As I type this (bleary eyed) Aidan rapidly approaches six days old. He is behind me, in the infant carrier on the dining room table asleep. In just over an hour he will be six days old and in perfect health. He has already gained back all but .25oz of his birth weight as of one o’clock today and puts more weight on every two hours or so.

I’m still pretty blown away by this whole thing. Its an absolutely amazing experience that really cannot be described. You have to live through it. It still hasn’t sunken in fully that I’m a dad and I have a son. That may sound silly but we’ve been so consumed with just taking care of his minute to minute needs that the reality has yet to fully take hold.

The first three nights with him were the toughest. He fed constantly giving us nearly no opportunity to sleep. When parents talk about sleep deprivation they tell you that you have no idea how bad it is. They’re right. Of course they let you assume its because you’re up every few hours to feed. Not so. For the first few nights you’re just up…period.

In the last two nights we’ve settled into a less than optimum but vastly improved format. He sleeps two three hour shifts to start the night and then goes back to two hour naps. It makes a huge difference to get those bigger chunks of sleep.

When he is awake, Aidan is amazingly alert. He is wide eyed and curious staring intently at your face as you hold him and trying to focus on you. When I stick my tongue out he tries to copy me and if he hears one of our voices while being held by another, he’ll pick his head up searching for our location.

He manages to pick his head up a lot. He has surprisingly good control over it too but lacks the strength or motor skills to scan with his head. Turning it doesn’t work so smoothly. He does seem to be able to find his thumb more often than not so he can comfort himself with a good thumb sucking.

Jaime is doing well after the ordeal. Although the delivery wasn’t a piece of cake and the physical drain of a 17 hours without food or sleep was certainly tough, she’s been a real trooper. I’m trying to stay up with her since she has to breast feed Aidan at night but I think she’s still up more than I am. I don’t think she’s looking forward to me going back to work.

The dogs have accepted Aidan pretty well. We were careful to let Jean bring the baby into the house while we showered the dogs with attention. We always pay attention to them while we hold the baby to avoid jealousy and praise them when they are gentle and quiet around Aidan. Our biggest problem so far is Maddie’s problem with Aidan making noise. She barks and jumps up to nip at his blanket when we carry him around the room. Its not a hostile behavior from what we can tell. Instead, I think they regard Aidan as a new member of the family and get upset we try to take him away from them. Still, we are very watchful and never leave either dog with Aidan alone for a second.

This has become longer than I expected to get away with but I must take my leave. Jaime is feeding the little guy which means its time for us to go to bed soon. Believe me, when he goes down, we don’t waste a minute getting to sleep!