Day five –

Today mom is going back to work and I am on my own again. At 5:30 a.m., I have already performed one Binky check (1:30 a.m.), one diaper change/feeding (3:00 a.m.) and one touch-and-go (4:00 a.m.) and another at 4:30 a.m., the dogs have been let out, coffee made and baby food for the day has been started. Today I may well find a time to take a nap.

The 9:00 a.m. feeding went off on time, followed by some cooing and babbling from our lil’ man. Afterwards, I decided to watch some television but found that I could not really sit still long enough to enjoy any programming. I was restless, exhausted and disoriented. At noon, he woke slightly early and I attempted to settle him down without having any success. I noticed he was warm and a little sweaty. Panic started to set in, was he sick? I dressed him in long sleeve pajamas and took him outside into the cool days we are still having. He did calm down and I noticed he took several very deep breaths. It seems that having been cooped up in the house and possibly the dust from the dogs bringing in mud had started to get him congested. He warmed his toes in the sun and enjoyed the fresh air. Crisis adverted. I took him in to change and feed only to finally meet the end of a record that I had was quite proud of – I had not been peed on up to this very point. That all changed today, twice. The diaper was removed and then, surprise, a fountain of urine came streaming out, onto the baby, the wall, my arms. This was great news to my wife, who resented my ability to dodge this warm bath. My glorious streak ended. He continued to fuss, after the feeding but I wore him down with some tummy time. I had to take a nap now and I fell asleep without any issue. At 2:45 I was awoken from a dream about feeding babies; he was on time to wake for the feeding. Although I was disoriented, things progressed normally except for a clogged bottle top that kept food from being received. Once cleared, he was so tired from the day that he practically fell right back asleep. I think we are developing a working routine – 9:00 a.m. feed and talk, 12:00 a.m. feed and tummy time / exercise, 3:00 p.m. individual free time / crib time. I did some more vacuuming and yard work, and began preparing the meal for when my wife came home from work. Tonight we had plans! A friend had a birthday celebration at a local pub. At 5:30, a new game developed. Lil’ man awoke early and I walked in and playfully scolded him to go back to sleep. He smiled and snuggled back in. This carried on for the next 30 minutes – I leave the room, he cries, I return and scold, he smiles and again I leave the room, ect…. Mom returned from work and we quickly ate our meals with some background complaining from the baby room. We fed lil’ man, packed the needed supplies and headed to Oma Mamu’s to let her tend to him while we went out. On dropping him off, Oma Mamu commented on the importance of myself getting in conversation with adults, through the days ahead. Apparently, I am behaving more erratic and excitable than normal and it is showing. I agreed and decided to plan on a weekly visit to my parents, who live in town. With the baby asleep, we departed. The night went well, with friend’s asking how things were proceeding for us. A fellow, who also had stayed home with his infant, relished in my story of the feeding dream – he had also dreams like that in his experience as a stay-at-home dad. He understood the lack of conversation point and stated that after three months, he was insane within himself, that he loved his daughter but that he could no longer stand to stay at home. He made a great suggestion to find a local at-home dad group, something I intend to do. It is good to have a brother-in-arms, with some real-life experience, for this adventure. Also worn and frayed, mom chugged the last of my beer and we headed to pick up our lil’ man. We gave him a quick feed at Oma Mamu’s and both of us were surprised to find he slept through the stay, great! We got him home to bed and we followed shortly after. It was almost midnight.

Day four –

Snow day. Our weather pattern here is a random mix of events. 70 degrees one day, snow the next. This appears to be the last snowstorm of the year. Mom stayed home from work today – dad gets a break.

With mom home, I did the early shift. At 1:30 a.m., lil’ man awoke and needed a Binky to be replaced. Simple enough. I returned to bed until 5:00 and then awoke to prepare for the day. Mom got up at 7:00 a.m. and we had a chance for some morning conversation. I was spent from the manual labor of yesterday and mom quickly took charge of the day. She did laundry, dishes, cleaned…all while I was a worthless pile of human wreckage on the sofa. The snow fell to about 7” in depth. Normally, I would go out into the snow and play a bit while it lasted. Today, I just remained on the sofa and let the world go on around me. Again, mom asked for help with the cloth diaper experiment and I obliged to show her my technique in changing the diaper. While changing it, it noticed something unusual about the situation. Closer investigation showed our son was peeing on his face. One of our friend’s has a 1-year-old son who seems to be perfectly mannered and well behaved. We talked with her about how she has been raising him and she casually mentioned that her son has peed in his own mouth several times. I said, “Well, if that is what it takes to have such a well behaved son, I hope ours does just the same!”, little did I know that it would be happening on my diaper change shift. As it may be an awful thing, mom and I both had a solid laugh. We cleaned him up and Mom continued to take charge of our son for the remainder of the day. I performed the 9:00 p.m. feeding, as mom lay on the sofa, spent and emotionless. We both went to bed at 9:30 p.m.

