After living with an infant for 10 & 1/2 weeks, life is starting to feel normal again. We’re starting to get into a routine and I’m becoming brave enough to venture out into the world with the little guy alone.
Previously the trick was timing. Lucius was eating every two hours and taking about 30-45 minutes to eat. So this would give us about an hour to bundle up, run out, then run home again before the little guy became fussy. Add travel time, traffic, getting in/out of the car, and you quickly discover an hour isn’t much time at all. This is where I miss being just an adult. It use to be easy to just get in the car and go. No prior planning required. Just grab purse/keys/jacket and off I went. I understand this will come again with time, but for now it’s a semi-delicate balance of: change the baby, feed the baby, is he content?, okay, let’s roll!
I do love having a little shopping buddy and have found him to be helpful at softening the harsh attitude of Jerseyites. Everyone loves babies! People will smile at us in stores rather than just pretending other shoppers don’t exist. Clerks actually offer useful assistance and are pleasant, rather than act like we, the customer, are a burden.
It’s helping that he is gets older and more accustomed to this great big world. As he’s gotten bigger so has his stomach, which has helped him go longer between eating and he’s becoming a more efficient eater. He does still likes to nurse to sleep and will nurse to center himself when overwhelmed by a new place.
We tried a babies music class on Monday. Lucius was very chill for the first 10 minutes before class started as he studied the other moms, their babies and the new place. Once class started, that was it. He began fussing and squirming, wriggling his little body around to try to latch on to my clothed breast. Not being familiar with behavioral expectations for a guy this little, I was worried we’d need to leave. The teacher politely informed me we were welcome to nurse wherever we were comfortable. We left the group to nurse, but remained close enough to listen to the class. While nursing, Lucius could hear the songs and activity. He looked up and smiled at me several times while trying to eat. This made for a very distracted nursing session, but it was fun to see him excited to return. After about 10 minutes of nursing, he was ready to return to the group and participate in the songs and games. Boy did he participate! He blew bubbles and tried singing along. He impressed the teacher by successfully holding resting tones at the end of a couple songs. She said babies this young usually can’t do that. And he stayed awake through the entire class. Apparently this is also unusual for babies because of all the stimulation.
Last night Lucius decided he was no longer content with our previous routine of nap, diaper, look around, diaper, nurse, repeat. Took us a few minutes to figure out he was bored. Oh no! A new thing to upset him! He quickly settled with some “airplane” and lots of silly noises and smiles. But it reminded me of all our baby classes – the little guy is going to keep us on our toes. As soon as we get use to him as he is, he’ll grow and change a little, enough to throw us off for a day and remind us to stay sharp and adapt. Just need to remember that if that tool (or swaddle blanked) didn’t work last time, it’s probably time to try it again!
