Game Day Dad

A very interesting thing my daughter has started doing is pointing and talking about whatever she’s interested in.  It’s a sign that you should be seeing by around 9-12 months from your little one so I’ve been very relieved that she’s started and started early at that.    If you’ve been talking to your baby, asking them questions and performing repetitive learning tasks like you should you’ll see the same thing.       It’s very rewarding when it starts to happen and life starts to get really interesting.  

You are now communicating

At this point your little person is communicating with you.   Hopefully you’ve taught them “NO!” loudly means stop what you’re doing and perhaps look at your parent.   They might take off and try to do it anyway but they should be at this point.   Our munchkin will pause and slowly point at whatever we don’t want her to touch.   Testing us I gather.

My advice to you is the entire time from day one to talk directly at your baby as if they understand 100% of what you’re saying.  Ask them questions, point at things and talk about them and in general just look goofy.   For one it’s fun and most importantly your baby is learning!   Don’t simply hand them things when they get old enough to begin using their hands make them reach out for it.   All of these excercises strengthen your baby and lead to early communication.

When we were first getting used to having our baby living with us my dad liked to talk about how he could come home and sleep with us jumping up and down on the sofa around him.   He laughed about how he just didn’t care because he was tired and he’d just sleep through it.   I can actually remember that because the man would sleep through anything.    I used to wonder if he was just ignoring us but then he’d snore or roll and it was pretty apparent.  

I was terrified of having a baby feeling like I’d never sleep again.   Every little squeak or rustling that she’d make would have me on my feet and in her room.   If I was in the same room as her I couldn’t sleep.   It was terrible.    Over time things would change and finally it hit a point.   That point looked a little like the following:

We were sleeping

This picture isn’t of that first time.   This is a picture of around the 20th time we fell asleep like this together.   However I can remember the first time it happened.   I was feeding her on the couch and she fell asleep.  I nodded off and my wife touched my shoulder and laughed at me in awe because typically I can’t just fall asleep like that even if I’m alone.   As a parent I imagine we all hit this point where we can sleep together as such.  “Family sleeping” if you will is apparently a natural reaction to having babies.  I think I can safely advise you to get ready for it even if you’re the worst at falling asleep unless perfectly comfortable because I’m that guy.    I can honestly say that since having gotten used to our baby girl I can fall asleep faster than I ever could before.

Further I really enjoy the time together when we fall asleep like such.   It’s soothing to me to hold her and wake up to her being there sleeping.   She also naps longer if one of her parents are holding her which is nice.     It’s a bonding experience that every parent will dread but learn to appreciate with time.

This one is a tough one because there’s no cut and dry answer to it.    There’ll be times when your baby is cranky, tired and just won’t go to sleep.   They’ll just continue to play and/or squirm about with no real reason crying the whole time.   Most of us as guys are fixers and we’re going to sit there with our baby like some sort of screaming rubik cube.   The only problem is this puzzle can’t be solved by holding it and moving it around.

As you’ve had your child for a while you’ll know what their cries and attitudes mean.   You’ll be able to hear the difference between hurt, hungry and being a brat in their voice.     This experience will allow you to know when you can do what I’m saying next.

Let your baby cry themself to sleep in their crib.

My daughter fights her sleep terribly so we’ve had to become masters of this quick.   She doesn’t want to sleep as if she’s scared she’ll miss something.    So sometimes when we’ve tried it all we just let her cry until she goes to sleep.   We monitor her of course and many times we bend and go pick her up but you’ve got to know that option has to be used for your sanity and for your babies growth.

What Doctors Say About Crying

They’ll always say it depends however I’ll tell you what the on call nurse told us when we called about crying.   Our baby had never cried longer than 10 minutes and one night she was just fussing badly for over 30 minutes.   The nurse told us if there wasn’t anything obviously wrong they won’t even worry about it until the baby had cried for over 2 hours continuously.    At around the 1 hour 15 minute mark our little pumpkin went to sleep and stayed down all night.   We attributed it to gas but we’ll never really know because it didn’t happen again.

I bet you’ve never heard a dad say they got beat like a government mule by an infant?  Well trust me you’re going to have days like this.    It seemed a decent blog subject almost as a warning to all you soon to be dads out there that you should know there’s a good chance your baby is flat out going to want mom and nothing you do can make her really happy.  It’s a tough situation when the security net that is mom has to go away for 6 hours and you’re one on one with a cute little angel that turns in to a feisty little crab.  Mom came home and took her at which point she instantly smiled and got cheery for the first time in hours.   I couldn’t help but smile at her, kiss her and 15 minutes later I was sleeping it off like I just did my taxes.   

This has happened to me on average about once a month since our baby was born.   I’ve been alone with her for a long span many times with no problems and we had a lot of fun together but sometimes mom’s the only thing that makes her happy.   All I can do is my best and remind myself that it’s not personal and she’s not out to get me.    I stay calm as possible, feed her, change her and attempt to play with her or put her to sleep.   I reflect on how my mom always made me feel better growing up when nothing else helped.   It’s completely natural  since moms carry us for 9 months and a vast majority of the time spend by far more time with us.   We love our moms and dad I’m sorry but you’re second best.   

I love my baby and wouldn’t trade her for anything but boy she beat me up last night.

This subject is a lot of fun for me and I think a lot of you dads won’t need any advice on this front but it’s still fun to blog about given recent developments with our baby starting to babble out syllables, vowels and “da da” “ba ba” sounds.    We’ve got our baby on the “Your Baby Can Read” videos among other things and we’ve learned a lot on that front about what our interactions should be.   Do not be afraid to make a fool out of yourself and talk about nonsense to your baby at home or in public.   When they start babbling you need to talk back to them and encourage them to make those sounds so they’ll remember them and continue to develop.   The first few years are by far the most important for people to develop.  The video below shows our little one talking to me during feeding time and I talk back to her asking questions and being interactive in general.   I wish I had a better one at the time of thinking up this blog but this will do just fine.   She’s so cute!