As my previous post announced, Linda and I are the proud parents of a healthy new son called Alex. Alex is coming up to two weeks on Thursday, which marks a third of the way through the first six weeks. Six weeks in the real first milestone where the newborn becomes a baby, and is one of the more interesting phases because of the complete lack of predictability in sleep patterns. Its a real paradox that a newborn can spend something like 60 - 75% of their time asleep yet keep you up all-night. We've been a fair bit more organised this time around, and have found the process smoother.
One of the mistakes we made when Jess came along was to plan a number of family get-togethers, BBQs and events to celebrate the new baby and to show here off. This time around we haven't made anywhere near as many plans, and have get the weekends for resting and spending time together. At a personal level, I haven't planned any leisure activities at all. I have activities that I can do if the opportunity arises, things like going for a surf-ski, but have no definite plan when I am going to do them. When an opportunity arises, I go for a surf-ski, but if Alex decides that he is going to be unsettled all day, I am not upset at having missed out on a planned activity. Also, I've organised a number of books and magazines I can read while cradling Alex in my arm - I spent way too much time with Jess watching crappy Foxtel programs because I didn't have a secondary activity organised when Jess was sleeping in my arms.
The other thing that Linda and I have done pretty well this time around is being clear who is on-watch and who can get some rest. One of the big mistakes with an unsettled newborn is for both parents to mill around for hours, and both end up fatigued. Newborns are guaranteed to have some unsettled periods where they are impossible to calm down to sleep, but that doesn't mean you both need to be missing sleep because of it.
Posted
Oct 10 2006, 07:47 AM
by
nick