Thoughts on new parenthood
I've been brewing a collection of random aspects of new mom-hood that I thought I'd share with the interested. So here's a list of things I didn't expect, that no one ever told me (why oh why?) or that I was told and never properly believed...
1. All that planning and fretting about giving birth will most likely end up mostly thrown out the window. The things I thought would make it easier didn't and the things I feared most weren't that bad. The process sucks, but eventually it ends, and as long as there's a healthy baby in the end it all rather pales in comparison to what comes afterwards. Also, the magic forgetting hormones take a few weeks to kick in, but then oh boy howdy they sure do.
2. Post-partum *hurts*. On a purely physical level, there's a whole lot of pain involved. Especially if you're trying to breastfeed. Doubly especially if the kidlet is a biter. And, unlike labor, it's there through weeks and months. Which really makes one wonder -- why the endless classes and information about the giving birth part but no one ever mentions how to deal with the much more protracted pain afterwards?
3. Everyone warns of the bone-crippling exhaustion of the first few months. I think I somehow skipped that, by the grace of whatever fates there are. Sure, I've been tired, and in a hell of a lot of pain, but the exhaustion itself hasn't been world-shattering (cross my fingers, knock on wood). I think this is mostly due to #4,5,6,7 (and possibly those forgetting hormones).
4. I'm pretty sure there's some magic hormones that make new moms better able to deal with sleep deprivation. I'm getting less than finals-at-tech levels of sleep on long-term timescales and it somehow isn't as totally shattering as I would have expected it to be.
5. Every baby will have some sort of sleep issues. Sammy somehow got himself on a 1-feeding-a-night schedule starting at about 2 weeks (duck .... please don't lynch us!). However, he also won't sleep during the day. At all. I got chewed out by the pediatrician on the last visit since apparently it's not good for baby to be getting a grand total of 10hrs of sleep each day. Also, the screaming-instead-of-sleep during the day wasn't so good for our sanity either. So now we're trying to convince him to take naps. Which means he just wakes up during the night instead...
6. When they say "get help for the postpartum period", boy do they mean it. It really does take a village to raise a child. Seriously, I am so very everlastingly grateful to everyone who has brought us groceries or food or even just held fussy baby for 15 minutes while I run around and do stuff. Having a friends-and-family support network is the best key to new-baby survival ever. Also, how people did/do this without a husband willing and able to engage in endless diapering, holding, rocking, lullaby-singing and general baby care is beyond me.
7. On that topic, GRANDPARENTS ARE AWESOME. I can't imagine how we'd have gotten through those first few weeks, or for that matter the past couple months without my mom's advice, support, baby-soothing skill, and occasional willingness to stay up at night.
8. Turns out, your mother / grandmother / aunt / insert wise person who raised kids decades ago in a totally different world... they actually do know some stuff. And when they come up with things that weren't in the book, those things more often than not work.
9. After getting a decent latch, the second most fundamental thing to maintaining sanity is learning to do something enjoyable while nursing. I've gotten a whole lot of knitting done lately and the only reason I have time to write this overly-long post is because it can be done while baby eats. I'm pretty sure I'd have gone off the deep end ages ago if I couldn't have these things to take my mind off the biting.
10. For the first month, getting 1 load of laundry done while home alone with baby = a productive day. An unproductive day is when the spitup-covered washcloths start piling up on every available surface, there's a poopy diaper on the bathroom counter because you have no chance to go remove it, and you don't even bother buttoning your shirt anymore. For the second month -- just about the same. Jury's still out on the third... This is the other reason being able to do anything at all while nursing is key to sanity.
11. Another key to sanity: never trying to plan anything beyond the event horizon of the next feeding. Thinking you know whether baby will scream, sleep, or play after the next one and planning out what you'll get done accordingly is a sure-fire recipe for frustration.
12. Tiny babies are portable, with limitations. Turns out, as long as you're willing to nurse in public, taking baby to informal work meetings works quite well. Taking baby to seminar, not so much -- baby grumbling is a lot more likely to make heads turn at the latter.
13. Baby poo isn't nearly as scary as it seems. I went from never before touching a diaper (turns out the front and back aren't labelled... so how are you supposed to know?) to changing out a prefold cloth or disposable in less than a minute, within the space of a couple weeks. Also, the poo bears no resemblance to human poo and somehow the ick factor of dealing with it just hasn't materialized.
14. All baby-care theories are wrong. Absolute theories are wrong absolutely. Pacifier or not, giving an occasional bottle or not, nursing to sleep, cosleeping, schedule or on-demand feedings, how long to feed -- all of these will go flying out the window when there's an actual baby with his own opinions involved.
15. Like it or not you end up having to question everything you read about and everything you hear. This includes things you are told by the all-knowing doctors. Especially when the latter start giving off vibes of "here is our official party line, but that's not what I'd do with my own child"
16. You can have all the baby gear in the world, and your baby will still decide that the coolest things ever are the clock on the wall, the cardboard printouts that you colored in with magic markers, and the sound of daddy's voice singing the Railroad Song.
17. Even at two months old, baby can be fascinated by us reading him a story. So sweet, so cuddly, so didn't expect that fun part of parenting until much later.
18. Baby screaming is absolutely the most annoying sound imaginable. Especially so if you don't know what's causing it or how to fix it. Or if you know of exactly one sure-fire way to fix it, but it'll make you scream in his stead.
19. A smiling baby is the sweetest creature in the world. I don't care how anti-baby you think you are, you will dissolve into a shapeless puddle of baby-talking goo the first time your child grins directly up at you. Yes, even if he/she does it while they're trying to eat (which, it turns out, is physically impossible without biting). Yes, even if it immediately follows a double whammy of a projectile poo.
