A single father humorously and honestly describes life with a baby girl who runs the household with an iron fist — between endless feedings, sleepless nights, and a great deal of love—
Have you ever felt that your baby was deliberately tormenting you?
If the answer is yes, chances are you still haven’t met my daughter, SARA.
For reasons that will soon become obvious — or at least clearer as you keep reading — I will try to write this post in the most humorously ornate language I can muster. Not because that is my natural style. Rather because these lines are being written after yet another night of zero sleep, in the semi-conscious state of a half-zombie swaying somewhere between reality and waking hallucination.
How a Tiny Baby Becomes the Center of Your Life
As is my usual habit, I will begin with the obvious: I love SARA more than anything else in the world.
She is the best thing that has ever happened to a solitary and somewhat withdrawn fifty-two-year-old bachelor — a man who spent most of his life avoiding love, emotion, and human beings in general as though they were contagious diseases. In a certain sense, she even saved me from a life without purpose — a life that had become little more than one long yawn of boredom and stagnation.
SARA breathed life into me precisely at the moment when I had already convinced myself that I was a hopeless and irredeemable case.
She is undoubtedly the most meaningful thing that has ever happened to me. I thank her — and God — for taking over my life so completely that sometimes it feels as though it is no longer mine, reminding me again and again that it is now devoted entirely to her.
But sometimes she simply drives me out of my mind. At times I genuinely feel she has something personal against me — or at the very least that her mission on Earth is to make sure I lose my sanity at least a decade before reaching retirement age.
When Feeding a Baby Becomes an Ongoing Project
Let us begin with the most basic matter: food.
Like any ordinary human baby, SARA consumes food in order to survive.
SARA, however, apparently considers herself somewhat different from other babies. More than once she has decided that her meals should be eaten in installments.
Her regular portion is a 180-milliliter bottle of formula. Yet on her own initiative — and without consulting me in the slightest — she may divide it into two servings, and sometimes even three.
Why?
Because that is what Her Majesty decided.
And I, her devoted servant, have no choice but to comply.
The result is that almost every hour or hour and a half I find myself reheating yet another bottle and feeding SARA again. By the time one bottle is finished, it is already nearly time for the next.
SARA — a baby who apparently believes herself to belong to some tiny aristocracy elevated above the masses — shows very little consideration for her father’s other duties around the house: washing dishes, cooking, running the washing machine, hanging laundry, or cleaning the house. Not to mention the repeated cleaning of the feeding bottle, which, as noted, is in almost constant use.
The Family Choir During Feeding Time
In one of my previous posts, I mentioned that SARA absolutely refuses to eat without proper musical accompaniment.
If it is just the two of us at home, my voice alone accompanies the meal. But since SARA and I are currently living with my parents — because their house has a reinforced safe room — the entire household has been recruited into the family choir.
You can therefore imagine what SARA’s latest whim means. Instead of the household choir assembling once every three hours, it now has to perform almost every hour.
My parents’ voices and mine are steadily growing hoarse. But when the queen issues a decree, her subjects fall in line.
Changing Locations for Royal Meals
To be fair, however, not everything is bleak.
Long-time readers may remember that SARA once had the habit of relocating her meals. A feeding that began in the living room could suddenly end in another room, because the lady demanded a change of atmosphere.
Now, thank God, she has become slightly more considerate. At the moment she prefers to eat in the living room only.
We all hope this trend continues.
Sleepless Nights: SARA’s Preferred Method of Torture
If you think this campaign of “torment” ends when night falls, then I have clearly failed to explain just how merciless my beloved and only daughter can be.
Throughout history, tyrants have used sleep deprivation as a method of torture. Even people who endured severe physical and psychological suffering often broke under this particularly cruel technique.
I do not know who invented it. But I certainly know who perfected it and elevated it to an art form.
The one and only: my daughter, SARA.
Even when she is extremely tired and clearly needs sleep, she fights it with all her strength. With royal wails she demands to be taken out of bed.
Neither my attempts nor those of my mother — a certified childcare professional — have much effect. Mobiles, silicone teething toys, and other accessories that work perfectly well on ordinary babies are of little help here.
So this continues until the next feeding time arrives, around eleven at night.
After the meal she does fall asleep — but not for long.
Her pacifier falls out of her mouth again and again, roughly every half hour. And so I am summoned repeatedly to the royal crib in the safe room to restore order — all with the clear knowledge that at six in the morning I must wake up for work anyway.
When the Baby Demands to Be Carried Like an Empress
And if you thought SARA’s control over my life was limited to food and sleep, you would be mistaken.
She also has very firm expectations when it comes to leisure time.
In the post “The Dictator and the Devoted Servant,” I explained that SARA enjoys being carried in my arms with her back against me. From that position she tours the house, surveying her small kingdom and ruling the territory.
When that post was written, SARA weighed only five kilograms, and I was still convinced this was a charming and completely innocent habit.
Today the habit has become even more firmly established. In SARA’s view, this is simply the natural order of things: her father serves as a human palanquin, carrying her from place to place like an empress.
The small problem is that SARA now weighs about seven kilograms — and during those few short months my already fragile back seems to have aged another decade.
A Single Father Raising a Baby Without a Mother
Anyone who has made it this far in the reading has probably reached the obvious conclusion.
SARA may well be one of the most spoiled babies in the history of the human race. And the person responsible is me — the aging, submissive father who cannot bring himself to set boundaries for his daughter.
SARA clearly recognizes my weakness: my desire to give her everything she wants. Even if it breaks my back and practically guarantees me a challenging future with a child who is not accustomed to hearing the word “no,” the important thing is that she does not cry and does not feel deprived.
But as I have written before, I see — and feel — things differently.
SARA is a baby without a mother. It is my duty to give her all the warmth and love I possibly can so that she will never feel that absence.
If that causes me some discomfort now — and perhaps even greater discomfort in the future — so be it. It is a price I am willing to pay so that my only daughter will grow up surrounded by an abundance of love and with as much confidence as possible.
Being SARA’s Father
I will admit it openly: it is not always easy for me to be SARA’s father.
I know the problem lies with me, because I do not set boundaries as I probably should. I am a soft-hearted person who finds it very difficult to see his daughter unhappy — let alone crying.
I have already come to terms with the fact that I will probably never win the “Father of the Year” award. I would be lying if I said that troubles me very much.
All that matters to me is my daughter’s happiness. For her, I would walk through the seven circles of hell again and again and again.
Still — it would be nice if the princess occasionally showed a little consideration for her wrinkled, gray-haired father.
No, I do not really expect it.
I merely fantasize about it from time to time.
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Read Next
If you’d like to read more about Sara and our life together, here are two more posts you might enjoy:
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