Don’t Fear the Newborn

The hardest part of the third trimester is trying to get a decent night’s sleep. Between the sore hips, heartburn, night sweats, and an ever growing baby pressing down on your bladder, you’re lucky if you get more than two hours of uninterrupted sleep. Whenever I complained about this, everyone had the same response: You think you’re tired now? Just wait until the baby’s here. 

In fact, throughout my pregnancy everyone was more than happy to point out just how miserable we would be immediately after P.B.’s arrival. Experienced moms would warn me that the newborn stage is just awful. “You just have to get through it,” they’d say. Childless friends would joke about newborns’ notorious sleep habits and the endless barrage of dirty diapers we’d have to change. 

As my due date approached, I started to feel an impending sense of doom. Not only did I have to suffer through hours of labor and try to push an entire human being out of my body, but then I also had to suffer through months of a crying, needy baby whose only response to my hard work and suffering would be a blank stare.

Just as I anticipated, labor was not fun. Having an emergency C-section was exhausting and painful. But one thing took me by surprise – I loved taking care of a newborn. 

Sure, the feeding schedule for newborns is brutal. Their little stomachs can’t hold much milk, so they need to eat every 2-3 hours, and the clock for the next feed starts from the beginning of the feed. Unfortunately, newborns are not efficient eaters. This sleep deprivation and the anxiety of such a huge responsibility resulted in Trevor and I awkwaing from shared night terrors, frantically searching the blankets for a suffocated infant. We’d both be convinced that we fell asleep with P.B. in the bed, but he was always safely swaddled up in his bassinet. There were times when I felt that I just couldn’t continue this way. 

But then I’d pick P.B. up to feed him and be overwhelmed with love. I could spend all night staring at his tiny fingernails and his stubby little toes. He’d make the sweetest little noises. When he was done feeding, P.B. would turn his face up to me, nestle into my chest, and fall asleep. I wanted to stay up all night staring at his cherubic face, but Trevor reminded me that I needed sleep to properly take care of him.

Even his cries didn’t induce stress. Newborns aren’t born with strong lungs, so their cries are soft. His scrunched up face was always accompanied by mini fists flailing in the air and legs frantically kicking. Every time he cried, my heart broke a little, but I’d also have to stifle a laugh because he looked so silly. 

The thing that newborns really don’t get credit for is that they live for snuggles. There isn’t a cry that a little skin-to-skin time can’t quell. I soaked it all in and reminded myself that this time was fleeting. Before I know it, P.B. will be a teenager who wants nothing to do with me. In the meantime I’ll take all of the snuggles I can get.

As P.B. transitions out of the newborn stage, I look back at our first few months as a family and think that I’ve never been more tired, but I’ve also never been happier.

Written by Regan