I'm Not Ready

I’m Not Ready

 As I a seventeen year old girl walk into the baby blue painted bedroom and lean my head over the crib I see something so precious. He is beyond words. It’s Silas a seventeen week old baby boy. He lies there all snug in his blankets with his right thumb in his mouth, when suddenly his eyes pop opens and his face turns rosy and he lets out a little baby sneeze then goes back fast asleep.

This little baby sneeze is what made me fall in love with this baby, I don’t know what it was about it, it was just too cute to handle. But my feeling about this baby had changed all but 10 minutes later when heavier cries come waling out of this small child. My first reaction what to rub his belly to try to calm him down; when that failed I got flustered. I pick up this ornery baby out of his crib and start bouncing him around the house again to just stop the crying. When finally what seemed like hours later though thought popped into my head DUH!!!! He’s hungry.

So the next task was to feed this little munchkin. After heating the bottle and getting Silas in the position to feed, he won’t latch onto the bottle. Only thought in my head was what else could go wrong while I’m babysitting this baby for new parents who have never had a babysitter before. He finally finishes his bottle and is still unhappy. So what’s next? Burping of course. He gets his burp out right away, and guess what … Still unhappy.

My next direction from the parents was to rock him back to sleep. Rocking was a little more successful. Silas is a happy baby and he never stopped smiling at me. But I guess he was just too restless to actually fall asleep. This whole situation just made me feel like I failed at my babysitting duties because I couldn’t get him back to sleep. This made me cherish the fact that I don’t have a baby as a teenager. It also made me really appreciate this whole babysitting experience to get more familiar with young babies.

I think it is very important for a future mom to really think about if they will be able to handle the stress of a baby, or even try babysitting a baby before they make the decision to get pregnant. I have always known that I love kids, and that I would be a mom someday. But really figuring how difficult it is too properly care for a baby is overwhelming to me. I really don’t understand how the people on Teen Mom or 16 and Pregnant survive. It’s a huge responsibility and I know that I couldn’t handle it, so I have so much more respect for mothers after this experience.

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