So we’re at 21 weeks now and Tater’s evidently practicing really hard for his eventual soccer superstardom - it’s becoming a little less abstract now that in August we’ll drive to the hospital as two people and come home as three people. (Still really abstract though. My husband totally forgot to take a bunch of pictures at his job a few days ago because he saw a lady with a baby in the crowd and was thinking “we’re going to HAVE one of those?!”)
There have been a lot of really useful threads on the birth board I lurk at (which is alternately full of good advice, drama, useful “is this normal?” threads, and people wearing safety pins on their underpants so the lunar eclipse doesn’t kill their babies or give them cleft palates, yes, months after all these palates have been fused - why does that bother me more than the basic superstition) about “what do you wish somebody had told you about labor and postpartum” from women on their second or later children. (Embrace the mesh underpants, don’t forget to bring your husband’s stuff, the nurses will throw people out of the room for you, you can soak those crazy enormous pads with witch hazel and put them in the freezer? That doesn’t sound soothing at all but I have brain-bookmarked it for future reference.)
But there hasn’t been much chatter on that sort of thing once you bring that thing HOME, and I’ve seen in a lot of places where so many people wish they’d read more on infant care and less on childbirth itself. I know some of this will be in our birth classes, but what didn’t they tell you? What was really a surprise?
That it’s really, really ok to put them down (somewhere safe) when they haven’t stopped crying for four hours and walk into another room and close the door for five minutes.
Let other people help. Have a short mental list, so when someone says “what can I do” have a quick answer and let them help.
That even with a “good baby” you’re going to be so very tired and sleep deprived, and if you get a “fussy baby” you’re going to want to do bad things after a few weeks. And that’s perfectly normal, as long as you don’t actually DO something bad.
Before you change a diaper, first prepare your work station: lay out your cloth, open and spread the new diaper, pull out a bunch of wipes, get your plastic bag open… and only then start taking off the baby’s clothing.
Find a song you like, and don’t mind singing in a loop for 60 minutes straight. That’s your lullaby. It doesn’t have to be a standard-issue lullaby, either.
Specially in your case as you’re having a boy IIRC: learn to change the diaper in such a way that you keep as much of it shielding you from your boy’s built-in watergun as possible. You WILL still get peed on mightily at least once while performing a diaper change, but may be able to mitigate it some. Still, dropping that “shield” down rather than pulling it away is a learned technique that seems to require being peed on at least once before you get how to do it.
You will get angry at the baby at some point. It doesn’t matter how much you know that there’s no reason for it, that the baby hasn’t got the capacity to decide to do anything, or even that the baby hasn’t done anything to be angry about. It doesn’t matter how much you love her or are enthralled with her. It will happen and it may be shockingly sudden. Let it go. Do not beat yourself up over it or bother feeling guilty for more than a second (that’s natural, too).
Babies are a lot of work. You’re going to be tired. A flash of anger will not hurt her. You are not a bad person or a bad mother. If anger is something that just doesn’t happen to you, no, you are not going nuts or changing. (Well, parenting will change you, but that’s something else.) Just let it pass.
That’s assuming that it’s a few flashes and not an increasing burden of resentment. IBOFs need to be dealt with. A few flashes of anger are normal.
You will find your mind imagining ways that the baby will be hurt. That’s your protectiveness coming online. Remind yourself that it’s just your subconscious looking for ways that the baby could be hurt, so that you can avoid them. Occasionally it can be vivid. This is not any part of you hoping that the baby will be hurt. It’s a protective thing. As the baby becomes stronger it should morph into normal parental catastrophizing.
You may find yourself standing by the crib, watching her breathe just to reassure yourself that she’s breathing and marveling at how fragile that little life is. This happens to nearly everyone at least once. There’s no need to fight it. Enjoy the quiet and the sense of awareness of the baby.
Later you will rely on the parental instinct that just prodded you and said “hey, it’s too quiet.” You’ll go into their bedroom to see them quietly removing the screen from their window, because they’ve just figured out how to do that and had to check it out. That instinct is what’s pulling you to go stand by the crib. So just watch the baby breathe and don’t worry that you’re worrying for no reason. There will be reasons later. Welcome to parenthood.
Unless it’s not. My baby screamed whenever swaddled. The message is what works for everyone else’s babies might not work for yours and it’s ok to find your own solutions.
Make plans so that you are prepared… but do NOT hold on to them. DO NOT become emotionally invested in them.
Babies (and sometimes post-partum bodies) don’t give a shit that you have always intended on breastfeeding exclusively… think the pacifier is the devil’s tool… think that sleeping should occur at night… that what was awesome and soothing on Tuesday is the worst thing on the planet on Wednesday… thinks that your swaddling is just an elaborate game of “I can get out of anything.”
