesn't my wife do anything around here? Why didn't she clean up a bit?"

Well, NOW I KNOW! It is next to impossible to get even half of what you want to get done with a new baby to take care of. Cheryl even said to me today, "I didn't think things would get so out of hand with another baby. Boy was I wrong."

Now I have a new respect for Cheryl and everything she does. She works ten times as hard as I do. I'll never complain about a messy house again.

Mar. 20 - Never a spit-up rag when you need one

So, we own around 200 spit-up rags. They are scattered conveniently all over the house. You would think that Cheryl would make sure there is one within reach when she sits down to nurse the baby, but no. At least three times a day I hear, "Honey? I need a spit-up rag." As if it's suddenly a surprise that the baby spits up after eating and she would need something to wipe it up with. What's up with that? I mean, whenever I burp him, I make sure I have a rag handy. Well, usually I do. Ok, there may have been two or three times that I had to ask Cheryl to hand me a spit-up rag. Well, maybe more than that.

Fine, I guess I, too, have to frantically run around the house every evening searching for a spit-up rag with goopy milk curds dripping down my arm.

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