Being a parent is the most difficult job for me until now. Things have changed drastically since 27 July, my baby’s birthday. It has been one month and a half. Sleepless nights, trying hard to calm the baby but fail, he couldn’t fall asleep, crying,… It’s a full-time job. Full-time means 24/7. No rest day, no weekend.
The most difficult duration was the first month. When everything is new. There are so many things we didn’t know: how much the baby should eat, how to nurse with breastfeeding, how to change a diaper without making interrupting him, how to make the baby fall asleep, how to calm him when he’s crying, how to bathe him,… but the most frustrating thing is we didn’t know why he was crying.
We didn’t know it’s that hard. We all hope the baby should be easy. But I guess all of the parents have to experience this period when they first being parents.
Luckily that we decided and took the risk to go back to Viet Nam. If we’re still in Singapore, I couldn’t imagine how difficult it is. It’s even challenging here with our parent’s help. Of course, our parent isn’t taking care the baby but they help on the food and washing clothes. And when we need their help with the baby urgently, they can do it. Staying here, we don’t have to worry about food - a job that takes too much time.
Now the baby is 1.5 months old. He seems easier and calmer. He could play with himself, he’s trying to talk more, observe more, and acting more. And our parents can play with him easily. Just need to seat next to him and talk to him, he will be quiet and respond. I can say he’s now easy. There’s only one struggle is how to make him fall asleep. Seems difficult but still OK. We got used to it and we developed some method to calm the baby. No method can apply all the time, so we need some variants and trying so new methods.
Every baby is different in the way that makes them fall asleep. For example, my wife’s sister, got a baby after us one month. And their baby is super easy to go to sleep. He only needs food. When his stomach is full, he will fall asleep automatically, without any help from their parent. I called him baby angle. Because he’s too easy.
For us, we need to try very hard and sometimes, almost gave up. Sometimes, I just wanted to throw him over the windows because he doesn’t want to sleep and he fighting against it. Luckily, the important thing is that I didn’t. That’s the advice I got from Austin Kleon from this article on lifehack.
None is good at something if they don’t practice it. Being a parent is the same. We will get used to it. All we need is persistence.
I’m a parent, at 29 years old.
The baby is sleeping inside the room, with his mother. Today is a rainy day. Hopefully, he will have a long well sleep.
Danang, Vietnam, Sep 12, 2021
