James—I bai

James and Ibai’s relationship is built in small acts of care: a bottle given before Amaia returns, a father’s arm resting beside the crib, and an immediate response when the baby stirs. These quiet routines establish James as an involved father and make the family’s shared care visible, even as James and Amaia differ over how feeding should be managed.

Fatherhood in the Home

When Amaia comes home, she asks for Ibai and learns that James fed him about half an hour earlier. The baby fell asleep almost immediately; James carried him upstairs to settle him, and seems to have fallen asleep beside him. A baby monitor, brightly colored against Engrasi’s wooden table, connects the sleeping child to the adults downstairs. Upstairs, Amaia finds a travel crib by the window and James asleep with one arm extended over its edge. Ibai lies peacefully in a thick one-piece sleeper. The arrangement is ordinary and intimate: James has stayed close enough to reach the crib, and the care he has given the baby has put him to sleep too.

That closeness appears again when Ibai becomes restless. James sits up to check on him, recognizes that he is hungry, and tells Amaia. His response is practical rather than ceremonial: he attends to the child’s need and brings it into the conversation with the other parent. The repeated image of James beside the crib gives his fatherhood a physical presence. He is not merely told what has happened to Ibai; he has fed him, carried him, watched him, and risen when he hears him stir.

Feeding and Parental Judgment

The couple’s care is shared, but their views on feeding are not identical. Amaia says she had arrived in time to feed Ibai, then explains that her aunt told her James had already given him a bottle. She tries to keep the observation from sounding like a reproach. James answers that Ibai had been unsettled and that he had read babies should be fed on demand. Since Amaia had not yet arrived and the baby was hungry, he saw no harm in giving him some milk; Ibai had taken less than fifteen centiliters.

Amaia argues for keeping to the feeding schedule and invokes the pediatrician’s advice. James replies that if the schedule is not being followed, that is not his fault. The exchange marks a genuine difference in judgment: James prioritizes responding to the baby’s immediate hunger, while Amaia worries about regularity. Yet the disagreement takes place within a shared responsibility for Ibai, not a refusal of care. James has already noticed the baby’s distress and fed him; Amaia, in turn, is attentive to the amount he has taken and to the guidance they have received.

Later, Amaia wakes from a nightmare and takes Ibai from his crib. She tries to breastfeed him, first on one side and then the other, but realizes that her milk will not be enough. As her feeds have become less frequent, her body is producing less; she goes downstairs to prepare a bottle. When she returns, James is awake and already attending to the baby. He looks surprised as she takes Ibai, and she gives him the bottle through her tears. The scene places James’s readiness to care beside Amaia’s grief at the change in feeding. Their roles intersect in the same tender task, but the moment is also marked by what Amaia feels she can no longer provide.

A Shared Family Rhythm

James’s care of Ibai belongs to a wider pattern of shared domestic life. He carries the baby downstairs, holds him in one arm, and reaches out with the other to embrace Amaia. She greets them both, takes Ibai without letting go of James, and asks how their day has gone. James kisses her before describing the work he has done in his workshop in Pamplona, preparing a shipment and speaking with the transport company. The scene gives fatherhood its place alongside employment and partnership: James arrives with their child in his arms, and the family’s greeting gathers all three together.

The practical coordination continues around the baby’s sleep and bottles. When Amaia asks how Ibai is, she is told that he has been awake for an hour, that her aunt has given him a bottle, and that his eyes are already half-closed. The detail shows how care passes among the adults around him: his needs are noticed and answered, and information about his feeding and rest is shared. James and Amaia’s relationship with their son is therefore part of a household routine sustained by more than one caregiver, rather than an isolated bond between father and child.

Care Amid Family History and Crisis

Amaia’s history gives the scenes of present-day parenting an additional resonance. Speaking with her sister Ros, she recalls being a child whom her father should have protected, but who was instead sent away from home. That remembered failure belongs to Amaia’s past, not to James’s conduct; the contrast is that the scenes with Ibai repeatedly show an adult attending to a child’s immediate needs. James’s watch beside the crib and his response to Ibai’s hunger give ordinary protection a concrete form.

After the flood and the search for Rosario, Amaia returns to a house that feels diminished without Engrasi. She watches Ibai sleeping and embraces James. When she says she knows Rosario is not dead, he holds her without contradicting her. Ibai is not the subject of their exchange, but his sleeping presence anchors the scene in the family they have built together. Across the episodes, James’s bond with his son is defined less by declarations than by reliable acts of feeding, settling, checking, and holding close.