Seven weeks ago my little boy came into the world via Caesarian section because the gorgeous monster was breech and I had pre-eclampsia. Since then, I have been settling into motherhood and discovering the annoying questions and advice people are always more than happy to ask and give, so much so I might do a post on which of these are the most annoying. What this post is about, by far, is the most annoying phase to hear to date - most likely due to the frequency of which it is used.
"And is he a good baby?"
I mean, really? No, he's terrible; he always answers back, he'll stay out late, come home drunk and he constantly gets into fights.
The amount of times I have heard this question (and so badly wanted to answer as above) is beyond belief! And often the question is asked by seasoned parents too who you'd think would have experience enough to know it is a) a pointless question with no real answer and b) beyond irritating and monotonous to hear. How can a baby be bad?
Please understand, I'm not saying this because the first seven weeks have been easy, they have been far from it! My perfect little man spent the first few weeks screaming whenever he was put down so getting anything done was (and still is) incredibly hard to the point that if I manage to eat through the day it's a big achievement. He has also had colic (cue hours of screaming), went to feeding every 2 hours through the night and every hour through the day during a growth spurt. Not to mention the number of nappies wasted by the tiniest bit of poo!
But do these things make him a bad baby? Do they make him a good baby? No, is my opinion on it. What they DO make him is a baby. A baby who feeds when he's hungry; a baby who seeks comfort when he needs it; and a baby who cries because he doesn't know how else to communicate.
He's a baby, he behaves how a baby - and more importantly, how he - should behave. And if that defines him as a good baby, then he is a good baby, but seeing as there isn't really, in my opinion such a thing as a 'bad' baby, how can a 'good' baby exist?
