Let’s start at 5am. Not because it’s the start of the day. There is no start to your day. There is no end. It’s just one long, never-ending, mind-melting continuum of time from the minute you come home from the hospital until…. dunno, I’ll let you know when I get there.
5am
You’ve been sleeping for 40 glorious minutes when you are woken by the bleating of your baby in the bassinet next to you. You swear you fed her about 15 seconds ago. You’re pretty sure your left eyeball is bleeding because when your eyes are open non-stop for three weeks, they start to crack and peel from exposure to the elements.
You stick your baby on your boob while you sit up in bed. It used to hurt like a bitch but your nipples are now completely numb because the incessant feeding has toughened them into a pair of nice leather coasters. Your nipples are now like the soles of Tarzan’s feet. You could climb a palm tree with those boobs.
You try really hard not to fall asleep on the baby. You drift off for a few seconds and wake in terror, swinging your arms wildly trying to find the baby, panicking you’ve just suffocated her with your obscene boobs.
You locate the baby who is still attached to your boob and breathe a sigh of relief because you are a wonderful mum who will never sleep with your baby in the bed because it’s so dangerous. Close your eyes for two seconds.
Wake up 90 minutes later.
WHERE’S THE BABY!? Oh. Right there. Still on your boob, sound asleep and sucking away at what now looks like an empty plastic bag. Meanwhile, your other boob is a boulder that is leaking milk all down your pyjama pants.
Try to pull the baby off your footy sock boob. i.e. unleash the beast.
6.45 – 7.30am
Rocking, shushing, patting, bouncing, walking, singing, begging, pleading, cajoling, crying (both of you)….
7.30am
Finally put baby down in bassinet and creep out in a special kind of sideways ninja crab manoeuvre so the baby can’t sense the shift in atmospheric pressure as you depart. Carefully pull the door shut, so slowly you’re not sure it’s actually moving, but don’t make a sound because despite all the books saying newborns love a bit of background noise, you apparently have the only baby in existence who wakes to the sound of dust mites munching their way through the bed sheets.
Shuffle silently towards the shower and step under the sweet, sweet relief of scalding hot water.
Immediately turn shower off because you hear the baby cry.
Nope, false alarm. Turn the shower back on. WAIT! That’s totally a baby crying…. nope, still no cry, STOP! Now I definitely hear it. Nup, nothing there.
Continue this excruciating game until the hot water runs out and you have wasted half of naptime. And you didn’t even get to wash your hair.
Consider popping on a pair of jeans and a nice top but before you realise what’s happening you’ve donned a clean pair of pyjamas. It’s for the best.
Creep back to check on the baby who looks like a sleeping angel.
Feel your heart swell with love and pride, right as the baby lets rip with a gut-churning fart.
Her little eyes snap open and her arms and legs shoot out in fright.
Dissolve into fits of hysterical, delirious laughter because watching a baby wake herself up with her own fart is the funniest thing you’ve ever seen. Then burst into tears because the baby is now awake and pissed.
7.45am
Try to wrestle hysterical child onto your boob. She comes at you with a gnashing mouth and wild eyes and you have a brief moment of horror because it looks like something out of Alien is about to devour your chest.
Flop onto the couch and let her fall asleep on the boob even though you know you’re not supposed to do that because it’s a sleep crutch and she’ll need to be fed to sleep until she’s 15 years old and you’ll never get a full night’s sleep again and she’ll probably become a sociopath but you figure you can break the habit some other day. Right now you just want to sit and enjoy the silence.
Look lovingly at your baby and notice her scalp is moving. HOLY SHIT.
Google: “pulsating fontanelle”
All is ok. Perfectly normal.
Close your eyes for ten minutes and then feel guilty because surely you’re supposed to be gazing lovingly into your baby’s eyes, or lying on the floor for tummy time, or reading Shakespeare and listening to Chopin because you’ve read that you need to provide an enriching and stimulating environment for your little snowflake or condemn them to a life of mediocrity and disappointment.