Day three –

This morning was a refreshing one for me. Mom is staying home longer than usual today and-so took over the early a.m. touch-ups with our son. The 1:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. dressings were handled by her – I took advantage of the extra sleep.  The 6:00 a.m. feeding was handled by myself and I was greeted by a round of smiles and tongue sticking-outings (hereby scientifically called TSO’s from this point forward). The TSO’s, we have found, are the most valuable tool in communicating with our son up to now. Sticking out of tongue once = hello; sticking out of tongue twice = happy; sticking out of tongue three times = very happy. Our pre-parental research found that a newborn is able to stick out their tongue, with purpose, at a very early stage of development. These TSO’s are the only form of validation we (ourselves) know of that a newborn is truly capable of routinely offering to their parents… and they are absolutely priceless to us.

Mom set out on her shortened workday and things progressed nicely at home. Our 12:00 feeding was followed by a half-hour of tummy-time. Short videos were sent to mom to enjoy. Our son rolled over on his own and then stared at the wall for 15 minutes, cooing the entire time. It was time to return him to the crib. Oma Mamu later called to ask if there was anything we needed from the store; a snowstorm was brewing and she realized it would be difficult for us to fetch any items from the grocer. I gave her a short list of items we needed and she delivered them to the house around 1:00.  A little fuss from the noises, our little man awoke but soon went back to sleep. On mom’s return, she continued with our cloth diaper experiment at the 3:00 change and asked for my assistance in applying the diaper. She handled the task well and, as instructed left the diaper in the bathroom sink while she finished out the change. One bit of instruction that I failed to mention was to close the bathroom door off to the rest of the house, while the diaper was unattended. One of our dogs found the tasty treat she left alone and took charge of it in our living room. The dog, again, cleaned up the diaper for us – disgusting. The day finished nicely, having mom around to keep things calm and orderly. I took advantage of her presence and did some more landscaping work that was needed to keep a lake from forming at the front door of our home. The work was very taxing, digging a long trench in cold, rainy weather. I put on durable military fatigues I received from my brother and set out to do my manly work for the day. As the cold of the coming snowstorm set in and rain mixed with flakes of snow fell on my body, my fingers were frozen, my back was aching but the job was finished - we will no longer have a (frozen) lake to contend with at our front door. Time to come inside and have some wine and dinner with mom. I was in bed by 8:30.

My second day on the ‘job’ began at 1:00 a.m. – an unexpected morning feeding, followed by a 4:00 a.m. pacifier (Binky) check and replace. At 5:00 a.m., formula has been prepared for the day, dishes / bottles washed and sterilized, coffee made for mom and a 6:00 a.m. (mom) wakeup for her morning feeding slot has been completed. Now, time to enjoy a little coffee for myself.

Day two –

A colleague used a term that just about describes this day as closely as I can muster on my own – Zombie Feedings. It is not that the baby is a zombie but that the parent’s (my own) ability to function was limited to that of a zombie. The early a.m. feedings compromised my own sleep patterns and left me almost in a zombie like state for the entire day. The 9:00 a.m. feeding went as planned and a quick shopping trip to our nearby grocer was completed without incident – not that I could truly recall much of what happened at the store, only that we bought lots of coffee. After getting the baby down, my mother called to check in with us. A long conversation left me knowing well she is supportive of what we are doing and that she is happy we are actively dedicating such a major part of our lives to our son’s early development. She also left me knowing that help is available, when needed, and that we have an open invitation to visit the grandparent’s house. I did have one request of her: I asked that we could come visit and maybe make a replacement Danish for the one lost yesterday! Later, we had an unexpected visitor from a family friend, who respectfully showed up just after the noon feeding had been completed; father of a 3-year-old, he is familiar with the routines of a newborn. We enjoyed the company and he held our boy for the duration of his visit, admiring his looks – those of his mother at this point. We had quick discussions of a future (second) baby for his family, something he is loathe to at this point but he seems to have some interest judging by the way he looked at and played with our baby and we talked about how things were progressing for our own family. The cooperatively active baby window slowly began to close and our guest went on his way for the day. As I had time, with the baby now resting again, I decided to begin a movie and try to relax. For whatever reason, the movie was stubborn to play and caused me great stress in attempting to get it to function properly. I never did finish watching this movie. Cars again lined the street, from yesterday’s unfortunate events at our neighbor’s, causing our dogs to throw random fits of barking. Then a firestorm erupted from the baby room. 2:15 – baby goes nuclear. For a solid 45 minutes, our son was inconsolable. Presumably, the grand events of the past days had taken their tolls. No tool we had developed to this point (singing rock-a-bye baby, playing itsy-bitsy spider, shushing, cradling, rocking, feeding, changing, singing of the Florida State University war chant…) worked to calm him. I sadly resigned to let him work it out. As tears streamed down his face, I was left only to hold him and painfully watch his suffering and agony. At 3:15, it finally ended. Like the conclusion of a violent storm, followed by a beautiful rainbow and clear skies, all was well again in the world. We finished the routine feeding and carried on with our day. After evening dinner with mom, I was practically incoherent, incompetent and erratic. She put me to bed at 8:30 p.m.

