Lessons from one month old parents

Today Roshan officially turned one month old! He celebrated with two "cups" of milk. I figured that now we are veterans of parenthood, we would pass along some lessons learned to all of you young kids out there.

• Ever heard the phrase "sleeping as soundly as a baby"? Well, it is all a lie unless "soundly" refers to tons of grunts, gurgles, and wimpers throughout the night. It took us a few nights to not panic on every noise during the night. Be warned.
  
  
• Parents who say their babies sleep through the night are liars. That is what I plan to believe.
  
  
• The poop schedule, or lack thereof. We diligently tracked all of his dirty diapers for the first few weeks to learn...he goes through a lot of dirty diapers (10 a day!). We even started measuring his "poops" on a 1-10 scale, until we started hitting a few elevens and twelves and had to reset our scale.
  
  
• Pampers are better than Huggies. There is nothing worse than a leaky diaper at 3AM. Once we hit the level 1 diapers we will let you know how well the Kirkland Signatures work.
  
  
• Most people say babies feed every two to three hours. What they don't mention is that time is measured from the start of one feeding to the start of another. Once you factor in the 30-45 minutes to feed, you soon realize every nap is an opportunity for one task and one task only. So you either eat, watch TV, shower, check email, nap...but don't expect to do more than one.
  
  
• Sadly, rumors of baby boys peeing on you during a diaper change are true (with surprising distance!). Roshan even got our doctor.
  
  
• Another secret that only recent parents know or talk about...breastfeeding. One would think that nature had found a way for this to be simple and easy once that baby has arrived. Wrong. There is tons of work that needs to be put in (for baby and mother) before everything "works".
  
  
• Sleep deprivation has some interesting consequences. Short-term memory is history. One time I soaped myself three times in the shower before I realized what I was doing...luckily I ran out of body wash or I could have been in there for hours.
  

But at the end, pictures like these make it all worth it...

Truly the little one

It's hard to get a sense of Roshan's size until you actually see him in person. He really is small. He didn't even fit any of his 0-3 month clothes, so we had to alternate between borrowed preemie clothes and baggy MC Hammer style pants.

The only time we got a chance to understand his size was when we got a good look at the other babies in the birth center. They weighed seven or eight pounds but looked almost twice his size. Still, to us he looks right and all other babies are enormous freaks.

Fortunately, he is mostly caught up with the his peers...but even today, people are surprised. I guess it is hard to see from the previous pictures, so I pulled together a few pics that try to show his relative size. Enjoy!

Clearing up some confusion

After an eventful couple of weeks, we are glad to report we are finally in a position to start responding back to all of your best wishes.

The more we chat with the nurses, doctors and even our friends, we are realizing there is some confusion on how to pronounce Roshan's name (I guess we failed my substitute teacher test). Some of the more interesting pronunciations: "Russian", "Ro-shawn", or "Ra-shawn."

So to clear up any remaining confusion, Roshan is pronounced "roh-shuhn". If it helps, his name rhymes with motion (although I am sure his school mates will come up with something much more creative).

So please don't confuse our baby...we don't want to pay for the Botox!

Family Promotions

With the arrival of the first grandchild in the family, the Chandra and Deshpande families are obviously in a jubilant and joyous mood. Fortunately, the grandparents also had a chance to immediately visit and see their grandson for the first time.

I have never, ever, seen such a big smile from the two grandfathers as they held little Roshan. It really brought things in perspective.

And the good news keeps getting better. As a result of Roshan's birth, everyone "upgrades" into a new title within the family. Some of these are obvious (Mom and Dad), but others are distinct based on the relationship to the parents.

So congratulations to the following promotions!

My parents...become Dadaji and Dadiji
Monica's parents...become Ajobah and Agee
Rupa...becomes Rupa Bua.
Anita...becomes Anita Maushi.
Ajay...becomes Ajay Mama.

And lest not forget all of you, who are now either Aunties or Uncles. Let's hope you all prove worthy of the title (so clean it up!). In the meantime, enjoy this video of Roshan meeting the family...


Family from rishi chandra on Vimeo.

If you are having trouble accessing the video, try clicking here.

The hospital stay

One of the most surprising things about the labor and delivery was the quality of the hospital staff and facilities. I generally hate hospitals, most likely from my experience as an intern moving urine bags from one place to another. But this place was different.

We delivered in Mills Peninsula in Burlingame. The cool thing now is that the Mom stays in a room called LDRP (Labor, Delivery, Recovery, Postpartum). As the name implies, everything happens here. No need to move around, the baby stays with you the whole time, and they even have a cot for the Dad to crash. It was better than a Best Western.

I also realized just how limited an impact the doctors really make on your hospital experience. (Sorry future MDs, but is the plain truth). In our entire stay, we probably saw the doctors for about one hour in total, including delivery. Everything about your stay is all about the nurses...and we were very fortunate to have some great ones.

Of course, the downside is that every nurse has a different (read: conflicting) opinions about ALL aspects of baby care; breastfeeding, swaddling, pacifiers, clothing...Our head was spinning, especially after seeing four to six nurses day.

Needless to say, while we appreciated everyone's help, we are glad to be home and start making our own mistakes...