A Father’s Diary

When we hear stories about small babies having a separate room and sleeping alone all night long, we find it very hard to believe.

We are still waiting for the day when tabi will sleep on her own, without any “assistance” from mama or papa. She always needs someone to make her sleep. Either it has to be mama to wrap her in arms and feed her and sing to her and calm her down and finally make her sleep, or it has to be papa to carry her in a sling, or make her lay down on his shoulders and hum to her and make her sleep.

Making the baby sleep has become a daily ritual and one of the parents have to perform it. Not only we have to make her sleep, but she also needs someone to sleep next to her to keep on sleeping. If we leave her alone on the bed or her crib to do anything else, she will be up within few minutes. Then you have to start over again. Very rarely it happens that tabi sleeps for a couple of hours without having anyone sleeping next to her, and we consider ourselves extremely lucky when that happens. We have read many articles that suggest you should leave your baby alone and let her cry. Eventually she will fall asleep. We have tried this and it doesn’t work. We let her cry for few minutes but the intensity of crying keeps increasing until we can’t take it anymore. We are left with no option but to pick her up and make her sleep. We are parents, you know. We can’t see our baby crying like that.

Is our baby really spoiled? Are we making it worse?

No matter how hard we try, there is no way tabi is feeding through a bottle. We have tried everything. Used all kinds of bottles, tested keeping her hungry for a while, but nothing seems to be working.

We support breast-feeding wholeheartedly but there are few rare occasions when it is not practical. Even in those situations we strive to breastfeed the baby by expressing the breastmilk in a bottle and feeding her through it, but that has never worked because she would not take the bottle. She has gotten so used to exclusive breast feeding that she wouldn’t accept anything else.

We hope that after she is has crossed the 6-months mark and started having solid food, things will get better. In the meantime, do you have any ideas how to make the baby bottlefeed?

My brother in-law is visiting us. He has got two little daughters, one is 3-years old and other around 7 months old, just a few months older than tabi.

Needless to say, our home is a commotion. tabi has always been a very social baby. She likes it when there are people around her and never cries when someone carries her. So she is very excited to see to people in our home. She has made friends with GJ, her 7-month old cousin. They both talk in gibberish and we have no idea what is being discussed.

Because of the guests we go out every single day and stay out late night. The only problem with that is changing her diapers and feeding her (when we are at places where there is no decent feeding place for babies). Ever since she turned four months old, she has started looking at things with great interest. Every day she sees new things and is dazzled by so many objects in her little world. I am sure she has so many questions in her little mind about why things are like they are, but alas she is unable to speak right now.

I am sure she will drive us crazy when she starts speaking. At the moment GJ and tabi are enjoying each other’s company.