Google: “fine motor skills activities for newborns”
Discover your three week old still doesn’t know how to pick things up and realise you are a complete failure. Open a therapy bank account in your baby’s name. Wonder how often she’ll talk about you in her sessions….
8.30am
Lay baby down so you can have a stimulating chat. Realise you have nothing to say. But that’s ok because it seems she’s perfectly content to stare at the ceiling fan. Feel slightly rejected but relieved she’s happy for now.
Enjoy the brief silence before the air is ripped open by a guttural symphony that sounds and smells like a blocked sewer bursting open. Marvel at how unconcerned the baby seems to be sitting in a pool of her own scum.
Pick up the baby only to discover that pool of scum is EVERYWHERE. Curse the nappy for not doing its job. Curse the outfit for being so white. Curse mother nature for only giving you two hands. It’s surely a flaw in the design.
9.30am
Disinfect kitchen sink.
Google: “washed baby’s arse in kitchen sink + baby poo + food preparation areas + infection risk”
10.30am
Baby has been asleep for 20 whole minutes. Switch on kettle. Baby wakes immediately. Wonder if she has a special spidey sense for “mummy is relaxing”. Make mental note to mark this achievement in her as yet unopened baby book (SPOILER ALERT: you’ll never remember)
Feed her again.
11.30am
You’ve spent forty minutes trying to put baby back down for a sleep. She is screaming so hard she stops breathing a few times. Scream back at baby to BREATHE GODDAMN YOU! Acknowledge that may have been a step too far. Recognise you’re up against a master of manipulation. Accept defeat.
Start tearing house apart, looking for the dummy your Aunty Meg bought you for your baby shower. You didn’t want it. Nipple confusion, teeth issues etc. But you’re starting to think it couldn’t hurt for a couple of weeks, right? So long as you only let her use it when she’s really upset. And never, ever in public. If no one ever sees it, it’s like it never happened, right?
Tear open the pack and stick it right in her mouth. Then realise you didn’t sterilise it and frantically pull it back out, but it’s too late. You’ve infected her for sure. And now she’s screaming even harder. Run the dummy under hot water with one hand while jiggling screaming baby with the other and try to reason with yourself that babies in rural Afghanistan don’t get sterilised dummies. Ignore the small voice telling you that babies in rural Afghanistan also die.
Google: “unsterilized dummy”
Google: “nipple confusion”
Google: “breaking the dummy habit”
Google: “babies in rural Afghanistan”
12.30pm
Baby is asleep. Finally make yourself some breakfast. Hello Nutella on toast. You’ll have time for nutritionally sound meals soon. Right?
Pick up a book. Read the first page eight times. Still have no idea what it’s about. Decide you’d really rather watch TV.
Before you sit down, you decide to check on the baby. She’s very quiet and very still. You’re not entirely sure she’s breathing so you dangle precariously over her face, trying to hear her breathe. Consider getting a mirror to hold in front of her nose.
A piece of your hair falls and smacks her right in the face. Because even your hair hates you and wants you to die a grim, painful, sleep-deprived death.
Feed baby.
1.30pm
Consider going for a walk in the fresh air.
Spend an hour packing, preparing, double-checking and dressing.
Go to push pram out the front door at the exact moment she shits herself, her clothes and the pram bassinet. Burst into tears and decide you’d really rather watch TV anyway.
2.30pm – 6.30pm
Sit on couch. Feed baby. Watch TV. Repeat.
Take hundreds of cute photos of baby on phone so you can send to the grandparents and tell them all how marvellously you’re coping.
6.30pm
Daddy comes home. Hand child over and go and hide in the pantry so you can eat biscuits in silence while he bathes the baby. Feel slightly pissed off that the baby is happy and quiet for daddy.
Google: “how to tell if your baby hates you”
7.30pm – 10.30pm
Feed baby. Try to put her down for bedtime but realise you could spend two hours settling her in a dark room or you could just hold her on your chest while you sit next to your husband, having “us time” which is actually just sitting silently next to each other watching TV and trying not to fall asleep.
