So, I previously wrote a post about how snot sucking is one of the pleasures of becoming a new parent to a newborn baby. While I did take some delight in sucking snot out of my babies nose, I did that thinking that the situation would be isolated and she would only have the occasional booger for me to remove.

Unfortunately, what I thought would be an occasional booger ended up being daily boogers. And then, it progressed into mucus that she started developing in her nasal passages. We started noticing that it sounded like she was breathing heavier, and when she would cough or cry, She definitely started sounding more congested. And our Night Nurse mentioned to us that she needed to use a bulb to suck out some of the excess mucus because there were some nights when she was waking up because she was so stuffy and trying too hard to breathe. It’s normal at this time of year given the cold weather, the night nurse said, so nothing to be concerned about. As you could imagine, this did not sit well with me: the thought of my baby struggling to breathe really scared me, so I wanted to do everything we could to clear her. This ultimately meant sucking out snot and mucus before bedtime right before her 10 PM feed, and then also again before her 10 AM feed. She certainly did not enjoy this process because… who on earth would enjoy having anything sucked out of their nose? But alas, it must be done.

Sucking out her mucus and boogers ended up becoming a much lengthier task than I had originally imagined. While before, when I would suck out her boogers, it would usually only take a minute or two, in the mornings when I need to clear her, I end up having to allot about 10 minutes to getting all of the mucus and boogers out. And I am completely disgusted when every morning, there is so much mucus that I am shocked that it came from such a tiny little nose from a tiny little human. Part of the reason that it takes 10 minutes is not necessarily the fact that it is so deeply lodged and I am trying to suck it all out. It’s actually because I need to take breathing breaks for myself so that I don’t totally exhaust myself and need to pass out after getting this task done. So as you can tell, it is taxing on both the baby and me.

Chris will often times check in to see how much mucus there was that I was able to dislodge. And, being a very hands-on dad, he tends to stand by and look at the end result in the tube instead of actually watching this task in progress. And several times, I have asked him if he would like to suck the snot and mucus out of our daughter’s nose. And each time, he will respond, “No, that’s OK. You can do it.”

So, he is a hands-on dad to be clear, but he really does not enjoy tasks like this. He takes zero pleasure out of doing things like this… Whereas he knows that I actually feel a sense of accomplishment after doing it myself. But some days, it really does take the wind out of me… Literally. And I really want to just take a nap after. But I have a child to take care of, and so I can’t really do that.