Mad Baby

There's nothing like a screaming baby to make you feel like a failure. I was in a state absolute helpless desperation, watching him cry and cry, unable to find the key to his distress. Pete had rehearsal with the band tonight, so Finn and I were on our own. No big deal. Except that he spent almost the entire time close to inconsolable. Red, shaking, screaming.

Babies cry. I know this. I have even had some experience with it, and I remember how frustrating it is. But now, that baby is mine, plus he's only been home a week, he's on an apnea monitor, and he's a preemie. Everything he does can be cause for worry, if it's out of the ordinary, and we don't even know what ordinary is. This was not ordinary, for him, during this past week.

Was he too hot? Too hungry? In pain? He couldn't give me specifics, just a white hot blur of noise to tell me that something was a bit off. He had been sleeping; he slept for almost four hours. I knew he would be hungry when he woke up. The first thing is always to change his diaper, which I did. Then, to the boob, first with no shield to see what he will do. About half the time now, he'll take it. Nothing doing this time, so I got the nipple hat. He was about six minutes into it before the screaming started again, and it went like this for an hour. On the boob, off the boob screaming. On the boob, off the boob screaming. Check the diaper. On the boob. Repeat. Finally, I gave him a bottle, which he took greedily, then had a wet diaper, a little more time on the boob, another wet diaper, then screaming. He finally calmed down with a little on the shoulder bouncing, had a pretty good boob session, and now he's sleeping on Pete, and I am having a Guinness.

I suppose it would have been mildly amusing to look in the window and see a small crying baby on the floor, and a big crying woman huddled over him, trying to remain calm while holding a pacifier into the gaping maw of his turmoil. All the education, self possession, capability, and big talk just shivers to bits in the face of such raw emotion.