A Question That Dad’s Have
How do I help my wife as we try to establish a bedtime routine for our newborn baby?
I first thought that I had hit the lottery when my wife Liz announced that she would be staying home from work for two months to care for our newborn baby, Braden. I naively believed that I would experience all of the perks of being a new dad- holding and feeding him, watching him grow, entertaining friends and family who came by to visit- while Liz would do most of the work regarding Braden’s care. Sure, I would help change a diaper here and there to give her a break, but I expected most of the hard stuff, including establishing our infant’s bedtime routine, to be handled by our resident baby expert. After all, I was teaching all day and then coming home to do all of the home maintenance and dog care at night. It was only fair that the one who gets to stay home with the baby does most of the care of the baby, right?
I lived in blissful ignorance for about 10 hours before reality slapped me in the face. I walked in the door to a couple of needy basset hounds, a fussy baby, and a completely exhausted wife. Braden hadn’t yet settled into a regular sleep pattern and didn’t nap much that day, and our two dogs weren’t helping when they howled at every single person that walked by our house. Liz, who had gotten up with Braden the night before and was hoping to nap while Braden did, could barely keep her eyes open. Instead of relaxing in my easy chair with slippers and a cocktail while reading the newspaper and smoking a pipe like a 1950’s TV dad, I was faced with doing all of those domesticated “mom stuff” things that I had expected my wife to handle.
So what was a good dad and husband to do? I stepped up! Monday Night Football and pickup basketball soon took a back seat to making dinner, walking the dogs, preparing bottles, giving the baby a bath, and getting him down to sleep. More often than not, I was the one who got up in the middle of the night to give Braden his bottle, fighting to stay awake while he went to town on his dinner. Liz and I often felt like zombies for the first couple of months after Braden’s birth, but luckily we had each other so one parent didn’t have to take on the entire burden.
The good news was that the fatigue didn’t last forever. Braden’s two-month sleep schedule progressed to five and seven-month sleep schedules, and with each step Braden’s (and our) sleep improved.
I still hit the lottery when Braden was born. It just looked a little different than what I thought it would.
