“She’s been fussy since Friday.”
“It’s Thursday.”
“Yeah. That’s why we’re calling again.”
24×7 nurse support can sometimes only be so helpful.
It’s amazing how parents cope with a fussy child. It is our job to work our way through every scenario and in the simplest of terms, make things better. To soothe. By any means necessary. The options aren’t radical and the permutations often fit on a 3×3 grid. She needs to be changed. She needs to be burped. She needs to be fed. At least that’s where the problem solving starts. In the heat of the moment, with tears flowing and lungs swelled, you can sometimes forget or overlook one of the options or frustratingly, choose the wrong order. Yet with practice you have a roadmap that becomes second nature, and with a better understanding of your baby’s fidgets and cries, you even get pretty good at knowing where to start.
But not always, at least for us at 5.5 weeks, not yet. Even soothing sometimes takes you off the beaten path. What we have learned over the past week is that sometimes, maybe (just maybe) she’s just looking for, someone to dance with.
(Bonus points if you’re like Astaire overseas.)
Suneet Bhatt 