News reporting can be a pretty hectic job. I can tell you about 21-hour work days on assignment, my life at risk from rebel guerillas, my body vulnerable to malaria-carrying mosquitoes and water-borne diseases, and my mental health on the line with a screaming boss on the phone demanding me to get on the first flight back to the US. Add to that, throwing my back out by helping my photographer carry 100 pounds and $100,000 worth of equipment.
No problem. I loved it.
Having a kid? That’s reduced me to tears regularly. Motherhood, I must admit, is not for the faint of heart.
She’s sweet, cuddly, and the light of my life, sure, but watching a baby all day is the most tiring job I’ve ever had. EVER.
In the beginning, there were some days I was so exhausted I would cry. I’m not exaggerating. My job has never made me feel like that.
When Olivia was first born, I was hoping the nurses would take her away for even just eight hours so I could get some rest. No such luck. My hospital’s policy is to keep mother and baby together from the beginning, so I could bond and breastfeed.
And not sleep.
That set the tone for the next half a year. I kissed goodbye my lovely ten hours a night. Veteran parents would condescendingly snicker when I mentioned I like a lot of sleep. I knew it would happen, but I wasn’t thrilled. And one can still hope, right?
The first few months were nuts. As a newborn, she cried all the time. It was difficult. I was still recovering from my pregnancy, so my body was going through all these changes, and the hormone levels were fluctuating again, making me emotional.
I was tired, and by the end of many days, the fatigue would make me cry. I considered myself lucky if I got five consecutive hours. I totally understand sleep-deprivation torture now.
In the first two months, breastfed babies need to eat every three hours to maintain proper nutrition. (Bottle fed babies can go a little longer.) The doctor says to wake them up (!) to eat, if they’re asleep. Oh, what a pity.
I’d nurse her at night at around 8 p.m. and try to put her down. Because I was constantly running a sleep deficit, I would also go to bed. We kept her crib in the master bedroom because we thought it would be easier on me. It was, but not on Claus. Within days, my husband fled to the guest room. I didn’t see him again for four months.
Add some environmental chaos to this. When she was six weeks old, we began a three month long, major home renovation project that gutted our kitchen and living room. At one point, everything in those rooms was piled up in a small corner, while new flooring was laid down. I was washing my dishes in the bathroom.
I would spend the entire day at my parents’ house to escape the hammering. When the project ran behind, I left Liv with my parents and helped out with whatever menial construction tasks I could.
This was the period of my life in which I was crying on a regular basis. I wasn’t unhappy. I was just damned tired. This, from a high energy person who likes to work and doesn’t run from a challenge.
Luckily, things got gradually easier. After eight weeks, the doctor says it’s ok to stretch out the overnight feedings. By six months, they can and should sleep through the night. Liv has been a fairly textbook case, but even easy babies have their moments.
We’ve experienced a few nights where she wakes up screeching at around midnight, and won’t stop for up to an hour. She might get up to whimper every few hours thereafter. What I do know is, after a night like that, I’m a wreck.
When she hit five or six months old, we gratefully hit our stride. She will usually sleep from 8 p.m.- 6 a.m., which is fantastic, but I have to be diligent about my own bedtime because she may not let me sleep after 6 a.m. I am not usually sleepy enough to turn in at 8, but I try for 9. This makes me feel very old, because even my senior citizen mother goes to sleep at 11 p.m.
We may have conquered the nights, but days still hold challenges. I’m spent by the end of most days because it’s mentally tiring to be on guard constantly. If I let her crawl on the floor, I have to keep looking over to see if she’s safe. If she’s fussy, I have to figure out why. When I run through my list of tricks (hungry? Tired? Cold? Hot? Wet? Gas? Bored? Sore?), I carry her while she cries it out.
I’m not complaining about any of this, though. I’m just telling you what life’s like now. I know this will even out over time. It’s just a part of parenting, and I take the bad with the good. And funny enough, when I think about what life was like before Olivia, I’d still rather be with her and tired, than without my sweet child.
Happy Birthday, Olivia!
My love turns one this month. Boy, has it really already been a year??
