Ladies and Gentleman, we have been there with your difficult babies.
X3.
Catie, Sam, and Ellie have earned the nicknames Cater-ator, Sam-a-lam-a-ding-dong, and El Fury (respectively) for their screaming sessions that you could literally hear from the house next door.
We have had the colic. And the acid reflux. And the three-hour crying sessions. Yes, X3.
I have nursed babies who would rather look around the room or fall asleep than eat. I have tried to rock babies who didn’t like to rock (not that they told us). One of our babies didn’t smile until way past two months, prompting me to Google autism. Two of our babies (yes, those two) ran up a $100,000 hospital bill. Our insurance company definitely would not elect them for the Perfect Baby award.
My babies have refused to nurse, and after an hour of trying, when I give up…they scream in hunger as soon as we leave the house. M. once drove up and down the Seawall with a screaming newborn in the backseat. At three a.m. Just to save the sanity of the other guests at the Hilton, Galveston.
One of our babies spit up on its sister’s head. On Christmas.
Another covered my stomach in poop while I was trying to nurse the poor thing. They have turned their noses up at age-appropriate toys, teethed from 3 months straight until their second birthdays, and hated their cribs.
When all else fails, I have Emergency Nursed each and every one of these babies at almost every parking lot on the west side of Houston. I have broken all the rules–nursed them to sleep, shoved a paci in their mouths on their birth day (birth date? the day each was born), and held them until they fell asleep. All to make them stop crying.
We have known difficult babies. And these difficult babies? They grew up to be the most fun, sweetest, most energetic six and three-year-olds you could ever meet.
But, boy. As babies? Hard.
And then we met Nate.
Nate doesn’t like to cry. And why would he? He’s always so darn happy. He loves to smile. He coos while he nurses. He’s just content to be held–and will not cry when he’s in my arms. He eats every three hours. Seriously. It’s uncanny. He’s rarely hungry before and nurses for just about fifteen minutes. And if I can’t feed him right at the three-hour mark? Just put his paci in, and he’ll usually fall right back to sleep.
He truly is the model baby. We are in love.
But I’m a tiny bit worried.
Is it true what they say about “hard baby, easy toddler”? Because we’ve had hard babies (did I mention that?) and (relatively) easy toddlers.
What does that mean?
Is there a chance Nate could be the first easy baby AND toddler?
Dare to dream.
