Normally when you’re sick you take some time off to rest and lie around in bed. But when you have a baby you can’t do that anymore. You need to take care of yourself and someone else.
And the baby you’re taking care of is probably going to get sick too because their immune system is immature. So you end up taking care of yourself and another sick person.
And it will probably be like this for at least the next 18 years. No it won’t get better when they’re older. Embarrassingly I remember being a teenager when my mum was sick. I’d still go in and ask “ hey what’s for dinner?” and would probably wait around for her to do my washing or make my lunch.
So you probably won’t get some relief for a while. At least maybe if they were older you could get away with some lazy parenting by parking them in front of the TV and feeding them processed food until you get better. But not if you have a baby.
And even though your baby can’t talk they are somehow still a drill sergeant.
And this drill Sargent living with you won’t let you sit down. They’ll only stop screaming when you carry them and do laps around the house. They don’t care if you’re sick. You can never sit down. The only rest you get is when your drill sergeant falls asleep on the job.
And when you have a cold and you’re up coughing and sneezing in the middle of the night you’ll probably wake them up too.
At least as an adult you can take full strength medicines, eat throat lozenges and use vapour rub. But your baby can’t. You need to give them the baby versions and they barely do anything
They can’t even blow their own nose, so you’ll need to get the booger sucker out and manually suck out their snot for them. Also your baby will probably hate this and will act like you’re torturing them even though you’re just trying to help them breathe through their nose.
And they’re probably going to be sick for a while because their immune systems haven’t really worked out how to fight a virus yet. But that’s okay. At least you have someone to cuddle up to while you’re sick.
So say goodbye to resting while sick for the next 18 or so years.
In the meantime try to get some help and handball your baby over to anyone that can help.
Get better soon. Then you can get to taking care of your baby that’s probably sick too.
