I’ve got a 3 week-old newborn. During the day there are plenty of adorable moments and easy times. But it’s the middle of the fucking night, he strategically waited until I was switching diapers to piss on me and all over, then was flailing his arms and pushing the bottle out of his mouth even though he was very hungry, then shit his GODDAMN BRAINS OUT while eating, then after I burped him and cleaned him up and got him in new clothes and swaddled and put him down, he fucking screamed until I picked him up again.
Like, I’ve given him everything his tiny little brain and body could need. That coupled with the strategic shitting and pissing to require the absolute maximum amount of work from me.
The vent here, I guess, is that I fucking hate this. I loved my life with my wife and now we have next to zero intimacy(not sex, obviously, but even our normal physical touch). We have zero time for each other, one is tending the baby, while the other is desperately trying to keep up with cleaning bottles and keeping the house passably clean and there is no time for anything.
I would never let any of what I just said affect how I interact with the baby, but I’m fucking sick of having literally zero independence and I miss my wife (her being in the same bed and next to me most of the day makes it worse somehow).
Fuck.
Thank you for coming to my Ted talk. Check out The Oatmeal, they’ve got a comic about having kids that’s painfully applicable.
Yeah. All the times people say “sleep when the baby sleeps” or “You must be exhausted”? It’s because we’ve been there.
I will give one piece of advice. Alarms.
Need to make a call or check on someone? Alarm.
Dropping the baby off somewhere before work? Add an alarm (repeat if need be) to make sure the kids not in the car.
Cooking dinner? Add an alarm to check that the stove is off.
Super exhausted brain is rough and while it’s always a small chance it’s scary how quickly we can do something stupid or dangerous without realizing it.
Personally I’ve thrown clothes in the trash and put trash in the laundry hamper (learned not to carry both at the same time) and locked myself out of the house for an hour (trusted neighbor got a copy of our house key after that one)
Bonus tip: poison control is cool. Don’t be afraid to call when/if something happens. Kid got into teething tablets and ate them all? Not the first time they’ve heard of it and if there’s anything to be done they’ll tell you. They even checked back a little later just to be sure.
Bonus tip 2: if you have somebody willing to help with laundry, house, etc take it. It feels weird but a lot of the people offering know exactly what you’re going through.
Small kids pee when exposed to cold air around their private parts. It’s to avoid peeing on mom all the time. Some people use that to save on diapers xD they are not doing that on purpose, learning that helped me keep a strategic eye out for that.
My daughter is 10 now, but your comment triggered a memory I had buried so deep it was all but forgotten.
The rule was that we put the child on its back, undo her diaper and fold the front down, blow on her exposed nethers and then close the diaper again and wait. She immediately pees, every fucking time, I change her, she stays dry for longer, I get some fucking sleep.
I just reminded my wife of this ritual. We laughed. Take this forgotten knowledge from survivors of the bad times, whoever might read this.
Definitely reframe your thinking. Baby didn’t do anything strategically. He is in an alien world, inundated with new experiences. None of this was his choice.
He isn’t doing anything TO you. You did it all to him. And while I figure you’re kind of joking with that, those words get into your subconscious and breed resentment, even if you think it’s not affecting how you interact with the baby.
That said, what is your support system? Do you have family or friends who could spot you for a few hours to give you and your wife a nice dinner out or something? Don’t be ashamed to ask for help. No one should isolate themselves when caring for a tiny human.
As a parent of teens, I’d be super happy to step in and clean some bottles, clean up a poopy baby, and rock them while they cry. These are all skills I developed that I no longer get to use. It would be nice to feel like maybe I have something useful to offer, because teens definitely make you feel like you don’t.
It will get better. I promise you that. The beginning is always the roughest. It’s an adjustment. Things will never be the same, but you can (and will) make it just as good, if not better.
Hang in there. You and your wife got this. How you feel right now is not how you’ll always feel, ok? Sometimes it takes a little while to “kick in”. And when it does, whoa baby, you’re in for the greatest ride of your life.
I have to reiterate: you’ve got this. You are doing fine. This is normal.
Also: when changing baby, put new diaper over them while you dispose of old diaper. Then when they pee, it hits the diaper and not you.
You’ve got this!
Edit: I almost forgot: congratulations! 😁
I typically leave a wet wipe over him while switching diapers, but he waited until the exact moment I took it off to close up the fresh diaper to let loose
Sounds silly, and it very well may be, but maybe it’s the temp change and fish of air from the wet wipe being removed that triggered him to pee.
Wet wipes are of course wet, and will cool down when left out in open air. Try a dry diaper or towel, and see if that changes things. It might not, but if it does then you’ve got a solution.
I’ve been trying to think of a way to store the wet wipes that keeps them at a more comfortable temperature, but haven’t got around to really figuring it out
It’s actually really good that you wrote out your frustrations like this. Humans are incredible at forgetting, which is why people often look forward to having a second or third child despite living through the nightmare you’re describing. In a couple of years, if you’re feeling like you want to have another one, at least now you can go back through your old posts and regain a little bit of the perspective you’ve managed to forget so you can go into the second time around with your eyes wide open.
