She needs a diaper change with every feeding, sometimes before and after. Is that normal? She’s spitting up quite a bit every time that I try to burp her. Is that normal? She’s sleeping so much better during the day than she is at night. Is that normal?
Being first-time parents, our minds are filled with all sorts of daily concerns and worries. Some of these I expected to encounter as a new dad, like figuring out how to bathe my baby or how to establish a new working arrangement. While those are certainly stressful in their own right, we vastly underestimated all the little things that would cause so much concern.
Damned If You Do…
It’s obvious enough that we want what is best for our daughter. From this point forward, it’s all about her. The struggle, particularly at this early age when she can’t really tell me how she feels or what she wants, is that we can’t really win no matter what she does or doesn’t do. When she can only nap for about an hour at a time, we worry that she might not be getting enough sleep. When she naps for a longer period of time, we worry that she’s not waking herself up to feed. Is she sick?
This applies right across the board, from feeding habits to napping habits, from diaper contents to burping tendencies. Because every baby is different, there are a lot of things that are considered normal. It can be incredibly stressful for a new dad like me, because I’m not at all familiar with many of these things. We had heard about baby acne, for instance, but how much of it is considered normal and when can we expect it to go away? What can we do to help her in the meantime? Are we sure it’s not eczema or something else?
And don’t even get me started on everything that has to do with the diaper area, both on the baby and in terms of the contents of each, um, “package” she delivers.
OK Google, Is This Normal?
The Internet, in this way, has become an incredible blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it is an overwhelming resource, busting at the seams with all sorts of information from both the medical community and from fellow parents. On the other hand, a new dad or mom might feel compelled to look up every little thing to see what is or isn’t normal, what can and cannot be done, and what we can expect moving forward.
This is another major difference from how I was raised, as a new dad in my parents’ generation would not have had such immediate access to so much information (and misinformation). They just went about their day, only visiting the doctor if something felt profoundly wrong. These days, we fret over everything and understandably so.
Whether or not the crowdsourced advice online is of any reassurance, we may still go to see the doctor. If nothing else, we can feel a little better when an authoritative person in a lab coat tells us that we’ve got what appears to be a healthy and happy baby. And at the end of the day, that’s all we can ask.
So Michael, you’re learning that there is no right or wrong. I really wish that I knew how to write a book for the first 6 to 9 months of the babies life. I would be a millionaire.
Of course, you have an extreme amount of help in Stephen Fung and John Chow. I also am sure that everyone else is trying to give you advice. I will only give you advice if you ask.
They have advice. The helpfulness varies considerably.
When I had a problem with my first newborn, I called my momma. She knew way more than google.
When I have a problem with my newborn, I ask my mom. And she says, “I don’t know. Things were different then.”
Yes, but believe me, it changes with the second baby. You just don’t have time to worry about milestones and growth charts. You’re forced to see the bigger picture.
That’s the sense I get from a lot of parents. And the multiple Internet memes and image captions attest to that.
I really don’t agree with that feeling.
It is dependent on the mother and father whether you care about the milestones, charts and the little things. As you know Michael, I have 3 under 10 years old. All three have had a growth “place marker” on the wall. All have had special birthdays, all three have video of their first steps between mommy and daddy. All of them have a picture and video of their first work (Daddy for the oldest and mommy for both the boys).
I don’t understand the bigger picture being something else. To me the bigger picture is for them to have that enjoyment of being with mommy and daddy, doing those things that make them happy, that during the first 5 years especially that form how they are going to interact with you and other people as they grow older.
Honestly, I don’t remember all those things as a kid, my first real memory is holding my sister when I was 4 years old at my Aunts house. But, I do know that my children are happier because we spent that time doing those things. Children become disinterested, and uncooperative if they aren’t made to feel like they matter because you don’t have time for those little things.
Let me add that I actually feel the 2 year old is actually the calmest because we don’t fidget over him like we did with the oldest and to a lesser extent the 5 year old. You get used to the “Are they supposed to do that” or “Should we call the doctor?” But we don’t forget to care and show the youngest that we care.
Ray, but what you say there is the bigger picture I’m talking about. Of course we now treat the kids (6 and 4) the same and have two sides of the fridge for each (and the bottom freezer has a drawing of a friend, but it’s a good drawing). What I meant was that with the second kid, I was too busy to worry about stuff I shouldn’t worry about, and as a result, she grew up much calmer (and raising her was much easier when she was a baby/toddler).
I see parents circling their toddlers to make sure they never get hurt and they always have something to do, and I remember doing the same thing and feeling I wasn’t helpful. With the second kid, we didn’t push her against sharp corners, but we didn’t have time to be with her all the time, so now she’s more independent. And they probably got injured the same number of times despite everything (all of the older brother’s bad injuries happened when I was less than a foot away, including two broken noses). You just can’t protect them, no matter what, so the best thing is to let go, which is something that, maybe because of guilt, many parents don’t do with a first/only child, but are forced into doing once another one joins.