Taking Care of Mom

I imagine that the challenges we face are fairly typical of any new parents. It seems that in so many ways our little girl, Esmee, is making the transition into parenthood quite easy on us. She is a very mellow baby, eats well, sleeps frequently and for the most part between 2-4 hours. Granted, we are only coming up on the one month old milestone and as everyone (our doctor included) tells us, things may change.

They already are changing. Esmee has now become a tad bit more fussy at night. Just within the last week she has ended the long sleeping stretches at night that have given my wife, Catherine, and I much needed rest as well. This change has put some increased strain on mom, who is already trying to handle the whole breast feeding/pumping rhythm on top of just trying to figure this whole baby thing out. There were a couple days last week where we were both WAY out of our ability to figure out what Esmee needed. It was at this point, and about the time that I joined Minti, that I realized something. We were BOTH fixated on our baby and trying to make her happy/comfortable/consoled/entertained... This, to me, was a problem. Because we were both focused only on our baby we were both without sleep, our house was in chaos, and the serene environment we had enjoyed up to that point seemed to be deteriorating. Time to change strategies.

I began focusing on mom and what she needed instead of having us both devoted to Esmee duty. I cleaned the house, did the laundry, made a nice dinner, brought lunch home, took Esmee with me to run errands and generally tried to help my wife get some time to herself and to bring some order back to our house. I think it is too early to tell if this is ultimately the right way to go, but my sense is that all new parents want to focus on their new baby (I still am!) but by beginning to look out for each other and even taking turns with with what needs to be done you accomplish two really important things. The first is that your baby is well cared for. The second is that you lessen a lot of the extraneous stresses that can subconsciously deplete your energy. I know, from experience now, that when the baby is crying and you are trying to figure out why that a chaotic environment only adds to the frustration level. I also know that if we are calm, chances are our baby will be calm as well.

So now we talk about the needs for the day. If Catherine is going to be home all day we talk through what she might need and I try to arrange to come home to have lunch with them. In the evening when I return home from work I try to focus on Esmee so that Catherine gets some much needed free time. Additionally, I am trying to look around to see what needs to be done in an effort to make the whole house thing easier on both of us. My goal is to anticipate as much as possible so that Catherine does not need to even ask me. This seems to be working. Catherine is more relaxed. Esmee seems to be a little less fussy. I feel really good about being able to help. Even the pets are getting a little bit more attention. This all happened by just changing my focus a little bit and helping to make sure my wife was getting everything that she needed.

My new mantra:

happy mom -> happy baby