“Sleep when the baby sleeps” and other myths

Now that Flybaby is a month old (and I’ve managed not to lose him -- or worse!), there are some sayings and ideas about babies I have learned are completely not true. For example:

1. Sleep when the baby sleeps.

Riiiiight. It might be an ideal, some lofty goal, to aspire to. But it’s just not practical. A few days a week, I might get an afternoon nap with Fly. But if I slept every time he did, nothing would get done. No laundry. No food shopping. No showering. No blogging or reading other blogs.

So that’s why my conversations with people sound like Rain Man speaking in spoonerisms.

2. Sleeping through the night.

Because I can sleep as long as a drunk college student, “sleeping through the night” to me means around eight hours. But to a baby, it means maybe -- maybe -- six hours. Fly has slept this long only once, and it made me really worried at first. Then I realized, hey, I’ve just gotten the best sleep I’ve had in several weeks, and I got over it fast.

In any case, this sleeping through the night business doesn’t appear to be coming any time soon. JP’s mother, MM, keeps reminding me JP didn’t sleep through the night until he was 5 years old. I mean, she has told me this about 10 times now. One of JP’s friends said if Fly follows suit, JP should be the one to get up with him because he gave him the unsleepy gene.

3. You spend 500 to 800 calories a day just breastfeeding.

Actually, this one is true. However, the assumption is, “Wow! That’s like a workout every day! I am going to be so skinny!” What’s missing is the reality you’re so hungry that you'll be eating like a lumberjack who moonlights as a stevedore. In fact, I even read somewhere you need only 300 extra calories a day while pregnant, but 500 while nursing. Does this even make sense? How can growing a human being take only 300 extra calories, but feeding the same human take 500?

The other part of nursing math, as some people like to tell you, is nature makes you hold onto some of your body fat to ensure your little leech bundle of joy will continue to get the good stuff he needs from you.

4. You don’t need to drink a lot of water while nursing. (This one from the delivery room nurse who gave Fly his first bath.)

Here’s another trick from nature. If you don’t drink enough water to fill the tanks at the seaquarium, I’ve discovered, other parts of your body suffer from lack of water because it all goes into making milk. That means your skin dries up. And, ahem, it could mean some rather painful bathroom-type experiences.

This all just shows you learn something new every day . . . and sometimes, learning makes your brain hurt!