My First Failed Night Out

So last night I had my first night as a parent where you are about ready to tear your hair out because your child will not settle down and its the worst possible time. My parents are visiting as you all know and some friends of theirs decided to throw them an open house. Since its a lot of family friends I was invited as well. Eager to get out of the house and show of my well behaved happy baby I said of course i'd go! Originally it was on a night when my husband could come so we would drive separately from my parents, but due to the volcano it was moved to a night where he couldn't come. Still, I wanted to go and my parents assured me it was no problem. So I packed extra things and off we went.

I should have known it was going to be a long evening when he didn't sleep in the car. No, he was wide awake the entire drive. We got there and he was happy and content to be held... until of course he decided to pee through his outfit. He actually managed to miss most of his outfit and pee right onto my mom (how he did that i'm still not sure!). A quick change and feed later we were back downstairs and he was asleep. I thought "oh good, he'll sleep for a while and it will be fine". Nope, no such luck. Within 20 minutes he was awake again and before long, fussing. So, more feeding and then back downstairs again. I thought he'd go to sleep if I walked him a bit and for about 20 minutes he was happy but before long he was wailing and screaming again. So, back upstairs where I stayed for the next hour and a half rocking, feeding, jiggling, walking, etc to get him to calm down. He would calm down for a few moments but then he wanted to eat again. By this point I was in tears just about, feeling like a failure as a parent. Yay hormones...

He did settle a little bit when my step father came and held him. We have no idea why, but Eirik LOVES Jeff. Jeff can hold him and he calms right down. My mom and I both had tried and nothing but Jeff holds him and POOF calm baby. So we went downstairs where he stayed calm while we got a photo of my brother holding him (note here my brother is very anti-baby) and I ate some cake. But, before long it was back upstairs to yes... yet again... feed him. I had bought his pacifier in hopes that he would suck on that and stay calm but that was rejected after about 5 minutes. Finally we got home where I thought to myself that i'd take him upstairs, change him, feed him, and he HAD to sleep. He'd been awake pretty much all evening and I could see the look of utter exhaustion in his eyes. But did he? No. He fussed and squirmed and squawked at me. At this point I broke down, handed him to my husband, and said "put him in the swing". I was pretty much crying as I said it because I felt like a failure and here I was, handing him off to my husband to put in a swing instead of comforting him myself.

He slept for 5 1/2 hours.

I slept for 5 1/2 hours.

Thats the first time since he's been born that i've slept for more then 3 hours... and it felt AMAZING.

My mom said it best today... you just can't tell what they are going to do. A different day he could have been happy as a clam going out but last night he just wasn't having it. You just have to go out and do it otherwise you'll never do anything.