The First Night

Our first night with Charlie at home...we had no idea what to expect, and there was no way to be really prepared for what we were about to encounter. Our first mistake was having him sleep in a portable crib at the foot of our bed. Our original plan was to have Charlie sleep in our room for the first several weeks, since he would need to nurse every few hours. However, for the first week or so of Charlie’s life, he would breathe with a very loud wheezing noise whenever he slept. The nurses said he was okay, but now having him home we were constantly nervous. We felt the need to get up and check to make sure his chest wasn’t caving in or his mouth wasn’t blue. That first night, Jason (being the amazing husband that he is) really wanted to help me rest and recover, so he continued to waive me back to bed whenever Charlie needed to be checked on. Charlie would go back and forth between wheezing and crying, so Jason was in and out of bed constantly between 11 pm and 3 am. He was holding him, changing diaper after diaper, and even finger feeding him so I didn’t have to get up to nurse him. Finally it got to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore. I felt so bad that Jason was taking on all of the load. I opened the door into the bathroom where I found him leaning over the counter, with his head on his arms in complete surrender. I peered above his head and could see Charlie had pooped a good amount on his swaddling blanket. Come to find out he had also peed all over his other one (we only brought two with us - such young and naive parents we are). So here we were at three in the morning, with nothing to wrap him in. There was definitely some tension felt at this point from all of the exhaustion.

I found out the next morning what had happened to the first swaddling blanket. After several diaper changes, Charlie had started crying again in his crib. Jason went to pick him up and found that his blanket was completely drenched with pee. He brought Charlie to the changing area, opened the blanket, and was shocked to see there was no diaper to be found. He ran back to the crib determined to find the missing wet diaper, but it wasn’t in there. At last, he realized due to his complete exhaustion, the last time he had changed Charlie he had forgotten to put on a new diaper. He had just wrapped him up without one and put him to bed. After this experience, I can see why Jason was in such dismay when the second blanket got messed on as well.

Shortly after I got up to help Jason at three, my mom came in to see if she could help with anything. Without any more swaddling blankets, she helped us wrap him in a towel and started a load of laundry for us.

We survived our first night, but it wasn’t pleasant...especially for Jason. Ever since, we have let Charlie sleep in another room and have used a monitor to wake us whenever he starts crying. Excluding two or three, nights have been a lot better since then and we don’t have to worry about Charlie’s loud breathing.