fine whine

I haven’t quite mastered this business of sleeping when the baby sleeps. That phrase seems to appear almost verbatim in all of the books and other materials I’ve encountered about the first few weeks of raising a newborn.

None of them of course suggest any methods to do this, of course. I have a difficult enough time sleeping when my wife sleeps, and she formerly would get many more hours of sleep a night than our daughter does, so far*.

She doesn’t get that much anymore, of course, so I’m trying to make up for it by being rested cooperative, and helpful.

One of the things I try to do is make sure she gets sleep between feedings. Tonight I let Natalya sleep laying on my chest as I watched a movie**, so as to keep her quieter.

It seems that’s the most sure-fire sleep position for her (and sometimes Jessica too), but I haven’t quite gotten the hang of dozing off with this tiny little baby laying on me.

There’s really no way to describe what’s going through my head as she lays there, occasionally burping or grunting and shifting around. She’s a person, a little person, and I’m her dad.

These things take some time to sink in, you see, and I’m more than aware that all too soon she’s going to be too big or too, well, not a newborn, to be falling asleep on me. Until then, though, I’ll probably do this sort of thing a lot, prevailing advice or not.

* “So far” being somewhat of a laughable conceit since she’s only three days old.

** That movie being 50 first dates, which I may discuss later when I’m not trying to be heartfelt and sincere.