Faced with the prospect of our third child, I felt pretty confident with my parenting abilities, especially thinking back to how much we had to “figure out” with Madi.
For the most part, this has held true…you kind of fall back into the rhythms of caring for a newborn…2-3 hours at a time…
But there are a few things that I forgot about…
One thing was how we were supposed to take care of the umbilical cord…or should I say, that you should take care of it at all. With Parker, his cord fell off within a couple of days, so we didn’t have to do anything with it. But Fiona’s cord is stubbornly hanging on two weeks later, and I realized the other day that we were supposed to clean it a little more thoroughly than a quick swipe…whoops. Thankfully, after a good scrub by Daddy, it is looking okay, but yeah, totally forgot that one.
I also forgot how quickly you should give baby baths…not just because they tend to scream through them, but because the likelihood of a bathroom incident increases with each passing minute. Remembered that little gem a little too late…
The other thing that I forgot about is how draining being “on call” 24/7 can be. It makes you take lightning fast showers and pulls you out of bed over and over every night. I especially forgot the knack of babies to get ravenously hungry right as you are about to eat…so you have the choice to gobble down your food in a couple giant bites, eat it lukewarm later, or try to multitask and chance dropping crumbs on your child’s head…
I’m glad, though, that it isn’t just routine…that there are new things to learn or things to remember…and that each kid is so unique. I do think that I need to brush the dust off of my “What to Expect…” baby book though and make sure I’m not forgetting anything important!!
— Post From My iPhone
