Author: Katie

Those Pesky Postpartum Hormones

/ Katie / Leave a comment

I cry about a lot of things. Despite being seven weeks postpartum (already?!), I’m pretty sure my hormones are still constantly fluctuating. A couple of days ago, I cried about poop. My daughter pooped and I cried about it. Did my pregnancy make me crazy?

Let’s be honest: it really wasn’t just about poop. I didn’t realize that until much later in the evening, but there were a lot of underlying reasons for why I was so emotional at the time. The most obvious is that I was exhausted and Boo had been cranky for the majority of the day. Add in the fact that she’d already pooped on me once earlier – and there had been vomit two other times – and you have one cranky mama. Things just weren’t going my way.

Then, there’s the fact that I’m going back to work soon – in just a week, actually. I’m not happy about it. I’m sure it’s some form of separation anxiety I’m suffering from, seeing as my daughter hasn’t left my sight since she was born. She’s now seven weeks and two days old and she has literally been with me every second of everyday, and now I’m suddenly expected to hand her off to someone else for eight or more hours a day while I return to work. The thought actually makes me sick to my stomach and puts me in tears at least once a day. It’s silly, because I know I can’t be with her all the time, but she’s not even two months old yet and I feel sort of like I’m about to abandon her. We’re exclusively breastfeeding, and that’s making it harder, too; I fought so hard to breastfeed, what if I can’t produce enough or my supply suddenly drops because I’m trying to pump, and I have to switch to formula? It would break my heart.

I’m desperately trying to find a way to allow myself to stay at home. My mom worked long hours at her job when I was a baby and, sometimes, I wonder just how much she missed out on, since she wasn’t at home with me very often. (Not that she had much of a choice, being a single mother who needed some sort of income.) I don’t want to miss a single moment with my child, but who knows if her father will be able to make enough in the near future to support the three of us, which would allow me to stay at home with her. I’m crossing my fingers, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

For now, I’ll just enjoy the time I do have with her and try not to get too emotional when I leave her for the first time with someone else.

Heading Out

/ Katie / Leave a comment

Boo is now just over six weeks old and, for the most part, we have spent our time cooped up in the apartment. It’s just been too cold to do much else. Of course, we’ve gone out for meals, shopping, doctor’s appointments – but on Sunday, two days ago, we finally got a chance to really go out and explore the fresh air. It was about sixty degrees, so it was warm enough to be outside for a long period of time, but it was still cool enough that I put her in a fleece hoodie and covered her up with a blanket. (The hoodie has ears, too! Look!)

In retrospect, it was probably mostly for me, since she slept almost the whole time. We used the stroller for the first time, too; I got the car seat and stroller (which fit together) as a gift from Mike’s parents and the stroller part has been sitting in her room with nothing to do for months.

It’s hard to believe that she’s six and a half weeks old. Time is going by way too fast. My grandma really wasn’t kidding when she used to tell me that I was growing up too quickly; you don’t understand how quickly kids do grow until you have a child of your own. I’d give anything to just sort of be stuck at this age for a while, until I’m ready for her to get a little older, but life doesn’t work like that, unfortunately.

Michigan seems to have blessed us with more cold weather, so there likely won’t be too many days like this again until spring officially starts.

Everyone’s a Critic

/ Katie / 1 Comment

Someone once told me that there are two things you should never take advice on: relationships and parenting. You have no idea just how true that is.

Everyone is a critic. Everyone knows better than you – not just the people who have had kids but even those friends of yours who swore they’d never become parents themselves. Everyone has an opinion and you will hear it all. Parenting is hard enough, but add on all the criticisms and you’ll be pulling your hair out in no time.

Not everyone agrees with the style of parenting that my boyfriend and I have chosen for our daughter, who is now nearly five weeks old. (Hard to believe it’s been that long already.) If we had concerned ourselves with how other people perceive us and our parenting skills, we would probably be losing our minds.

I hate – hate – that I get bombarded from all sides. One of the things I feel very strongly about, as an example, is the “cry it out method.” The majority of my friends who are parents, as well as my own mother, have told me that when my daughter is inconsolable, sometimes I should just put her down and cry it out. There are all kinds of articles and studies out there that explain why “cry it out” could be detrimental to a child’s well-being. This is why I never leave my daughter to cry when she’s upset. When she’s crying, it’s not because she’s manipulating me – she either has a need that has to be filled or she just wants to be comforted. Sometimes, the latter is all she needs.

We also co-sleep. If we didn’t, none of us would ever get any sleep and we would all suffer. It took some getting used to, and some nights can be difficult because she insists on being right up against me, but it’s a thousand times easier than getting up every hour to pull her out of the bassinet to comfort her. She actually sleeps through the night this way. We also exclusively breastfeed, so co-sleeping just makes sense. Instead of getting up to put her on my breast, I can pull it out and go right back to sleep. I can’t tell you how often she and I have fallen asleep while she’s in the middle of nursing during the night. Hey, it works for us.

And that’s my point. We have a very specific way of how we want to raise our daughter and our methods work for us. I could go on and on about the choices we make for her, but that’s not really the point of this post. What I think all parents need to know is that you have to do what works for you. New parents have all this pressure from friends and family and even complete strangers about what is right and how they should parent their children. The truth is, it’s nobody’s damn business how you choose to raise your child as long as you believe you’re doing right by him or her.

Everyone else is going to have an opinion on what you’re doing and there will always be someone who thinks you’re doing it wrong. The trick is to block all that out because those opinions don’t matter. What matters is your child, forget about the other stuff.

When it comes to relationships and parenting, it’s usually best to go with your gut, even if it’s contrary to all the other advice you’ve received.