My Baby Experience
This past weekend, December 8-10, I took home the robotic baby for my early childhood class. The baby turned on Friday night at five o'clock, and turned off Sunday morning at nine. I got no sleep, was very stressed, but in the end it was a mind-awakening experience.
In class, weeks before people started taking the baby’s home, everybody got to choose their baby. Displayed on the board were eight babies of all different races, hair colors, and genders. I chose baby number one, which was a white, blonde, baby girl. Not only did we get to choose which baby we wanted, but we also got to name our child. I named mine Lucy. I took my baby home the second weekend and I got some feedback from my classmate’s who went the first weekend. My friend in the class told me that her baby woke her up countless times Friday night. She also said that she got no sleep, but overall she would do it again. On the other hand, another girl in my class had to shut her baby off because of how difficult it was being. It was said that her baby would not stop crying for hours. Now, the max for these babies to crying is three minutes. So apparently it would cry, shut off for about thirty seconds, and then start back up again. There is a way to shut them off if it’s an emergency, so it’s not like she broke the robot, but it was certainly a surprising story to tell us people who hadn’t gone yet.
When the baby first turned on, it made a cooing sound, which means that it’s awake and happy. It soon went to sleep for about an hour, which was convenient because I had a lot of homework to get through. The problem for me was that I had a duet practice at my dance studio that same night, and I had to leave soon. Of course, my good luck came around, when I had to leave in five minutes and the baby decided that this was a good time to start crying! So, being that this was the first time it had cried, I had no clue what was wrong with it. We have to wear this wristband with a plastic device that, when pressed up against the baby, indicates that we, the mother, are there to help it. I ran over to the baby, pressed the wristband up to it, heard that chime, and then picked it up. My friend recommended that I try feeding it first, so I picked up the baby bottle and held it up to its mouth. Surprisingly she was right, and I heard the baby make the sucking noise right away. Minutes had passed and Lucy was still drinking, so I had to make my way into the car, with the car seat, and head to dance. After awhile she finally cooed and relief washed over me, unfortunately that relief was soon taken away when she started to cry again. Panic ran through me as the cry’s got louder and louder. I only had two minutes to figure out what was wrong with her before it registers a mis-handling. So, in my mind, I went through the four possible ways to help her. Feed, burp, change, or rock. I knew that it couldn’t be feeding because I had just done that, so I went with changing. Mind you, I was still in the car with a screaming child when I had to get out a diaper, and change it. I was so stressed out! Not only was it dark outside, but I had just fed her, and I was STILL IN THE CAR! The luck doesn’t end there, nope, Lucy starts crying again! At first I tried burping her, for I had already changed and fed her, but I was wrong. With a final attempt I tried feeding her again and thank god that was the correct thing to do. She immediately became quiet and I was overcome with thankfulness. Eventually I made it to dance, with a sleeping Lucy, and I just prayed to god that she would stay asleep until I got home.
Friday night was an experience. I don’t know if it was just me, but I felt a great deal of anxiety and stress over this baby. This child was my grade, I had to do good. Even though I had my friends who already gone to help me, each baby follows one of the fifteen possible baby schedules. So, if I had a simple question I could ask them, but I really was on my own. This baby gave me a whole new respect for single mothers. I praise those strong women who can successfully raise a child all on their own, I don’t think I would be able to if i’m being honest. As I was saying, Friday night was the actual worst. Lucy woke up around four times and would stay up for about twenty to thirty minutes each. I found that every time I fed her, it lasted about ten minutes. Same for burping, maybe even longer. Plus she would just randomly cry for no reason, she was being “fussy”. I hated when she was fussy because she would just cry and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
By Saturday it had been becoming easier and easier. I started to notice patterns in her behavior. For example, on Friday night, Lucy would wake up almost every two hours. We both went to sleep around midnight, because the only way you get sleep with a child is when they sleep, and Lucy woke up at two-ish. Then she woke up around four, and then again at around six or seven. She would wake up almost every two hours, and from this, I began to predict when I would be waking up again. Eventually, we both went back to sleep again at eight, I wanted to get a sufficient number of sleep. Neither of us woke until twelve.
I write about my experience in Early Childhood not only to inform others of its importance, but to also promote it to boys. This class may seem girly on the outside, but you learn life necessities and how to raise a child! Girls should not be the only ones willing to learning how to care for a child in school. Boys need to know how to be a parent too! At the moment, there is only one boy in my early childhood class. One boy! We all want to be good parents, right?
