In response to my call for uncomfortable questions, Ewan goes for the jugular:
what do you think your biggest failing as a father has been to date?
See, this is the sort of thing I’m talking about…
The answer is “I get frustrated too easily.”
The first few weeks SteelyKid was home, I could get her to go to sleep by holding her curled up on my chest. It was disgustingly cute and heart-warming, and also, little did I know, a brief idyllic period. Starting around week 5, that stopped working, and I have yet to find a sure way of calming her down when she starts melting down, or getting her to go to sleep at all.
If I catch the signs of tiredness early enough, I can get her to go to sleep in a sling around my neck (though there are signs that this might be running out), but I can’t put her down afterwards without waking her up, which is kind of limiting. If she’s gassy, I can usually keep her somewhat quiet by carrying her around in the “airplane” configuration, but she won’t go to sleep that way unless she’s screamed herself out, which is sub-optimal for obvious reasons.
When she gets cranked up, nothing I do seems to work, and it’s really frustrating. I’ve kicked or punched a lot of inanimate objects while stuck with Screamy Baby, because she just won’t shut up, and it’s maddening.
Kate has better luck than I do, I think because she can outlast SteelyKid in a lot of things, and will stick with a given baby-soothing method for longer than I can stand. I try cuddling and gentle rocking and all that, but after five minutes of kicking and inhuman shrieks, I give up and go with “airplane,” and just hope to manage the situation long enough to reach either the next reasonable feeding time, or until Kate gets home.
I feel like a heel for that, and I’m trying to do better, but that’s unquestionably my biggest failing to date. In twelve or thirteen years, I’m sure SteelyKid will be happy to provide a long list of greater failings, but for the moment, that’s my answer.