Deranged maternal goblins

Hello!!!!!!, fellow adults, from the overnight infant-care shift

Links is publishing on an altered schedule while I’m out on parental leave. This pint-sized update is for paid supporters, who made this time off possible for me. Thank you, sincerely, to all the folks who subscribed over the past month: I DID meet my goal of 120 new paid subs, which is … absurdly validating!! Maybe I should have had a kid sooner; it’s cheaper than therapy. (Lol it is not, just kidding.)

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I have never had so much time to write, and my writing has never been so bad. It feels like the type of fairytale curse Sprout's board books describe by the dozens. Much of our lives have, in fact, taken on a vaguely fantastical cast: I stay up all night, and sleep all day, in service to a mewling, milk-breathed tyrant.

Everyone has a theory on newborn schedules. People tend to assault you with them. Sleep when she sleeps! Wake her to eat! Establish a routine from the outset! On our first night home from the hospital, however, J and I learned that Sprout emerged from the womb with an ancestral hatred of bassinets. We can’t trick her into sleeping in a purpose-made crib, even with the aid of swaddle sacks and sound machines and other newborn ensorcellments.

As a result, we hold Sprout all the time. Almost 24 hours a day, in fact (!). Our doctor assures us she’s still too young to ruin with these sorts of indulgences. I sleep from roughly 9 to 1 or 2 a.m. each night, then sit awake with her until 7 or 8 a.m. J relieves me after dawn, when I sleep for three more hours before emerging from the bedroom — nursing bra askew, ear plugs still in — like some kind of deranged maternal goblin.

During our inadvisable late-night vigils, J and I each watch lots of TV. (Early motherhood will actually be the straw that finally ruins British Bakeoff for me.) When Sprout gets fussy, I shuffle and shush across our creaky wooden floors. I write nonsense songs to the tunes of lullabies, then sing them until I despise my own work.¹ Mostly, I have lots of time with my thoughts — a luxury that, at any other time, I might have turned to some higher intellectual pursuit. But because it's 3 a.m. and Sprout is wheezing on my chest, I mostly contemplate profundities like the color and consistency of her poop. Also, stuff like:

• The shamelessness of the product placement in Netflix original shows. Seriously: Has it always been this bad? Or is the sheer volume of television I’m watching just enhancing my powers of pattern recognition? In The Recruit, a farcical CIA dramedy, I spied what I’m pretty sure were paid advertisements for Kellogg’s cereals and White Claw. In The Lincoln Lawyer, an enforcer for a supposedly badass biker gang conspicuously chugs … Spindrift sparkling waters. Don’t even get me started on all the Ford F-150s in the soapy cowboycore fantasy Ransom Canyon. (This show is ridiculuous, but entertainingly so, and that’s my only standard for most things at the moment.)

• The existence of newborn gas-relief influencers. Childbirth has done an incredible number on both my sleep schedule and my Instagram feed … and I am both impressed and horrified by the sorts of niches some creators have built around babies. There are osteopaths whose entire careers concern tools and tricks to make your child fart. There are pediatricians with highly involved, “developmentally appropriate” newborn workouts. There are breastfeeding parents (credentials unknown) who have stockpiled whole-ass freezers of milk. Which conveniently brings us to …

• The unabashed lunacy of the “freezer stash” internet. I suspect the women who go in for this shit without an articulated medical or childcare reason also decant their cereals into bamboo-lidded jars and dabble in a bit of light prepperism.

• The vague, condescending inadequacy of the phrase “baby blues.” Like many descriptions of motherhood, this one manages to be both dismissive and obtusely cute. I did not feel “blue” after Sprout was born. I did not even feel sad. Instead, I felt like I was on some slow-burning psychedelic trip wherein the unbearable and overwhelming beauty of the world regularly moved me to hysterics.

• The inspiring/aspirational chillness of parents everywhere else in the world. If you’ve not seen it, I highly recommend the fascinating French documentary Babies, which J and I rewatched last week. (You do not need to own a baby to appreciate it; I first saw/enjoyed it at 23.) I’m similarly enthralled by every thread in r/newparents and r/beyondthebump where parents from Europe, Asia and other foreign climes slam American pregnancy and parenting practices. (To say nothing of our lack of paid parental leave, which, yes — is batshit.)

• Sprout herself (constantly, compulsively, and with a love verging on delirium). Please allow me one brief, bullet-point paean to this tiny person: She was born very late, on her own timetable, despite many attempts to lure her out sooner. She shit so much coming out of the womb that a Harvard-educated OB resident had to dash out to shower. She has slate-gray eyes and a full head of hair; I can say with perfect confidence that she is beautiful. Like: I was prepared to acknowledge if my kid looked like ET, but Sprout could pose for an Anne Geddes calendar. She does have a real name, which I’m not sharing yet. (Or maybe ever! I’m protective of her.) She does not know that name, but she does know my voice, and she puckers her face with fierce concentration when she realizes that I’m talking to her.

Mostly, however, Sprout sleeps a lot. In our arms. On her own schedule. And by the grace of some protective, hairy-eyeballed God, I've only once dropped my phone on her.

Thanks for being here through this time. It all still feels rather inside-out!! Very warmest virtual regards,

Caitlin (… and a still-sleeping-but-slightly-fussy Sprout)

1. My masterpiece to date is the six-verse “Boobie Song,” performed to the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” I can’t believe I write professionally, either.