When you see a hyperbolic question posed in the title of an article, it should be assumed the answer is "no". But, what my theory presupposes is perhaps the answer is... maybe?

By far the most resounding joke made to and about new parents centers around sleep deprivation, and with good reason. Whether your new human is constantly fussy or just needs to be fed every two or three hours, a normal adult sleep schedule is going to be interrupted. Instead of relying on multiple hours of continuous uninterrupted sleep, get used to sleep in shorter bursts whenever you can get it. This hasn't been untrue in our case, but I feel like we've definitely gotten the easier end of the stick. Me especially since I've volunteered for the night shift.

It's morning as I write this, and we've exited a what's become (and is currently) a fairly typical night. The routine starts around 10-11p, where the TV is turned off and we begin migrating towards the bedroom. The variability is generally centered around waiting for the wee babes to get hungry or for us to finish watching whatever we're watching; I'm not going to be beholding to a particular arrangement of the clock hands. Once the move is made, a bottle is made and begins warming as I do a diaper change and stuff the kiddo into a swaddle. Moving to our bedroom, we've turned off all but one lamp that's set to a dim red and flipped on rain sounds. (I don't know if he actually cares about the rain sounds, but I like it; I often have rain sounds playing behind my music as I work). There, he'll be fed the bottle until he stops eating and passes out, usually making it about half way through. Once he's been calm for what seems like long enough, I put him in the pack and play bassinet that's next to our bed.

And wait.

About five minutes later, he'll wake up and start fussing, just a bit. The rest of the unfinished bottle is administered and he gets some tummy time on the soft bed that is my very hair chest. Again, once he seems calm enough, I put him back down in the bassinet.

Mission accomplished.

At that point, he'll sleep upwards of six hours with a fifty percent chance of needing a quick twenty minute feeding session in between. It's a pretty great way to be, though the feed-put-down-wake-up-feed-put-down ritual gives me some anxiety. Like, what if I put him down the second time and he doesn't stay down? What if he fights it?

That kind of leads into the second way that he's "the best baby", because sleep isn't the only part of that equation. Since birth until now (and, if we're lucky, it holds true going forward), he's been a very needs oriented complainer. Meaning, he really doesn't fuss unless he actively needs something, and that something is a bottle nine times out of ten. It was entertaining being the parents in the mother/baby ward sandwiched between two rooms where you heard babies constantly screaming and ours was just super chill. There was one night that was a little worse than the others, but again, that's for a different post. All told, if he's not in distress, he's either sleeping or a happy baby soaking in the wonder of life outside the womb. And that's pretty damn cool.

So, do we have the best baby? No. The best baby is all of the above while organizing food drives for those in need and fighting for trans rights.

But we have a pretty damn good baby.