Eric Warmenhoven: I ve decided to take up parenting as a hobby
My son Andrew is now ten weeks old, and already I ve learned so much. For example
Being a good parent occasionally means being a proper adversary
It s much harder than you might expect, and happens more often than you might expect. A pacifier is an excellent way to calm him down, especially when he has gas pain (and a pacifier can also reduce the risk of SIDS); however, he would let it fall out of his mouth when he wasn t sucking on it. Rather than hold it in, if you tug on the pacifier a little bit, it teaches him how to suck on it so it doesn t fall out.
Sometimes what s best is actually not so good
Andrew has a food allergy, but we re not exactly sure what he s allergic to. For the last couple weeks, he s been on Nutramigen, a hypoallergenic formula specifically for babies with food allergies, and has been responding really well. Meanwhile, Lisa s been on an elimination diet, eating mainly chicken and rice, trying to get everything he might possibly be allergic to out of her system so she can start nursing again. Recently, Lisa started nursing at an occasional feeding, and he coincidentally seems to have gotten more fussy. He s not screaming in pain like he was before going on the formula, and it s hard to say that it s because of the breast milk. Still, we re thinking about going back to just formula and seeing if he improves again.
I read too much
When I was a child, and still to this day, I had pretty severe sleep problems. I didn t sleep through the night until I was 18 months old. So before Andrew was born, Lisa and I read a few books about how to establish a healthy sleep pattern. All of them had various theories about why children develop sleep problems, and how to quiet a baby and establish a routine. Now we re so full of conflicting theories about problems that will develop if we do or don t follow some guideline, that it s hard to make a decision about what s best sometimes. It doesn t help that, in part due to his food allergy, he ll sleep through the night one night, and the next night wake up every few hours. Fortunately, only one feeding in the middle of the night has been the norm for quite some time, so it hasn t been too bad.