It Gets Easier. Or Does It?

Around the two-month mark of a baby’s life, there comes a magical moment before which life was a lot like holding down a fort during a zombie apocalypse. Swarms of attacks swept through every orifice of the stronghold. There was barely enough ammunition to go around and clearly not enough imagination to predict the possible surprises coming up next. For the sake of our “high-value asset”, no amount of sacrifice was off the table. As we continued to fend off the unrelenting and increasingly innovative onslaughts, none of which was sanctioned by the Geneva Convention, our morale dwindled and the hope for relief slipped further away.

Out of nowhere, that day came. Suddenly, life felt much quieter, more regular, and a bit more under control. We had more energy, more laughter, and more time to ourselves. It became more possible to follow the thousand rules and best practices of caring for a baby, given the thousand potential ways the baby might respond to each.

Could this be it? Could this be the end of the tunnel? Could the three of us now hold hands and ride off into the sunset?

Not So Fast.

While our life became qualitatively and quantitatively better, I was well advised by fellow dads to rein in my optimism as this trend would not last very long. Of course, as babies grow, they become accustomed to our cares, to the daily tasks, and to the fact that they are out of the wombs and there is no backsies. At some point, a hopeful silhouette of some kind of routine begins to appear, one that any sane parent would relish and celebrate.

Then, as the babies keep growing, that semblance of a routine fades like a mirage. Their previous “skills” seem to become unlearned somehow. They start to have sleep regression, bottle aversion, and fussy phases. The task that used to run like a well-oiled machine now takes forever to complete, if at all. The parents invariably find themselves scrambling once again to meet these new challenges, leaving many confused, dejected, and resentful.

My wife and I, on the other hand, were blessed to have received a book from our friend that forewarned us of these setbacks. So, we were spared from the confusion, dejection, and resentment (to a certain extent). We understood that those were sure signs of a baby’s development and inevitable consequences of her growing brain and expanding senses. However, that did not spare us all the additional effort to help her cope with life again and again.

With More Growth Comes More Responsibility

Regressions aside, once our baby graduated from her newborn status, new challenges naturally arose. With her increasing awake time, she was no longer content with lying quietly on her own while we proceeded with our daily tasks. She needed more attention, cuddling, deliberate stimuli, and meaningful playtime. As much as we enjoyed spending time with her, we inevitably needed better strategies for managing our schedules in order not to drop the ball on other parts of life.

Then came the problem of swaddling. No worries if you don’t know what that is, because I didn’t either until my baby was born, oops. Basically, it’s wrapping the babies like burritos so their arm-raising reflex won’t wake them up all the time. In another word, no swaddling, no sleep (for most newborns). As useful as it sounds, when a baby gains more strength, swaddling is no longer safe because reasons, hence the need to unswaddle them. And you can probably guess what a dreadful journey that is.

Internet to the rescue! I opened one of the first search results on how to unswaddle a baby for sleep and was baffled by its matter-of-fact procedure, which roughly goes like this: Step 1, swaddle only one arm; Step 2, Tada! I mean, technically yes, but somewhere in between, I’m dealing with a kid doing 360° turns in her crib while making all kinds of noises until she bursts into outright wails. What’s the advice on that? I don’t hear anyone giving suggestions for hot-dog eating contests like “Day 1, eat 40 hotdogs in 10 min. Day 2, double that and claim your price.”

We eventually (kind of?) figured it out after many trials, errors, more errors, pulling of hair, research, and sleep interruptions. While we are at it, we managed to move her to her own room and throw sleep training in the mix. Now, we are still stumbling to get her sleep through the night, and desperately hope she doesn’t “grow” to the point that renders all our effort moot again, but we’ll just have to see.

The More The Scarier

And of course, that’s not all. Somewhere down the road, she will be teething, which means less sleep, possible fever, and more fussiness. When she starts on solid food soon, that will be a battle on its own. At some point, she will learn to talk, and with that, talk back. What’s more, she will go through the necessary steps to test and learn her parents’ boundaries, so that’s fun. She will then learn to deal with social situations, and thereby conflicts. She will have to face the joy and woes of her teenage years with a still-developing self-image, and there’s no way I’m letting her deal with that alone. And oh, don’t even get me started on high school.

Look, I know. I’m jumping ahead (a lot) and looking only at the negatives. I was raised as an engineer, so let’s call it a professional hazard. Don’t get me wrong, for I have tasted and will continue to cherish the sweetness of growing with my daughter. I’m having the best time here. But it doesn’t mean things will necessarily get easier, and neither should they! More importantly, neither should my joy and hope ever hinge on the ease of life.

The word on the street is, “It doesn’t get easier. It gets different.” Our lives keep changing, so why should hers be any different? Meanwhile, we get to savor and treasure these fleeting moments, joy and pain alike, even if an easier tomorrow is not guaranteed. What we CAN control and carry forward to tomorrow with relative certainty, are our resilience, abilities, and capacity to grow.

What was it that JFK said? “Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.”

~ Du