parenting

The Ten Things I Wish I Knew Before I Had a Baby

/ Katie / Leave a comment

When I found out I was pregnant, a friend of mine was kind enough to loan me a few books on pregnancy and parenthood and I read through a lot of it to try to prepare myself for what was ahead. They were books that told me all about my child’s development, all about how to begin breastfeeding, what to expect those first few nights – but nothing in those books prepared me for what parenthood was really about.

  1. Your body will change… and it will never be the same again. I’m not talking about stretch marks and belly flab (which pretty much will never go away), I mean everything changes. Your metabolism, your skin, your joints – no part of you is safe.
  2. Breastfeeding is natural, but it also hurts like hell. Everyone told me it would just take a few days for the pain to go away and a few weeks for me to get fully used to it – they were wrong, wrong, wrong. I’m ten months in and even now, it’s not always a pleasant experience, and the first couple of months were complete torture. (Side note: if you’re not breastfeeding, someone will inevitably think it’s wrong that you didn’t try, or that you didn’t want to, or that you couldn’t and you didn’t try hard enough to do it. Screw them. You’re feeding your baby, and that automatically makes you a good mom. It’s no one’s business whether you breastfeed or formula-feed anyway.)
  3. Your relationship will completely change, either for better or for worse. The first couple of months, there were times I hated my boyfriend. (Thankfully, once I was no longer so sleep-deprived and my hormones had finally leveled out, this feeling went away, but it still made things hard.)
  4. Speaking of relationships, remember the sex life you had before the baby? It’s pretty much gone. When you’re in the mood, your child will be awake and wanting to play with you. When your child is finally down for a few hours, one of you will be too tired. When you finally do have some time (and energy!) to spend together, you’ll be interrupted by screaming from the other room.
  5. You cannot train a child. They are not dogs, they are human beings and each one of them is precious and unique in their own way. Embrace the chaos, it’s the only way you’ll survive.
  6. “Sleeping through the night” doesn’t actually mean “sleeping through the night.” For a baby, “sleeping through the night” is a good four or five hour stretch and most babies don’t ever do that until they’re much, much older. For a while, I thought there was something I was doing wrong, because my child wouldn’t sleep more than an hour or two at night. Even now, she wakes up at least two or three times a night.
  7. Baby poop smells – worse than you can even imagine, especially once your baby starts solids. Learn to hold your breath during diaper changes and make sure you’ve invested in a good diaper genie.
  8. Don’t stress out about the housework you didn’t get to today. If you have the choice between finishing up that last load of dishes or playing with your child, do the latter. Housework can always wait until tomorrow, but your child will grow up before you know it.
  9. There will always be someone there to tell you that you’re doing it wrong. Every mom who’s been there and done that will give you advice whether you want it or not. Just smile and nod. In the end, simply trust your instincts, as they’re the most valuable tool you can use when it comes to being a parent. Sure, they’ve been there, done that, but at the end of the day, every child is different and you know your child better than anyone else. (And those people who try to give you advice and have never even had children? Laugh at them. And tell them that they have no business giving you advice.)
  10. You will experience love in a way that you’ve never experienced before. Nothing will ever be the same.

At the end of the day, though, I wouldn’t change a thing.

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.

Beginning My Journey Into Motherhood

/ Katie / Leave a comment

I’m 22 years old. I have a college degree, I’ve been in a steady relationship for nearly four and a half years, I’ve been steadily employed since I was 16, I pay my own rent, I take care of myself the best I can, but I still have a lot of growing up to do.

I’m also about to become a mother.

As I write this, it’s late on January 9, 2013, and my due date is nine days away. I have been preparing for this for the last forty weeks (give or take). I have been telling everyone how excited I am to have this child, despite the fact that this pregnancy was not planned, and how ready I am to meet her.

You want to know the truth? I’m absolutely terrified. I’m a first-time mom, I have no experience with newborns, I have no idea what to expect. I’m so ready to be done being pregnant, but my brain is telling me, “You’re going to be a mom? Why the hell would you want to do that?” I can barely take care of myself, and the thought that I’ll have to take care of another human being, to be responsible for raising that human being, to be responsible for teaching her right from wrong, to have to worry about someone other than myself because every single one of my choices could affect her – that’s a scary thing. Absolutely terrifying. And the thought that I’ll no longer be able to just do what I want – like going on last-minute trips to the bar for drinks, late-night runs to the grocery store just because, having friends stop by unannounced, staying up until five in the morning because I have nothing better to do – is actually a little bit saddening. In a single moment, my entire life is going to change, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it at this point.

The point of this blog is to give me an outlet to talk about my experiences as a new mother, and as a young woman just trying to grow up. I will make mistakes, but I vow to learn from them, and maybe if someone stumbles upon this, they could learn a thing or two as well.

This is the beginning of the rest of my life.