Patience, Purple Crying and Shaken Baby Syndrome

 My daughter of 3 months is just so cute.  She is very alert, much like her brother was as a baby, and she is very expressive with her face.  When she smiles at me, it really affects me.  She is so sweet, it’s hard to describe how happy and complete you feel when your children smile at you with love and dependence in their eyes.  They need you, count on you and adore you.  It’s a great responsibility, and it’s certainly rewarding.

She can be, however; incredibly fussy and irritating when she wants to be.  Patience, a healthy dose, is a requirement for Dads… especially when you have 2 or more children.  Three times this past week I have gathered the kids around the Christmas tree in the evening, with the intent of listening to nice music, reading stories and just spending time together around the glow of the colored lights.  It worked out well once, the other two times the kids were uncooperative.  The baby screaming hysterically or my son begging to go downstairs and watch a movie, whining, yelling, etc.  It really tests your patience and resolve.  I guess that’s why it’s so rewarding when they are so loving, because you remember all the hard and frustrating times you went through, so it magnifies the good.

We as humans tend to remember the hard times more than the good times, for some reason.  Our kids are very well behaved the vast majority of the time, it’s just when you set something up or really want them to behave well for a specific event… if they don’t behave well it really annoys you.  Murphy’s law comes into play as a parent on a regular basis.

I was asked by a friend about what the toughest part of having young children is, and I replied: 1- The lack of sleep is incredibly tough.  2- Your patience will be tested like never before.  3- Getting things done and being productive will take significantly more effort.  But having said all that, I wouldn’t change it.  It’s what I live for.

Before kids it’s so easy to schedule your life and come and go as you please.  You get used to it and expect to pretty much have things your way most of the time.  When you have children, you need to be able to be much more flexible, and that can be a very difficult transition.  Your resolve will be strained and your patience will come to the forefront.  You hear all the time on the news about parents (usually young parents) who injure their young children out of frustration.  I really believe many young people have no idea what they are in for when they decide to have kids.  They are not ready mentally to handle the frustrations without acting out.  You will have frustrations, you just need to learn and develop your own personal self-control.

When you leave the hospital these days they even give you a video on what to expect, constant crying and a baby that will end up frustrating you.  They call it Purple crying.  Since they have been giving this video out, and educating young parents on what to really expect, the statistics have shown significant drops in shaken baby syndrome.  Check out the website for the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome at www.dontshake.org  The specific section on Purple crying can be found at this link: http://www.dontshake.org/sbs.php?topNavID=4&subNavID=32

Having children is the fullfilment of a dream for my wife and I and we feel blessed to have such a loving family.  There is nothing better in my opinion.  We hope you feel the same way about your family, and will take the time to develop your own personal skills of patience, consistency and staying calm in the face of a (kids-going-wild) storm.  Nothing worth doing will be easy.  Nothing of value comes without labor.  Have the proper expectations going in, and your success will come much easier.