Back To Normal: Pandemic vs. Infants

I just finished a conversation with a colleague and I realized what all this reminds me of.

I remember when Conor was just born. The first 6 weeks of his life were hell.  He was moving from being a 70th percentile newborn to a 99th percentile infant and he was eating ALL THE TIME.  He was a nibbler, too, so he would eat for 45 minutes and then sleep/look around for 45 minutes.  For 24 hours in the day, I would have to start bfing every 1 1/2 hours.  

I remember being so incredibly exhausted and realizing for that for the first time in my life, even though I was tired, I just couldn't "go to sleep." I had to wake up and feed my baby again.  It was awful.  And it felt permanent.  

BUT IT WASN'T. 

It was only 6 weeks out of my life.  We figured out how to safely co-sleep.  I finally got to sleep for four consecutive hours, thank you, Jesus.  He got out of that hellish growth spurt and ate at more reasonable hours. 

It was a very short time in his and our lives, but in the middle of it, I thought my life had changed forever and IT SUCKED.  (Well, he sucked.  Different story) But it is and was over.  

Then I realized, we are all going through the newborn stage of a pandemic together, well, I think the lockdown was the pandemic stage.  We are still in the "first 3 months of living with a newborn stage which means it still sucks but it's not as bad as it was. But there's a sleep regression coming up and we all know it's going to suck again."  How's that for a title of what's going on.

The good news is this: WHAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW IS NOT FOREVER.  It's going to change.  It's going to get back to normal.  It may take away, as any caregiver of children younger than two will tell you.  But--as parents of children older than 4 1/2 years old will tell you--it WILL get back to normal.  In 10 years, this will be a distant memory of suffering but not actually suffering again.

I honestly believe that 1) the  Oxford vaccine looks very promising (but NOT PERFECT) and 2) once we get a safe, effective vaccine it will take about 6 months but we'll be back to normal.  But we're in the newborn parenting stage and IT SUCKS.  But it's not going to last forever.  

So let's do what we can to protect each other and ourselves knowing that eventually, we'll be back to normal, and eventually, this will be a memory our children tell their grandchildren.