Hmm, that was a less than reassuring evening. Mark rang me at about half six to see if I could babysit that evening for our friends' 14 month old whilst they went to see 300 (too gory for me-I have a very low gore threshold!). I have never been alone with anyone who qualifies as a baby (or even a child, except when I was one obviously) for more than 5 minutes. It scares me. But, obviously, I need to get over that fear, so I said yes. We have babysat for Leon before, although it was the two of us, which makes things easier. And he is lovely, ridiculously cute (I am worried about the precedent he has set for cute babies amongst people we know...). He's actually the first baby that I've had any real contact with, except when I was really young. His dad has been mates with Mark for years, and they had a similar situation to ours (getting knocked up after knowing each other for about 5 minutes), which is kind of useful for us a the moment. So anyway, it was only for a few hours whilst they went to see the film, and he'd be asleep for most of it anyway, so it was all good.
We went round about half seven, and although he was supposed to be in bed he wasn't having any of it, so he came down and played with us all for a bit, and was being absolutely perfect and cute. Then the time came for them to go, and he waved bye bye to his dad, and to Mark, and to his mum, but once he kind of figured out that they were all going and it was just him and me, the not very exciting, least familiar one, he started crying. And would not stop. Oh my god, it was gutwrenching. He was screaming like I was torturing him, when in reality I was hugging him and rocking him and patting him and trying to be soothing. It was so hard to figure out what would calm him down, I was actually pleading with him to tell me what the matter was (err, yeah, he's 14 months..) and practically crying myself. He wouldn't drink the bottle of milk they left for him, his nappy was fine (although i had to change it before I found this out, and that upset him even more), and every time we went vaguely near his cot he screamed and screamed. We eventually manage to calm down a bit, and pulling funny faces made him smile a little, and I even read a book, but 90% of the time between them leaving and him falling asleep, he was hysterical. In retrospect, he was just overtired, and about 30 secs of back rubbing after I put him in his cot he was out like a light, but I just didn't pick up on that quick enough, and was kind of put off by the fact that he screamed blue murder if we went near it.
So yeah, it was absolutely not reassuring. I have absolutely no experience with babies, and I don't think I have much natural ability with them either. To be honest, I never cooed over them, always avoided holding them (Leon was the first baby I ever held, about 7 months ago), and I just don't know how to deal with them, especially when they are so upset. It's so so hard to hear them scream like you are pulling out their toenails out when you are doing all you can to make it better. How the hell do you cope with that when it's your own? I am scared.
Anyway, once he got to sleep I did all their washing up because I felt like I had to make up for traumatising their kid. I like washing up, it's soothing. I am weird. Oh, but I did have to keep running upstairs to check that he was still breathing. I am a bit worried about how I'm gonna cope with this whole motherhood thing you know...
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This is a bit of an old post, but I couldn't very well not answer your question.
The answer is complicated though, at least for me. At first, I didn't know what the hell to do with Jack and all the crying was terrible. It really was. After awhile though you just sort of get into a rhythm, and they start to recognize you as "mummy" and before you know it you know when they are tired or hungry or worked up about something. And then it is easier to deal with.
And for whatever reason, it really and truly is totally different when it is your own baby.
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