10.30pm – 5am
Crawl into bed and “go to sleep” which is code for “have a series of short, barely useful naps in between feeds and nappy changes in the dark while husband snores blissfully beside you”.
5am
Good morning!
Stay tuned for the next edition: 24 hours with a newborn and a toddler
Like The Thud on Facebook or on Instagram for more on life with a newborn. And a toddler. And eye bags. And leaky boobs….
24 comments
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OH MY GLOB! You make the stay at home for 9 months a little more bearable :’D
I have a 3 year old and a 2 month old (next week) and life is really similar to what you so hilariously describe here. And the bit about how the little one wakes herself up with her farts, that killed me! (from laughter).
Please don’t stop writing or i will DIE (literally) hehe.
I thought this really accurate and an amusing, laugh out loud piece… Until the part of the husband snoring blissfully beside the author of the piece. Despite the hell you are conveying, try to give us at least a modicum of credit… As a new dad of 13 weeks, I’ve had enough of the veiled digs. Give us an ounce of appreciation for our unending support!! Thanks
Bahahaha!!! Thanks Callum. Not a veiled dig. It’s my actual life.
I haven’t laughed so much in a long time. Can you write one about health visitors? ? Please … haha
[…] you thought 24 hours with a newborn was […]
Love this. And thank goodness for the pictures of your little cuteness overload inserted in just the right places (i.e. before you start thinking ‘why would anyone do this’).
I’m not sure I want to read the toddler and newborn edition haha. I think I will just cover my eyes, block my ears and sing. It can’t be that bad…right?!
Hahaha.
xx
Hahaha Krissy, I’m going to send you the toddler version and force you to read it because there’s no going back now!!!
This is so accurate and hilarious! I am at the tail end of three children (my youngest is nearly 1) so it’s all very fresh in my memory. We are definitely not having any more. The sleep deprivation and constant screaming sealed the deal! The days do pass by quickly though and as much as people say ‘enjoy it while it lasts’, the first birthday cannot come fast enough. 😉 I’ll enjoy it again when I look back at all those thousands of baby pictures I took. You are doing a great job. If you managed to eat something and everyone is alive you’re winning!
I’m just coming to grips with two kids so three seems like a superhero effort, Corrine!
OMG LAUREN!!!! I am in tears I laughed so hard at.every.single.line hubby is sitting next to me on the couch with bub asleep on his chest thinking I have COMPLETELY lost my mind.
Everything. Everything you have written is everything I have been going through with my 10 week old except when it was happening to me it wasn’t any where near as funny!
Thank you, for the best laugh I’ve had in ages
?
It’s always much funnier when it’s happening to someone else Sam! Plus, you’re totally sleep deprived so you’re bordering on delirious so everything is either traumatic or hilarious. There is no middle ground.
Good luck with the next few months Sam! It gets better. Then it gets worse. Then it gets better again. Then it gets worse…
Hahaha! I like the Ninja maneuver above them all!
I’m a ninja master!
Just booked myself in for an emergency hysterectomy. Thanks.
Hahaha! very similar to my response. If I needed a reminder of why I’m not having any more kids, this was it 😉
Oh Lauren, hang in there and keep on with the amazing posts.
Ha! With number two in her clingy koala stage while I run after number one, all I can think is how easy it was with just a newborn. Why did I think this was all so hard?
And why do I think I could go back for a third? What’s wrong with me?
I am so with you Lauren!! The poo explosions are the worst! We had one today at the hairdresser – I was all like “Mummy is totally winning at life, I’m at the hair dresser, gonna look fab, baby is behaving”… and then BAM! The days just seem to disappear into a never ending cycle of feeding, nappies, trying to get the baby to sleep – and then it’s time for the next feed again!!
Cant wait for your next post 🙂
Babies are much more cunning than we give them credit for. They know exactly when to time their poonamis.
Oh Lauren, I laughed so hard… because it isn’t happening to me 🙂
I would laugh too if I’d had more than 3 hours unbroken sleep.