Thanks for this. For my part, I have a daughter who is almost 1 year old now. I endorse / also experienced pretty much everything you describe here, e.g. I didn’t change much as a person either.
The sleeping in shifts thing sounds good. I wish we had done something like that. Instead, I just did all the night feedings, and also took care of the baby for most of the day most days until we had childcare. It sucked. I was constantly sleep-deprived for six months or so, and I still don’t get as much sleep as I used to.
Taking leave is super important. Neither I nor my wife took leave; I just worked less hard on my dissertation and other responsibilities. (Well, my wife took one week off from her classes, but she had to make it up later.) My productivity crashed, and I became unhappy trying to do too many things at once without sleep.
We stopped breastfeeding after three months because my wife had to study for exams. I thought that it wouldn’t be too hard to get the baby back to breast afterwards. I was wrong; we never got the baby back to breast and had to pump thereafter.
Thanks for this. For my part, I have a daughter who is almost 1 year old now. I endorse / also experienced pretty much everything you describe here, e.g. I didn’t change much as a person either.
The sleeping in shifts thing sounds good. I wish we had done something like that. Instead, I just did all the night feedings, and also took care of the baby for most of the day most days until we had childcare. It sucked. I was constantly sleep-deprived for six months or so, and I still don’t get as much sleep as I used to.
Taking leave is super important. Neither I nor my wife took leave; I just worked less hard on my dissertation and other responsibilities. (Well, my wife took one week off from her classes, but she had to make it up later.) My productivity crashed, and I became unhappy trying to do too many things at once without sleep.
We stopped breastfeeding after three months because my wife had to study for exams. I thought that it wouldn’t be too hard to get the baby back to breast afterwards. I was wrong; we never got the baby back to breast and had to pump thereafter.
This sounds so intense. I have no idea how you guys handled not taking leave while looking after a newborn. Great work getting through all that!
How frustrating to not be able to get back to breastfeeding when she was hoping to and doing a bunch of pumping instead.
Thanks for sharing your experience.