Lemondrop

Pop quiz: Why does the baby Jesus look so content in all the various artistic depictions of the night of his birth?

By rights, he should be red-faced and wailing: He's in a barn in the middle of winter, for Pete's sake. But he's not crying -- because he's swaddled. In swaddling clothes.

Last week I told you what it's like to own a 2-week-old baby. My parenting lesson in week three of motherhood was that swaddling is a miracle (not unlike the birth of a baby to a virgin mother). Every time I mentioned to friends and family members that Henry wasn't sleeping like newborns are supposed to their first two weeks of life, they all gave various pieces of advice, but one was recurrent in every conversation -- are you swaddling him?

"Yes!" I would say, exasperated.

Because we were, but it turns out we weren't doing it right.

A friend brought over swaddling blankets by 3 Marthas that she swore were easy to use and worked like magic when her baby was an infant. The instant I wrapped Henry up in one, he fell asleep on my shoulder, a contented smile on his face (which could have been from having gas, but whatever).

For the next five days, Henry napped after every meal like clockwork. He even slept for three-and-a-half hours straight one night. (I never knew getting three-and-a-half hours of sleep at once would actually feel refreshing.) I started to feel confident -- I could do this mother thing! I was finally getting the hang of it! I even ventured out to the grocery store on Friday morning with Henry in tow. On aisle two he started wailing incessantly, and I forgot half the things on my list, but we made it out of the house and back home in one piece, so I still considered it a mini-success.

Then, on Saturday, our centuries-old air conditioning unit went kaput. It was 97 degrees outside. We turned all our ceiling fans on, but our house was still like an oven. Which meant swaddling was a no-go. Henry was hot, Henry was not swaddled, and Henry was unhappy. Which meant I was unhappy. Which meant my husband Fred was unhappy.

It's been a rough few days, reminiscent of his first few weeks of life: up all night, lots of crying from both us and lots of sweating. I'm waiting patiently for the air-conditioning man to come fix our unit so I can have my happy, sleeping, swaddled Henry back. Until then, I'm praying a lot to the baby Jesus that he will make this heat wave go away.


More Baby Diaries on Lemondrop:
-- Week One: A Day in the Life of a New Mom