In all, I spent 6 days in hospital having my little boy. 3 days before and 3 days after…
When I was finally discharged, I had all manner of things to take with me:
- The red book
- God knows how many prescriptions
- A load of leaflets
I’m sure they’d destroyed a whole forest to send me home with that much paper.
However, one thing that was not amongst that stack of paper was an instruction manual. And so there I was at home with my brand new baby, entirely responsible for his survival, and without any instructions. The first week was pretty scary and amongst the scariest bits where these:
Changing His Clothes
Turns out that is it 100% impossible to get a baby dressed without bending any of their limbs. I tried. Several times. In the end I discovered that their arms and legs bend just like ours do (shocker!) and that he didn’t mind bending his arm for me so I could dress him.
Going to Sleep While he Slept
If I was asleep and my husband was asleep, then who was watching the baby sleep?
I kid you not – for the first couple of days, I kept myself awake when I could just to watch him sleep and make sure he was ok.
“If I don’t watch him, how will I know he’s still breathing?”
“What if he wakes up and I don’t hear him wake up?”
Turns out I didn’t need to worry about the latter. My little boy is perfectly capable of letting me know when he’s awake. At any hour of the day.
The Room Temperature
We have 4 different thermometers. We have a Gro Egg, a cheaper thermometer, a bath thermometer that also does room temperature and a thermometer on our baby monitor.
For the first couple of days, I didn’t believe any of them!!
“But it doesn’t feel like 19 degrees. It feels too hot.”
“There’s a .3 variation across the thermometers. OMG.”
Meanwhile, newborn baby boy doesn’t give a crap and is sleeping away perfectly comfortably.
Him Having a Wet Nappy
The first couple of days, I would have lost count of the number of nappy changes. As soon as that Pampers stripe went slightly green, I’d have the nappy off and a new one on. Early on, I must have been doing 20 nappy changes a day until I realised it’s ok for him to have a slightly damp nappy and 10 – 12 a day would suffice.
He’s 4 months old now…
And there’s still things that terrify me.
“Why did he cough?
“That mark where his injections were looks a minuscule amount redder than I am happy with.”
“Why is he hiccuping?”
I imagine a month from now it will be different things worrying me. Right up until he’s a teenager and I’m worrying that he hasn’t come home.
Ah well, it’s what we sign up for! 😉