Saturday, November 5, 2011

11. New Member


After nine months baby is finally here. The battle is won, but the war has just begun. When we first saw her during USG she looked so cute and we wondered when we are going to hold her. Now she is here, and she looks prettier, but she looks fragile too. There was no ‘handle with care’ or ‘this side up’ sign! I was afraid to hold her the first time. But I soon got better of my fear and there she was, in my arms. My first lesson – babies don’t break easily.

To start with, there was a big communication gap. She was like a pretty alien. She spoke a strange language named Crying. Hungry-cry…potty-cry…piss-cry, pissed off-cry. I wish they came with an instruction manual; or at-least a Crying to English dictionary. Unfortunately they don’t. But soon we started to understand that language. We could differentiate between the cry that meant she is hungry, the cry that meant change my nappy, the cry that meant I have a stomach ache, or the room is either too hot or freezing cold, and the one that simple meant hold me. I liked the fact that this language had no grammar, I hate grammars. Lesson 2 – crying is babies first language. Know it and the baby is going to speak to you.

We were concerned parents in the beginning. We worried about everything that we could possibly worry about. Is the room temperature right? Is the baby feeding well? What will happen to her in Diwali with all that noise? Why is her tongue always out? Why is she having hiccups for so long? Is she burping properly? How to hold her extra flexible soft neck? Is she having enough sleep? Why is she spitting so much? Most of the time, like for men, a pair of caring arms, or a pair of breasts calms a baby down. Only once was she very cranky and cried a lot. We called the doctor and he recommended some colic drops. 6 drops and she was fine. With time we also calmed down and started enjoying this new phase. We realized spitting isn’t a health problem; it is more of a laundry problem. We realized that as long as she is passing urine more than 7 times a day she is feeding well. Doctor provided us with child development graphs and she was growing perfectly. Lesson 3 - There is nothing to worry, let things flow naturally.


One good thing about Hridhima is that she doesn’t cry much. She is the happiest baby in town…and she smiles a lot. I am sure it is not gas all the time, most of the time it is because she feels comfortable. And the best part, she loves to sleep through the night. She needs a feed only once in the middle of the night, rest of the time she lets us sleep. Who said babies gives sleepless nights? She is such a sweetheart. 


37 comments:

  1. Sub...you are the best daddy....Hridhima would be so proud when she reads this later....I love your new avatar and there is something...even your blog sounded rhythmic like a rap...few days back i wrote a post and people commented it sounded like rap :-D

    hehe manual for babies..boy you are asking for too much...if god had one...he wouldn't be sending babies down on earth :-P

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  2. And i love the photos....she yawns too <3

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  3. Cute..! enjoy big daddy!
    the pic is like step by step process.. she is going to sleep.. she is going to sleep... she slept.. she is dreaming.. :)
    So cute!

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  4. Sucha hands-on Dad, you are:)

    And those pictures! Love the first one and the one in the middle bottom!! She's so cute in all these:) <3 So so very cute:)

    Nazar na lage:)

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  5. Believe me you are blessed, first with a great wife and now with a great daughter. Kids give you sleepless nights...She is the cutest:)

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  6. You have such a cute sweet baby! The pics are just shoooo shweet.
    She really does look like a little angel (and not alien :p).

    As for the post, loved the caring dad being worried about everything.
    She's really going to be very happy some day seeing this.

    And the subtle humour in this post, was great too.

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  7. Hridhima is going to love this!

    touch wood she isn't cranky.thank god for that.
    Tan used to sleep through the day & cry the whole night driving me mad

    the fragile neck - yes initially it does scare us a bit but like you said babies are pretty strong in all ways

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  8. So cute!! Congratulations!! :) Happy parenting :) :)

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  9. :) She looks cute n happy :) Post was great :)

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  10. love the photos :) and smart lessons, you are a good student :)

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  11. You are so lucky that she sleeps at night.

    And didn't we all wish that babies came with an instruction manual?

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  12. I love that yawning photo! So cute!

    It is kind of crazy holding something so small at first.

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  13. Instruction manual? Looks like you are coming out with one!!! :)

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  14. I think most people are a bit frightened first time they hold a baby. Babies are so small, and soft. And soon, very sooon, you might hold your baby steady, because it,s amazing how fast they get so strong that they can twirl themselves out of your arms.. ;)

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  15. @TheBluntBlogger: LOL...thanks so much Chintan :))

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  16. @Krishnapriya: it actually is :)....thanks soo much :)

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  17. @Saru Singhal: Oh I indeed am...thanks soo much :)

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  18. @BHARATHIRAJA: i wish it was that easy :)...thanks a lot :))

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  19. she sleeps through the night.. wow.. i should tell my sister this:P .. you are lucky .. my neice sleeps thru the day and wakes up at night. and the instructions... :) lol, awesome :) .. btw, she is oh so cute, thats goes without me saying so, but she is adorable, a very cute lil bayilicious beauty ... <3 <3 <3

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  20. both the lessons learnt are so cute and my god, aren't we a witty daddy when we say children like men just need some arms and breasts to calm them down:-)

    i loooooooved the line:
    crying is babies first language. Know it and the baby is going to speak to you:-)

    and please don't boast about sleeping well at night too much-babies have this habit of turning around to do otherwise as parents expect them to or like they simply say-nazar lag jaate hain:-)

    mine was a sleep hater till almost 20 months:/
    love to your sweetheart:-)

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  22. i agree what suruchi said.plz keep an ear to her advise.. i dont have parental experience . but yeah i have lived with a little baby .. but she never sleeps before 2 am, till then she just do bed walking ,,keeps a mobile on her ear just the way elders talk on phone while walking. all the day she keeps her mommy busy. u will never find even single good at its own place.thats what she does the whole day. its really very tough. sometimes her mommy doesn't get time for having her own lunch or dinner.

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  23. @Suruchi: will keep that in mind :)

    thanks soo much

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  24. @some unspoken words: yes mam :)

    thankuuu :))

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  25. One thing your wife may notice if you have a second one is the hiccups when she's prego. I didn't notice them the first time around. I just thought it was movement, tapping against me. With the second I noticed a lot more. Hiccups was one of them.

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