My wife and I were either crazy or crazy like a genius mad scientist crazy when we got a dog about 2 months before our son was due. We figured we would have a dog for our son to grow up with, a puppy for us to enjoy while we were stuck around the house, and in a weird way we figured that if we were going to be loosing sleep and changing our life anyway why not go the fully monty?
We got our dog, a miniature schnauzer (he's closing in on 20 pounds - he's at the upper end of what I would call "miniature") he's awesome. We kind of had something else stirring in the back of our heads, we thought taking care of a puppy would prepare us for some of the sacrifice it would take to take care of a kid. Now we didn't believe that a puppy would be all a kid was going be on the scale of sacrifice, but we did think it would get us maybe 20% there, something like that. Boy were we wrong.
I can hear the parents out there laughing right now. I know, I know, ridiculous. Whatever...
Here is what I didn't expect from the little guy, the biggest thing I didn't expect. When we were taking care of our puppy during the first several weeks we got up with him probably 3 times a night to take him outside. He would do his business, worst case we would be back in bed inside of 15 minutes. I expected a kid to take up maybe 30 minutes, feed, change, burp, back in bed, right?
I can get up at night with our baby, but its the length of time that is really draining. He gets up, he's wet, really wet. I change him, he's upset because he didn't get up to get his diaper changed, he wants FOOODDDD!!! I get a new outfit ready, wrap him in a blanket and begin feeding him, 5 - 10 minutes. He eats. This takes about 20 minutes or so. Frequently he falls asleep during the feeding and you have to coax him to finish, I've learned that him falling asleep is not code for he's finished, oh no I made that rookie mistake, that's just him testing you to see if your naive, he'll be back up in 10 minutes demanding more if you call for that trap. So he finishes up I put a new outfit on him, change him again because he has soiled another diaper while eating, another 5 - 10 minutes. You swaddle him, you rock him, then you hear it, yes that is another diaper change. You change his diaper. You put him to bed, with the pacifier, he's content, you crawl into bed, victorious, sleep is your reward, and you drowse off to sleeeepppp, and what was that? Is he crying? Yes, you get back up and you find that he has wet his diaper, another 5 - 10 minutes. He's got another fresh diaper, he's on his third outfit, and he's been feed. Surely he's okay now, he will be good for another 3 hours, you can sleep.
You put him down, breathing short breathes lest he hear your breathing and mistake it for an attempt to sleep on your part and wiz in his diaper again. Carefully, slowly you back away, you get into bed, and you drift to sleep, and your asleep and what was that? He's fussing, not loud just fussing.
WHAT IS IT NOW????
Plan B - turn him over to his momma. She in turn will spend the next 30 - 45 minutes replaying most of the steps you did in the previous hour and a half.
The frustrating part is watching him sleep for 4 - 5 hours the next morning after a feeding and a diaper change.
Ahhh parenthood is gonna be fun.
