Amelia at 2 weeks old
Taken April 4, 2014
(Not truly "just born", she's 13 days old)
Amelia has a very different temperament than Erika did, as a baby.
Let's just say Erika was a very difficult baby... and that's an under-statement.
She was "high needs" and "colicky" but those words don't truly describe the horror that we faced as new parents.
Friends tried to give us helpful advice, like:
- Swaddle her. Didn't work.
- Rock her. Swing her. Bounce her. Didn't work.
- Take her for a ride in the car, that will put her to sleep. No, it did not.
- Put her in a dark room, or a quiet room. Nope.
- Use a noise machine. Or the vacuum machine. Nope.
- Make a loud "shushing" sound near her ear. It just pissed her off.
Then there was all the "hilarious" advice, like:
- Put the baby down to sleep when they are still awake but sleepy. Hah!!! She just screamed.
- Take periodic breaks for yourself by putting the baby down when you can. Which was never.
- Sleep when the baby sleeps. Which was impossible since you couldn't put her down.
- Socialize the baby by bringing him/her to restaurants and parks and the public... which unless you enjoy a screeching baby, was not a good idea.
Erika screamed from morning until night; at least that's how I recall it. And according to some third party sources who dared to venture into our house, this apparently was true.
She screamed when she was hungry, when she was tired, when she had a dirty diaper, and most of all, whenever we put her down.
She would scream until she fell asleep in an exhausted coma, and when she awoke, she awoke with a ear-piercing "what-the-hell-just-happened-i-think-i-passed-out" scream.
We joke now that she must've been an old soul suddenly trapped in a baby's body: an intelligent mind suddenly stuck in a body that couldn't move on its own, couldn't feed itself, couldn't clean its own butt, and couldn't speak! The horror!
People gave us horrified looks when we confessed that for the first three months of Erika's life, we held her 24/7 and I'm not exaggerating. Between Brian, my mom, and I, we took shifts to hold her in our arms, round the clock, every day. If you examine her head, she has a perfectly shaped head as this "Golden Child" never slept on any surface until she was 3 months old!
Big sister Erika holding Little Sister Amelia.
Taken April 9, 2014
Amelia is different.
She gives out a single "Wahh" when she's hungry, or sleepy, or bored, or has a dirty diaper.
If you take care of it right away, she gives you a contented look and then falls asleep gently with a fluttering of her eyelids.
When she wakes up, she opens her eyes, and looks around (but she doesn't cry! Not unless she needs something)
If you don't respond, she gives a slightly more emphatic "WAH! WAH!" and then stops, and waits.
Waits.
Actually waits. The first time it happened, we looked at each other and couldn't believe it.
Of course if you don't respond, she goes into the baby hysterics, but with Erika, there was none of this. It was screaming, all the time. Like nails on a chalkboard, our emotional nerves were completely shot.
We can actually take Amelia places. Like a street fair, or a restaurant, or go for a walk around the block; because she sits in her stroller and looks at the world with awe. Unlike Erika, she doesn't spend her time just screaming.