Mummy’s caught a cold
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The Baby Sleep Plan BS
Like most new mums, bringing my baby home (around 12 hours after she was born) was a total shock. I had done so much preparation for the labour and birth (which seemed to pay off – my birth experience was really positive), but felt like a total idiot for not (apart from one antenatal class where we learned to put on a nappy and watched a breast-feeding video) even contemplating what the heck I was meant to do with this little creature once we got home.
And the thing that caused the most shock was sleep, or more accurately, the lack of sleep. It wasn’t as if I’d thought it’d be easy to get my baby to sleep, I just hadn’t thought about it at all. Sure, I’d heard of ‘sleep school’ and tales of parental sleep deprivation, and I knew, especially in the early days, that there’d be feeds at all hours, but I just didn’t expect getting a baby to go to sleep (and as an extra bonus, stay asleep) to be so darn hard.
The point of this post isn’t to detail our sleep woes or to provide advice about what has worked and what hasn’t, but to call BS on the stories of sleep fixes that fill books and blog posts, and that are desperately lapped up by tired and anxious parents like me.
It Gets Easier
When Ella was born a few of our good friends (all with kids) gave us meals. As we muddled our way through the initial fog of first-time parenting, these meals, which we could whip out of the freezer, bung in the microwave, and have on the table in less than 10 minutes were a godsend and saved us from eating toast for dinner on many occasions.
While I was so grateful to have these gifts of delicious home-cooked food I couldn’t help feeling a little upset. Upset because, in the haze of sleep-deprivation, utter exhaustion and compete overwhelmption, I couldn’t possibly foresee a time when I’d be able to cook dinner for myself, let alone have the capacity to make a meal (or meals) for a friend.
But today, a little over a year later, while my daughter naps (in her own bed for over an hour!) I’m making a bacon & vegetable slice for a girlfriend with a 4-day old baby and quietly smiling as I think about how far I’ve come.
50 Days with a Newborn: Reflections on Life, Love and Parenting
50 days ago I added ‘mother’ and ‘parent’ to my list of titles (well, actually 52 days ago – it’s taken me a few days to finish this post!). Without a doubt, these last 50 days have been the hardest of my life. I had no idea just how physically, mentally and emotionally demanding this parenting gig would be. My friend Gavin described it like a baby bootcamp. He’s right. You get pushed to your limit, you’re completely exhausted, and then you’re screamed at (often literally) to give just a little bit more.
But as the ‘new parent fog’ begins to lift I’m beginning to appreciate the lessons I’ve learned and new insights I’ve gained. As well as the million and one practical parenting lessons, here are 10 larger life lessons that the last 50 days has revealed or reminded me of…
- There are no do-overs. Miss some tired signs and keep her up too long, think she’s tired when really she’s crying ’cause she’s starving, don’t burp her for long enough and she ends up covered in vomit… You never get to go back in time and make a different decision. You have to live with the outcome of the little decisions you make and all you can do is try to learn when things don’t go quite right. But at the same time, the ‘no do-overs’ also applies to the good stuff. I’ll never get a second chance to experience her ‘firsts’ so even when I’m wanting to fast-forward through the tough bits, I need to be present and to enjoy these moments as much as I can. [Read more…]
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