Thoughts on three weeks with baby two
Baby Aerin is three weeks and a day old, and sometimes I’m amazed at the difference between her and Maggie although truth be told I’m wondering if we knew then what we know now if there might not have been such a gassy angry fight to maintain sanity.
This time around I’ve adopted swaddling any time Aerin is annoyed and up for more than about an hour and a half. With Maggie we only did that at bedtime and at that point we’d had a rage baby for most of the day.
While M would punch herself awake, A just jazz hands and then wakes up, Both are stopped by swaddling, and in A’s case it seems to let her snooze undisturbed.
It also seems to keep her happy and content and when she grumbles a bit just stick a bottle in and she twilight feeds. When the eyes open up we free her from her comfy chains however.
I’ve also become acutely aware of how crappy newborn diapers actually are. They’re crap. I’m on the third brand at the moment if I’m not mistaken. Always keep something under the baby. I think by size two they were ok if I recall from Maggie’s run.
Aerin is significantly less loud than Maggie was. When Aerin cries, there’s still the “we need to grab this” urgency inspired, but Maggie’s volume was such that I once heard her crying outside in my car through the house with the engine running. Maggie’s louder than anyone I have ever met. I think I need to get that kid into singing lessons or into the military to be a drill sergeant.
Having read significantly more on what can actually hurt a child, I no longer fear for a healthy infant for most things. One of the things that seemed to be drilled into me was bacteria will kill your baby and everything possible around will get them sick. Nope.
Learning to give a newborn an ounce and them burp ’em has saved a lot of vomit. Distraction techniques I didn’t possess with Maggie in the early days seem to make diaper changes a breeze.
I guess it’s mostly having been down that road before it’s pretty well explored, and the only thing I’m really dealing with now is how to handle a toddler who’s hit the terrible twos with a force.
