Before I had a baby, I was obsessed with “a day in the life of a newborn” videos and articles because I was curious about what new parents did all day. Now that I’m approximately three months (!!) into this parenting thing, I thought I would share a snippet of my day with Billable Baby in a format familiar to the Biglaw attorneys out there—in six minute increments.
0.7 Hours - Conduct root cause analysis into why Baby is crying, shrieking, or grunting; confer with co-counsel regarding the same.
0.1 - Attention to mysterious stain on Baby’s super cute new onesie.
0.4 - Bathe Baby to clean poop explosion that caused stain.
0.4 - Change diapers; delegate the same to co-counsel.
0.3 - Learn to parent via Google.
2.5 - Feed Baby throughout the day via bottle and breastfeeding; pump; wash and sanitize pump parts.
0.5 - Struggle with breastfeeding and fail at it half the time. [WRITE-OFF]
1.7 - Burp Baby and keep her upright after feeds to deal with spit up and gas; scroll endlessly through phone during the same; develop carpal tunnel on wrist.
0.2 - Meet and confer with co-counsel regarding plans to go outside for a walk; abandon plans, after several attempts, due to conflicting Baby and counsel schedules.
0.1 - Search for a friggin’ pacifier.
0.3 - Research post-pandemic child care options; quickly give up due to lack of certainty, overwhelming costs, and fear of handing a six-month old to a stranger.
1.0 - FaceTime with grandparents to show them Baby and attempt to convince them to be babysitters; oral arguments with grandparents regarding parenting best practices; furiously send most recent guidelines from American Academy of Pediatrics to grandparents.
0.3 - Perform conflicts checks on conflicting sleep training advice.
0.2 - Send ISOs to other newborn parents at 3:00 am and immediately receive responses because they are all awake.
0.5 - Background reading into SIDS risk during 4:00 am feed; panic buy swaddle-transition products at 4:25 am; lose track of time for 0.5 hours. [WRITE-OFF AGAIN]
0.1 - Enjoy the approximately 5.5 minutes during which Baby is awake, clean, not hungry, not too full, not gassy, not fussy, and not overly-stimulated.
0.8 - Laundry.
It looks like we are on track to hit our parenting billable thresholds. Now Billable Baby, where is our BONUS in the form of a genuine, non-gassy smile?!