Routine. Routine, routine, routine, routine.
This. It took us 8 months to get it sorted but now our little boy just about begs to be put to bed and he sleeps 10 hours a night without a sound.
This. It took us 8 months to get it sorted but now our little boy just about begs to be put to bed and he sleeps 10 hours a night without a sound.
Like all the other papas here say, BE SENSITIVE TO YOUR WIFE. Be aware that as your wife breast feeds (if she does) her hormones are still rocking to a different beat every hour. Let complaints roll off your back. Sometimes things won't make sense to you, but go with the flow. Afford her tons of generosity and selflessness. Clean the house for her, offer to take the baby so she can sleep, draw her a bath to soak in with candles and bubbles. Take her on a romantic date if she's up for it so she feels like she's still got it even though she may complain about her body often. Make her life easy and sweet and yours will be good.
Also, for a bit of relief... listen to Garrison Keilor's Fatherhood tale: http://www.publicradio.org/tools/media_player/popup.php?name...
Enjoy being daddy! It's absolutely wonderful. You will forget about working overtime. You'll want to spend any and all free time with your little one. Cheers!
Didn't your wife find that her breasts were painfully engorged by not feeding the baby all night?
Hilarious. I don't have a wife w a baby, but I can totally see how that situation would come up a lot.
Well, and never mind the hormones (though both parents will have a lot of these going on) -- breastfeeding quite literally takes a lot out of you. She will have more to do, but less energy than she's used to.
Just do everything you can, and then more, and look for the humor to put a smile on your face (and hers) whenever you can. It gets easier as you go along.
We are incredibly lucky, since 10 weeks old, baby Cameron has been sleeping a minimum of 8 hours a night.
Sometimes it takes 10 weeks, sometimes it takes 8 months, either way, it's worth the effort.
Kids thrive on routine.
The problem some parents have with their children is they try to change the way the children behave to something other than what they learned from their parents.
If they are the type to go out, party, invite friends over and stay up late, etc, then they should expect their children to emulate that. It's when the parents want their children to behave differently that you have a problem. This is all purely my own experience.
My sister gets in a panic if the kids aren't in the bath at a particular time, aren't in bed on routine haven't finished a meal at the set time, etc.. PITA I say.
We've had problems now that J has gone to school. We couldn't keep the same sleep regime as we had to be up to get to school.