Fight!

Had a small-largish fight with my husband this morning. Recently, our magical Fisher Price swing--the only thing my baby girl will sleep in for more than an hour, besides a set of warm arms connected to a walking body--has been deemed too-dangerous by the hubster because the baby's upper body is starting to flop over while seated in it. I think she's trying to sit up without having yet perfected the whole holding-your-own-head-up thing. Anyhow, this means she's back to waking up every two hours in her bassinet (I should be grateful she's sleeping that long in there, since she won't do that in the daylight hours) throughout the night and this left me weaving drunkenly about the room this morning, as I tried to rock her back to sleep after a feeding.

So when she woke up less than two hours later, I asked my husband to take her for a while. If it were me, I'd have picked her up and walked around with her a bit. My husband pretty much tucked her under his arm and tried to go back to sleep. No surprise that she continued fussing. Our daughter is not one of those babies easily placated merely by being close to a warm body. No, it has to be an upright, moving body.

So there I was, trying my best to sleep despite the little cries and sounds of struggle beside me. And then the inevitable words from him came: "Honey, I think she's hungry." My husband is overly enamored by the mighty power of the breast and its ability to instantly quieten our little girl. Unfortunately, this means any time she starts crying, he turns to me to fix it. I think he's terrified of the possibility that he could attempt to comfort her and fail. What I wish is that he would give it a go anyways. He rarely holds her in his arms, always turning to various "tricks"--toys, making loud silly noises, the mobile, and, until recently, the swing--to quieten her. I'm not one to begrudge my baby a little boob comfort, even if I know she's not really hungry. But this morning, I was so staggeringly exhausted, I just wanted 15 minutes more sleep.

If he had just taken her into the living room and tried walking with her a bit, or changing her diaper, or just talking to her (scarcely 11 weeks and she's already quite the chatterbox, especially first thing in the morning), just to give me a little more rest, I would have been so grateful. But in the end, I dragged myself up, the baby ended up back on my breast, and I ended up pissed off at hubby. And he gave me the usual defensive speech about how the problem wouldn't come up if I kept pumped breast milk in the fridge. While it isn't a bad idea, I worry that every time our daughter cries, he'll simply turn to the bottle as a quick fix.