I was hanging out with some mommy friends and their families yesterday. At one point, while I was feeding Zach, one of the husbands looked up to his wife and exclaimed, “Not It!” She gave a very begrudging sigh, got up and trucked off to change what was apparently a soiled diaper. This started an interesting conversation on the coping mechanisms that we mommies and our spouses had adopted to cope with the lifestyle that is having a new baby in the house… who changes the diapers, who gets up in the middle of the night, who gives the bottle, etc, etc, etc. Evidently there was a whole rule structure to this “Not It!” situation.
Matt and I had a couple unique features to our baby management. And I will warn you ahead of time- husbands, my honey is about to give you a strong run for your money in the “Spouse of the Year” category. Brace yourself.
First, I breast fed for six months plus and some of you may recall that Zach was a gourmet eater meaning, whenever he latched on, I was in for ATLEAST 45 minutes and it went up to an hour and a half at one point. He was slow and steady and took his time. This meant when he was first born I was spending ATLEAST 8 to 12 hours a day just sitting and feeding the baby. In exchange for this time, Matt changed EVERY DIAPER, he was available for, while I was breast feeding. This is generally something we both felt was a fair exchange…
- No matter how many diapers he changed, it still didn’t equal the time I spent feeding the baby.
- Because I was breastfeeding, the diapers were less offensive.
- It didn’t mean I never changed a diaper- there were many times that Matt was busy or away and I did the deed. Whereas he never could figure out how to produce milk from his body.
- Even when Matt was able to give Zach a bottle, that didn’t take NEAR as much time as a breastfeeding session took and usually during those times, I was pumping (which, in my opinion was generally a worse fate than the feeding).
Second, Matt is the one that got up in the night with the baby and you need to hear me out on the reasoning with this one. I am not a good napper nor do I go back to sleep easily after being woken up. Matt does. So early on we fell into a system where when the baby awoke, Matt went in and saw to him. If he needed to eat, then Matt would bring him to me, I would wake up and feed him. While I was feeding him, Matt could go back to sleep (remember, Zach had long feedings…generally longer at night). Then, Matt would get up and take the baby and rock him to sleep and put him back to bed while I tried to go back to sleep. Even with that, Matt would be back and fast asleep LONG before I would be able to drift off again. Matt could also nap during the day far more effectively than I could so he could make up some of his sleep during the day whereas I couldn’t. This system was just better for all of us than anything else. People told me when the baby came to “sleep when the baby sleeps.” When I told them that I wasn’t a good napper they would say, “oh, that will change.” No, it didn’t. And my husband stepped up and stepped in to preserve my sanity and rest.
Man, writing about all of this reminds me that it’s a good thing Zach is as cute and sweet as he is. I will say that since the diaper duty is more balanced these days, Matt tried to implement a “Rock, Paper, Scissors” strategy for soiled diapers but I lost the first time and have since refused to play. Evidently I don’t like when hand gestures decide my fate.
Did you have any interesting rules/ coping mechanisms???
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