Neil Mix

I’d heard all the stories about how much work it is to take care of a newborn. I’d heeded the stories carefully. I knew it was unimaginable, but I had imagined it that way, and thus I was ready.

And yet, 48 hours after bringing my baby home, I couldn’t imagine how I’d imagined this unimaginable way of living. There’s so much they don’t tell you that they should have told me.

Thankfully, I’m going to save you from my mistakes. Listen carefully to the short lessons provided below. If you follow my instructions carefully, I’m certain that caring for your newborn will be a breeze.

With that, here’s a few things the so-called “textbooks” fail to mention:

• Your wife is likely to be tired and require rest in the days after birth. Expect her to move about half as fast as she normally does. A little simple math and you can see that you need to increase your efficiency by 1000% to compensate. Not so simple? Ok, here’s how it works. Baby is the work of one person split between the two of you, that’s 150%. Wife moves half as fast, so add 75%. Now scale appropriately to account for your laziness around the house in pre-kid life. Come on, let’s be honest. 1000%.
• Sleep deprivation and fatigue decrease memory and brain function. In the middle of the night, the effect is quadrupled. This applies to you, not just your wife. I’d ask you to remember this when you two are arguing at 4am over whether to nurse from the right side or the left side, but I’m pretty sure you’ll forget.
• Your wife will likely have restrictions on the weight she can carry, probably about 20 pounds. Of course, your doctor knows that she’s an over-achiever, and will halve that value just to be safe. You’ll take the doctor’s instructions for your wife, halve the maximum weight just to be safe, and therefore demand to your wife that she carry no more than 5 pounds. Your wife will point out that’s less than the weight of the baby, and surely the doctor didn’t say she couldn’t pick up the baby. You’ll discuss, and eventually compromise that wife can carry the baby, but not up and down the stairs. (See notes about reduction in brain function above.)
• Baby is the ultimate interruption. You already know that, but the interruptions compound on each other in unexpected ways. It works like this: you come home with the laundry half done and the dishes half washed. You start finishing the dishes, and baby cries. You help out with baby, and return to the dishes. But on your way you see that the cat dish is almost empty. This reminds you that you have to scoop the litterbox. On your way to the cat food, the phone rings. Mom-in-law is kindly checking in on you. You chat with her, baby cries and needs a diaper change before feeding. So you hand the phone to wife while you tend to baby. After wife is off the phone, you head toward the cat food, but wife reminds you that after baby’s feeding she needs to pump, so the pump gear needs to be washed, and while you’re at it can you carry the laundry basket to the washer (see weight restrictions above). You start washing the equipment and intend to finish the dishes while you’re at it, but before you’re done the doorbell rings — Fed-Ex is delivering a baby gift from your sibling. Baby’s just finished feeding, wife needs to pump, the equipment needs to be cleaned NOW, suddenly this is priority numero uno. You wash the equipment, wife starts pumping, and curiousity is killing you both about the package, so you open it and celebrate new gifts. Baby is sleepy, and as you carry baby to the crib, you can’t help but feel that you’ve forgotten something. The dishes, that’s right, they still need to be finished. And the laundry, that too. This is how you end up choosing to wash a piece of plastic while your cat starves and pees in the basement. Moral: Make lots of lists. If you can remember to.

Scared yet? Don’t be. This final rule will save you:

• Don’t believe the horror stories your guy friends tell you before your baby is born. Fathers like to scare expectant fathers. They enjoy seeing the fear in your eyes. I don’t know why, I suspect it’s some sort biological imperative.

Isn’t that nice to hear? Whew!

Ha! Fooled you! hahahahaha

Boy I wish I could see your face right now.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 25th, 2007 at 9:39 pm and is filed under Fatherhood.