Having a baby can be exhausting business for both moms and
dads. Just ask Samantha Mravik-Miller of Portage,
Wis., who came to the hospital with
reinforcements just in case her hubby needed a wake-up call.
Mravik-Miller was getting ready to deliver her second baby
via C-section, and she knew from experience that she needed to be prepared and
achieve, as she called it, “Mom hack level 1,0000."
Her first birth experience to son Chase, almost 6, was not
an easy one, and it left her and husband Chad Miller feeling very tired. After three nights of not sleeping between labor, delivery and minor complications, Mravik-Miller
had lost her voice from the dryness of an oxygen mask.
In the middle of the third night, after 48 hours of no
sleep, baby Chase woke up crying from his hospital bassinet and needed to be
picked up. Mravik-Miller couldn’t find her call button, she was too sore from
delivery to get out of bed and her husband was deeply, deeply asleep across the
room (audible *sigh*). When she called to him and no sound came out, she reached
for the nearest object, a water bottle, and chucked it at her slumbering
husband’s head. She missed.
As you may know about newborns, they cry in the shrillest,
most high-pitched way that new moms cannot ignore but that new dads seem immune to.
This time around, Mravik-Miller was not going to miss.
While preparing for birth number two, she came across her older
son’s Nerf gun while packing and cleaning. She threw it in the bag just in case
she needed help this time around. Mravik-Miller said on Facebook, “I thought to myself, ‘Well
if there’s ever a point where the baby’s crying and I can’t wake him up, I’m
going to have way better aim with a Nerf gun than I’m going to have with this
empty, flimsy water bottle.’”
Being a boy mom, she felt pretty confident about her aim.
Her second son Laeghan
was born on Dec.12, and luckily no gun was needed this time around. In an
update video, Mravik-Miller wanted to stress that her husband was
incredibly helpful this time around, “except for snoring super loud.”
She made the video to combat critics scolding her for not letting
her husband sleep. To which we say, heck no, girl! When you’re in the hospital,
all bets are off. He’s staying there overnight in the hospital with you to help, after all, not to get the best rest of his life.
And anyway, her hubby is getting his beauty rest now, as she
said she’s up every night nursing while he continues to sleep with his,
as she calls them, “useless man nipples.”
If we have any advice for this mom, it would be to keep that Nerf gun
handy by the bed just in case a nursing mama needs a drink of water, a
midnight snack or help with a mid-feed diaper change. It's the least someone with non-functional nipples can do!