Justin's Crying
My memories of early fatherhood
My oldest son is almost 34 years old. When he was born in 1992, I was 23 and his mom was 18. We lived in a tiny little house on RAF Upwood in England.
Justin was a relatively good baby. But both his mom and I were young first time parents. We did the best we could. He had plenty of clothes and toys. We even had a big pot on the stove where we boiled water to sanitize his bottles and pacifiers. note: by the time our 3rd daughter was born, hers just got rinsed out.
Like most babies, Justin did not sleep through the night for most of his 1st year.
Over three decades later I still remember our typical nightly routine:
2am: Amanda (his mom) would nudge me awake:
“Todd, Justin’s crying. Do you want me to get up with him?”
Now, you experienced dads and moms will probably already see where I’m going with this. But in case any new dads stubble across this, a bit of advice:
“Yes”, or “Sure” are pretty much NEVER the right answer to that question.
Needless to say, I spent a lot of time up with Justin in the middle of the night. This usually involved a diaper change and making him a bottle. Then I would often pop a movie in the VCR and just patiently sit with him until he fell back to sleep.
I’m not sure this is still true today. But back then I was extraordinarily patient and calm. lol, his mom, not so much.
Trying to get a baby to go back to sleep is kind of like watching a pot waiting for the water to boil …
The more you really, really wish for it to happen, the longer it will seem to take.
Even though I got up more often, she had more totally sleepless nights than I did.
I have no idea where I was going with this …
Oh yeah, trying to get kids to sleep.
It only gets more “fun” as they start to age towards their toddler years.
With pretty much all my kids, once they learned to pull their head up and look out of their crib, I got another chance to exercise my ability to have a whole lot of patience.
They were somehow comforted by being able to see me as they nodded off.
So here’s how the 30-45 minute bedtime routine went:
Last bottle of the night
Check diaper, change if needed
Put them in the crib (maybe read a story or sing a lullaby)
Stand perfectly still next to the crib until they appear to be asleep
Slowly lower to a sitting position
Count to 50
If no movement or sound, lower to the floor flat on my stomach
Count to 30
Low crawl a couple of feet.
Stop
Count to 30
Repeat (if no movement or sound) until I reach the bedroom door.
If at any point during the low crawl phase I heard noise or movement, I had to sit up so that they could see my face.
Sometimes this went quickly, sometimes it might take up to an hour.
Just like with the bottles, the girls who came later were more likely to (at least occasionally) be left to cry themselves to sleep … which let’s be real is probably the better parenting technique anyway.
Of course that didn’t mean they were loved any less.
Now, as a middle aged grandpa, I very much value my 7-8 hours a night sleep.
I think I might just be making up for all the times during my earlier years I awoke at 2am to some version of:
“Todd, Todd, Justin (Haley/Jordan/Jaiden/Joey) is crying …”
I’ll tell you what though, I wouldn’t change it if I could. Those middle of the nights with each of my kids are some of my best early fatherhood memories.
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I never had kids. I know I missed out on amazing things but there never seemed to be a right time - and then there was no time. I have the utmost admiration for good parents. Mine were brilliant. My mum used to refer to me as "1, 5, 9" because I woke requiring food and fresh nappies every four hours, on the dot. She had a rough labour, so I never had siblings. I was born in 1961, so disposable nappies weren't an option. The pan of boiling water on the hob was to disinfect the terry towelling variety......yuk 🤢🤮