This consolidation of notes is a record of days from my experience as a stay-at-home dad. The original idea for me to stay at home was mine. After much discussion, it was decided that it was our best option for the initial rearing of our (first) child. I positioned the idea as the husband’s pregnancy – she carried him for the first 9 months and-now I will carry him the next 9 months. The idea to keep a journal was that of my mother-in-law (Oma Mamu)– a retired stay at home mother of two. She suggested I write down my daily experiences, presumably for her own personal future entertainment and ultimately as a keepsake of our experience as new parents.

The professional position I left was as a technical sales representative with a biotechnology company – I supported the use of and sold antibodies, gene silencers and chemicals to labs performing research on various diseases and biological topics. My wife is a fashion designer for a clothing company – she has designed a wide range of products for children and adults. Our current plan is to have myself return to the workforce after his 1^st birthday, after he has time to grow some and enter the social world as a better prepared ‘new’ human participant. 

We are following a Parent Directed Feeding schedule, with feedings occurring at regular 3-hour intervals. The schedule has worked well for our needs and seemingly the baby as well. Currently (at 3-months-old) he still needs a regular feeding at each expected time slot however, he is beginning to make it longer through the nights without the scheduled feedings. We are fortunate that there are no known health issues and that he has been developing as expected.

Today was my first day with our 3-month-old son, all by my self. To be honest, this new ‘job’ is not really that intimidating. While I do know it will be difficult, the idea is simple and the successful execution of it rests in my hands.

So, day one –

The day had been preplanned, by myself, giving respect to our newborn’s timelines of expected feedings and diaper changes…we were going to go to Home Depot. The day started as planned, waking up mom for the 6:00 a.m. feeding, making coffee and seeing her off on her first day back to work. A bit later, I noticed an ambulance and fire truck across the street and watched to see what was happening. It appeared that there was some sort of accident or unfortunate event. Cars began to line the street and people lined the doorways of the house. I texted my wife that all was okay but that something was amiss in our neighborhood. Afterwards, I cut up a fresh Danish (that my mother had prepared) into nice, bite sized pieces. Snacking a bit, I decided I would use the remaining Danish as fuel for my day. After the 9:00 a.m. feeding, the car I use needed a good cleaning before I felt comfortable putting our son in it, having been used for hauling lumber and home repair items. So, I set out in the garage, baby monitor in hand and began vacuuming out the car. I started to hear noises from the (attached) kitchen and looked to find our dog, Gordo, had reached up on to the counter and devoured my, freshly prepared, Danish. I was really looking forward to that Danish - not a great start. I returned to cleaning the car, performed the 12:00 a.m. feeding and immediately loaded the car with our son to head out on our adventure. We got to our destination, without incident. Some complaining from the back seat reminded me that this could go badly. We entered the store and were met with some friendly admirers, who commented on how perfect our son’s head was – how nice. After picking up part of our needed items, a storm began to grow from the shopping cart passenger. A quick look showed the pacifier had not been included in the cargo, uh oh! Fortunately, I was able to calm him and we finished out our trip in relative calm. On our return to the safety of home, I noticed a growing line of cars across the street and more people coming and going from the house – it appears that our elderly neighbor had passed away. The cars stayed all day and through the night. I was able to work in some needed home repair and landscaping work in my down time, before the next feeding. The baby was fed at 3:00, as prescribed, and a fresh (cotton) diaper applied. For a new experiment, I decided to try out cotton diapers, something we had discussed before he was born. The first diapering was successful, after some considerations on how to actually use the diaper and shell. The 4:00 diaper change went well, a poop. I set the diaper in a bathroom sink to finish the change. When going back to clean the diaper I found it missing. On my search, I found our dog, Gordo, in the living room with the diaper between his paws, enjoying another snack - the shell had made its way outside and rested in the yard. Mom returned just in time for the 6:00 p.m. feeding and dinner; a light pasta and chicken was prepared. By 9:00 p.m., I was finished and fell asleep immediately. Mom tucked me in and kissed me good night. Not a bad first day.