And about the time it takes to get them into a regular routine is approximately the same exact amount of time for them to move into the next phase of development that makes your previous routine moot or obsolete.
I grew up watching my sister breastfeed all three of my nephews until they could use the blender to make themselves, and her, a milk shake. My breastfeeding expectations were very high. But my milk didn’t come in right away (emergency C-section). And after a few days, my son had lost a lot of weight and was pretty fucking pissed about it.
Right before we took him to his first doc appointment, my sister warned me, his pediatrician is going to tell you that you have to supplement with formula… in a very sinister voice. Lo and behold, his doc told me just that. I cried for three hours straight and felt like such a failure as a woman because my body was not prepared to feed my child.
So we gave him some formula. And he stopped crying. And slept. And two days later my milk came in and I looked like Dolly Parton. And I am still breastfeeding him two years later. And he drank quite a bit of formula (when I was at work and he at day care). And we got the best of both worlds and it was no big deal.
But the high expectations I set for myself only resulted in unnecessary misery.
They need to eat every two hours, around the clock, in the beginning. Count on half an hour or so to feed. This continues for weeks. You will be waking regularly at all hours.
All I had were people grinning manically into my face and cooking about how wonderful it must be to be a mother and how sweet babies are and now jealous they all were–while I was barely keeping it together.
Infancy sucks! It gets better! They learn to sleep, they learn to feed themselves, they learn to communicate their needs. It gets sooo much better than infancy!
When Mr. smaje and I returned home with our first bundle of joy, we looked around the apartment and realized we had nowhere to put her, except for the crib. So he ran out and bought the Fisher-Price Newborn Rock 'n Play Sleeper. It was perfect–it folds up easily so you can bring it to grandma’s house (or wherever), and baby won’t have to just sit in the car seat.
Bottom line: there is no one right way to do things… despite what your mother, mother in law, sister, best friend, or some twat on the internet says. Be flexible and use your instincts. They will guide you. You got this!!!
Like what? My daughter came home from the hospital the day after she was born and then had a checkup when she was either 1 or 2 weeks (I forget which), and then the next one was at 2 months. That was it. I remember that my mom thought that was surprising and remembered there being more appointments when her kids were newborns too, but this was the same pediatrician we all had (including my sister who is only 7 years older than my daughter) so I don’t know what other standard appointments they would have had.
I seem to be the exception…I changed at least half of that boy’s diapers, and I never got peed on during the change. I got pee on me other way, soaked onesies etc. but never got peed on.
My advice: Buy approximately 5,000 cloth diapers, even if you’re not diapering in cloth. They’re good for wiping or soaking up anything, burp rags, whatever. And you can bleach them.
And then they’re good houshold rags when you don’t need them for urp.
You don’t need to tiptoe and speak in whispers when the baby’s sleeping- they’ll adjust to the ambient noise in the house. If you do start out being quiet for the baby, that’s what the baby will get used to and then you will need to keep being extra quiet.
Doesn’t mean you can play drums in the next room, just live your life at a normal volume.
At least this was the case with our kids. Others may have had babies who were very light sleepers, but I think in general it’s true.
Babies are resilient, tough little creatures, designed to survive and to get what they need. Unless you are really trying to hurt them, you won’t. They won’t break physically or emotionally. Love them, but also love yourself.
Take all the help you can get with cooking and housework.
Ignore about 80% of the well-meant advice. Your baby is unique and you all will work out your routines. Your baby may love the swing or the vibrating chair. Or not. Your baby may love breast feeding or wean themselves assertively.
Try, seriously try, not to play comparative baby. It generally does not matter if your baby is crawling “on time” or not walking at 18 months. They’ll get there.
We never got hosed, either. Just didn’t work that way.
If/When you go back to work in the 6-12 week area, it’s going to be awful. Not in some flabby emotional “I want my baby” way, but in “this is one of the most physically difficult things I have ever done” sort of way. One of the things about not hardly sleeping is that your days get LONG: work goes from being half of your waking hours to being a blip in your day–you’re up for hours before it starts and up for hours after you get home. You aren’t just sleeping less: you are doing more, on less sleep. Dealing with pumping–not just the pumping, but the cleaning the pieces, repacking, etc–takes up huge amounts of time. Everything you do, you do less efficiently because you are so, so tired so it has to be done, undone, redone.
I am not trying to be depressing. Mostly, I want to say “Be prepared, it gets better”. Also, for a while you are going to suck at your job. It can’t be your priority. I really really struggled with that, but the best thing I did, eventually, is learn to let it go. Most people understood, and fuck the ones that didn’t. It simply couldn’t be helped and there was no point worrying about it.
My baby screamed whenever swaddled. The message is what works for everyone else’s babies might not work for yours and it’s ok to find your own solutions.