20. The sleeping baby ties for sweetest creature. There's simply nothing quite like the feeling of a warm sleepy mass of baby cuddled up on your chest. I makes everything else more than worth it.
1. All that planning and fretting about giving birth will most likely end up mostly thrown out the window. The things I thought would make it easier didn't and the things I feared most weren't that bad. The process sucks, but eventually it ends, and as long as there's a healthy baby in the end it all rather pales in comparison to what comes afterwards. Also, the magic forgetting hormones take a few weeks to kick in, but then oh boy howdy they sure do.
2. Post-partum *hurts*. On a purely physical level, there's a whole lot of pain involved. Especially if you're trying to breastfeed. Doubly especially if the kidlet is a biter. And, unlike labor, it's there through weeks and months. Which really makes one wonder -- why the endless classes and information about the giving birth part but no one ever mentions how to deal with the much more protracted pain afterwards?
3. Everyone warns of the bone-crippling exhaustion of the first few months. I think I somehow skipped that, by the grace of whatever fates there are. Sure, I've been tired, and in a hell of a lot of pain, but the exhaustion itself hasn't been world-shattering (cross my fingers, knock on wood). I think this is mostly due to #4,5,6,7 (and possibly those forgetting hormones).
4. I'm pretty sure there's some magic hormones that make new moms better able to deal with sleep deprivation. I'm getting less than finals-at-tech levels of sleep on long-term timescales and it somehow isn't as totally shattering as I would have expected it to be.
5. Every baby will have some sort of sleep issues. Sammy somehow got himself on a 1-feeding-a-night schedule starting at about 2 weeks (duck .... please don't lynch us!). However, he also won't sleep during the day. At all. I got chewed out by the pediatrician on the last visit since apparently it's not good for baby to be getting a grand total of 10hrs of sleep each day. Also, the screaming-instead-of-sleep during the day wasn't so good for our sanity either. So now we're trying to convince him to take naps. Which means he just wakes up during the night instead...
6. When they say "get help for the postpartum period", boy do they mean it. It really does take a village to raise a child. Seriously, I am so very everlastingly grateful to everyone who has brought us groceries or food or even just held fussy baby for 15 minutes while I run around and do stuff. Having a friends-and-family support network is the best key to new-baby survival ever. Also, how people did/do this without a husband willing and able to engage in endless diapering, holding, rocking, lullaby-singing and general baby care is beyond me.
7. On that topic, GRANDPARENTS ARE AWESOME. I can't imagine how we'd have gotten through those first few weeks, or for that matter the past couple months without my mom's advice, support, baby-soothing skill, and occasional willingness to stay up at night.
8. Turns out, your mother / grandmother / aunt / insert wise person who raised kids decades ago in a totally different world... they actually do know some stuff. And when they come up with things that weren't in the book, those things more often than not work.
9. After getting a decent latch, the second most fundamental thing to maintaining sanity is learning to do something enjoyable while nursing. I've gotten a whole lot of knitting done lately and the only reason I have time to write this overly-long post is because it can be done while baby eats. I'm pretty sure I'd have gone off the deep end ages ago if I couldn't have these things to take my mind off the biting.
10. For the first month, getting 1 load of laundry done while home alone with baby = a productive day. An unproductive day is when the spitup-covered washcloths start piling up on every available surface, there's a poopy diaper on the bathroom counter because you have no chance to go remove it, and you don't even bother buttoning your shirt anymore. For the second month -- just about the same. Jury's still out on the third... This is the other reason being able to do anything at all while nursing is key to sanity.
11. Another key to sanity: never trying to plan anything beyond the event horizon of the next feeding. Thinking you know whether baby will scream, sleep, or play after the next one and planning out what you'll get done accordingly is a sure-fire recipe for frustration.
12. Tiny babies are portable, with limitations. Turns out, as long as you're willing to nurse in public, taking baby to informal work meetings works quite well. Taking baby to seminar, not so much -- baby grumbling is a lot more likely to make heads turn at the latter.
13. Baby poo isn't nearly as scary as it seems. I went from never before touching a diaper (turns out the front and back aren't labelled... so how are you supposed to know?) to changing out a prefold cloth or disposable in less than a minute, within the space of a couple weeks. Also, the poo bears no resemblance to human poo and somehow the ick factor of dealing with it just hasn't materialized.
14. All baby-care theories are wrong. Absolute theories are wrong absolutely. Pacifier or not, giving an occasional bottle or not, nursing to sleep, cosleeping, schedule or on-demand feedings, how long to feed -- all of these will go flying out the window when there's an actual baby with his own opinions involved.
15. Like it or not you end up having to question everything you read about and everything you hear. This includes things you are told by the all-knowing doctors. Especially when the latter start giving off vibes of "here is our official party line, but that's not what I'd do with my own child"
16. You can have all the baby gear in the world, and your baby will still decide that the coolest things ever are the clock on the wall, the cardboard printouts that you colored in with magic markers, and the sound of daddy's voice singing the Railroad Song.
17. Even at two months old, baby can be fascinated by us reading him a story. So sweet, so cuddly, so didn't expect that fun part of parenting until much later.
18. Baby screaming is absolutely the most annoying sound imaginable. Especially so if you don't know what's causing it or how to fix it. Or if you know of exactly one sure-fire way to fix it, but it'll make you scream in his stead.
19. A smiling baby is the sweetest creature in the world. I don't care how anti-baby you think you are, you will dissolve into a shapeless puddle of baby-talking goo the first time your child grins directly up at you. Yes, even if he/she does it while they're trying to eat (which, it turns out, is physically impossible without biting). Yes, even if it immediately follows a double whammy of a projectile poo.
20. The sleeping baby ties for sweetest creature. There's simply nothing quite like the feeling of a warm sleepy mass of baby cuddled up on your chest. I makes everything else more than worth it.