That's the age of the youngest child I have ever held in my life. Our friends Nate and Natalie just had a son, Eli Andrew, on Friday. We made them a meal and brought it over to them with no expectation of staying more than a minute. We were quickly invited in and handed Eli. We ended up staying an hour, holding Eli about a third of the time and playing with Abby, their 3 1/2 year old daughter, about a third of the time.
Top 5 Things I Didn't Expect About A Newborn:
5. He was incredibly strong. It was hard to pry his fingers apart or stretch his arm out.
4. He was much warmer than I expected. Not hot, but warmer than I expected.
3. His pinky toes curled in. I always looked at the slight curl inward of my pinky toes and thought it was related to wearing shoes or socks or something.
2. I was supposed to wake him up and keep him awake while holding him. I guess I always ne that newborns have horrible sleeping cycles and wake up the parents at horrible times, but I hadn't realized that this could be thwarted by trying to keep the child awake during the day. Makes sense. I failed.
1. His body was way more resiliant than I anticipated. My largest concern about holding a newborn (this was the first) is the His-neck-could-snap-and-fall-off idea. While his neck was fragile, he was more flexible and strong than, I guess, jellyfish-like.
Newborns are so much cooler now that I know their not jellyfish.
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3 comments:
Very cool.
The youngest child I ever held was less than an hour old, and I was quite scared. Before that time, I think the youngest was probably a year or something. I too treated him as being extremely fragile and was afraid I was going to break him. I agree with everything on your list - but I would also add that it's surprising how HEAVY they get in your arms!
Congrats to your friends!
They may seen like jellyfish now...but with some solid food they'll soon feel more like little "Crust"stations!
It's just a stage......
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