New arrival

By
Lekhni
Published: October 7, 2011Posted in: Baby, lekhni

August brought a new addition to the Lekhni family – our daughter S was born.   The days and nights since then have blended together in one sleep-deprived haze.

I am also virtually under house arrest. If we do go out, it seems to invariably be to S’s pediatrician. The trips also involve lugging a huge diaper bag which seems somewhat excessive, but somehow,  within the space of an hour we seem to end up using every single item in the bag.

S and I are now at different stages of life. She is at the stage where she wants to look at people and coo at them.  I am at the stage where I want to ignore her and go to sleep.  It does not help that she likes to coo at 3 am.  It looks like along with her Indian genes, she has also inherited a body clock tuned to IST  :)

My parents are over here to help, and I cannot imagine how I would manage without them.  I wonder how women in the US manage these initial weeks without familial help, it must be overwhelming.

It is also amazing how much stuff a tiny baby needs.  Nearly every room in the house has at least one item of S.  We opted not to put her crib in a separate nursery, so her crib, and a rocker-recliner are in our bedroom, along with diapers, wipe warmers, bottle warmers and so on.  My dresser has been mostly taken over by her. Downstairs in the family room, there is a Play Yard with a bassinet that serves as her crib during the day.  The family room is also littered with a swing, a gym/ play mat, changing pad, various boxes with her diapers, dresses and every imaginable kind of baby product.  Her car seat and strollers are in another room.  One kitchen countertop has been taken over by bottle drying racks and sterilization equipment.  Hand sanitizers are now to be found in every room.  If this is bad enough, I know it is only going to get worse from here – at least the floor is not littered with her toys – yet.

The list of things a baby in the US finds a necessity seems to be rather a long one. I got a lot of help from  Patrix and Ash in navigating the maze of stuff  I needed to buy – Ash sent me a spreadsheet she had which listed the essentials and the desirables, along with suggestions on brand, price etc. which was very useful. R spent a lot of time researching every thing from car seats and strollers to different types of cloth diapers (and that’s a subject for a whole new  post).

I don’t have time for any such research now.  It is not the recovery from the C-section that has been hard, it is the lack of sleep that has made these last few weeks tough to bear.  I sleep in intervals of one and two hours, and for someone who has never missed her eight hours of sleep, whatever the occasion, this is a little tough.  But it is getting better – not because she is sleeping longer, but I am learning to manage with less sleep :)

So there it is, folks, and now I think I am going to take a nap.

 

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