On a binge

1/14/08
Cluster feeding should really be called binge feeding. The only reason we don’t call it that is because baby are so damn cute and there is nothing cute about binging. However, I do believe that if more people called it what it is less people would be worried about being bad parents. And so we had another night of cluster feeding. For those of us who have yet to experience it let me just say that it is very similar to when you went on a drinking binge and spent the whole night going from bar to bar, drinking yourself silly, and the moment you would fall asleep … you’d reach for another drink. The only difference is that baby’s drink comes in a better package. But these little drinkers can be just as obnoxious. Maya has had a few of those in the past, and we are learning that as long as she is swallowing the milk we should just keep feeding her. The trick is to try to fit all the things you might want to do during the night (like sleep) into the few short breaks she might be gracious enough to grant you. Clearly it is much harder on the mother, since there is not much a father can do while the baby is nursing for hours on end all night long. So now, in the ungodly early hours of the morning we are hanging out while Maya’s mom is catching some sleep and Maya making the sounds of a free diver who is getting ready to try for the world record – a bunch of short breaths and then a few long ones, and repeat. I wonder if she is writing a mental blog about her experiences as well.
“Last night her milk tasted like garlic. (Of course she would not know what garlic is so she would have called it something else, maybe a spice tooth, but then again she does not know what a spice is either). I get so hungry some nights. I just feel like I need to eat all night long. I can find no comfort unless she holds me at her breast. I wish they would stop trying to put me in the bouncer – fat chance. Man, I hope that other one, the one with no milk, would stop holding me to his cheek. At least he could shave more often and use some baby oil instead of that pungent thing he soaks his face in. And what is with the flat bony chest? Grow some boobs, buddy, if you want to hold a baby! Gosh.” Man, my daughter sounds like Woody Allen, but I guess it is fitting – sleep deprived and neurotic.