Helplessness

Pookie the wife is discouraged.

Isaac, our pooklet with two kinds of expression, upset and experimental, is defying our wisdom and wills.

We're at least partial fans of our guidebooks, 'Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child,' 'Babywise,' and 'Baby's First Year,' primarily fans of three competent lactation consultants, and trusting friends to many with greater child experience.

But each 24-hr span yields frustration for Isaac's mother who, despite her best efforts, can't count on ideal behavior from one whose life will never be simpler than it has the last 8 weeks.

We consider the same suggestions over and over, and end up wondering if it's simply a lack of faith that committing to a pattern, regardless of the immediate results, will produce the solution in a matter of days.

Perhaps if we can endure the cries and withstand our sympathetic inclinations for 48hrs, 72 at the most, little Isaac will ultimately fall into a comfortable, secure, and regular feeding and sleeping schedule.

All I can say is I feel bad for my lovely wife who works so hard through such stress and sleeplessness, and wish I could produce the remedy to ease her suffering.