Late Night Feedings

Late Night Feedings: Give up large chunks of your sleep for the next several weeks (if not months) to get up and feed your newborn?  To be honest, not something I was looking forward to. Well, if you've never done this before (or perhaps its been a few years and you've forgotten) here are a few different things you can expect to experience.  In the beginning, you never actually get to sleep.  Instead you lie just on the edge of wakefulness waiting for the cries to come through the monitor.*  When they do come and you go to the baby's room you can never be sure what exactly will be waiting for you.  Here are few options:

- A hungry baby, who eats and then goes back to sleep.**
- An upset baby because his hand or foot has come unswaddled
- An upset baby because he is completely swaddled
- A tired baby that is so tired it can't get to sleep.***
- A hungry and tired baby.  One that is so hungry it can't sleep for the hunger pains, but at the same time is so tired it can't stay awake to actually drink its bottle.****
- A completely wide awake baby who is looking for entertainment

This list is obviously incomplete.  But the best part is that the Bean is only five days old and this list is compiled from the things that happened on just the first night home.  Here are a few of the other options I'm really looking forward too:

- Poop Everywhere!
- You stumble into the room to find the baby is asleep.  You stumble back to bed and as soon as your head hits the pillow he starts crying again.
- A hungry baby, only you forgot to make enough bottles to last the night.
- A sick baby
- A baby that won't stop crying for no reason at all!

Lest I have scared off some of you from attempting the joys of parenthood later in life, let me finish with this. After you've finished feeding, changing, reswaddling, whatever the baby and you're sitting there in the dark, half awake, with their little head leaning against your shoulder, while you listen to the soft sound of their breathing, all the rest of it doesn't matter.

Besides, sleep is for losers.

Late Night Feedings: B-

* - Later it gets to the point where you never actually wake up and you zombie stumble around in the dark.  I'm honestly not sure which is worse.
** - Pray for this one
*** - I know, sounds like an impossibility.  It makes even less sense at 2 A.M.
**** - When you get in this situation, just give up