As we countdown the final days until my baby niece arrives, I had a few thoughts for my sister about that first, beautiful year of her daughter's life.
1. Those first few months are all about survival. Yours. You won't be able to do anything except take care of your baby and maybe feed yourself. A shower is a luxury.
2. You will want to literally drop kick every old lady who tells you to enjoy this time in your life. Oh yeah, lack of sleep, being spit up and changing diapers 8,000 times a day is a moment in time you want to cherish. (Note: The old ladies are kind of right, but when you haven't slept in weeks, you don't want to hear it.)
2 (part B). After drop kicking grandma, you will want to hold her in a choke hold if she looks at your crying baby and says, "oh, she must hungry" or "oh, little sweetheart needs a nap" or "oh my, her diaper must be dirty." Listen lady, sometimes kids cry for reasons besides hunger, sleep or dirty diapers!
3. There will come a point where you ask yourself why you would ever do this to yourself ... why you would ever turn your life upside down. You will swear you will never have another child, that no sane person would subject themselves to this torture.
4. At some point during that first year, you will look at that little baby and not even like him/her. You will look into the face of your screaming newborn and ask yourself if you even love this thing? Then, five minutes (maybe five days) later you will feel horrendously guilty for even thinking such thoughts. But cut yourself some slack, you will always love your child. Doesn't mean you will always like him/her.
5. You will want to hide in your house and not see or talk to anyone. For days. Weeks. You just want to tell them all to leave you alone! You may even snap at people you love. Go for it. We've been there.
6. You will find that you knew nothing about being tired. That being sleep deprieved is a torture beyond measure, so bad it should be outlawed under the Geneva Convention.
7. Anyone who tells you that breast feeding is naturual and that (when done correctly!) should not hurt ... has never had a human being suck on their breast for hours at a time.
8. There will be a night (or two) when you will hate your husband. Like when he wakes you in the middle of the night to tell you that your daughter is awake and then goes back to sleep while you get up for the upteenth time to feed or change or rock her back to sleep. Oh yeah, gets ugly.
9. You can read, "Happiest Baby on the Block," "Babywhisper" and "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby" a thousand times over ... and never find the magical answer of how to get your baby to sleep.
10. Everyone and their sister (say what???) will know more than you do about parenting and will share every little nugget of knowledge and information they have with you. You will smile politely and move on, screaming to yourself that you don't want to hear one more opinion on bottles or pacifiers or swaddling. Most well-wishers will end each conversation with, "but it's your baby, so you have to do what you think is best" while you know what they really mean is that THEIRS is the only opinion that counts. It's all right, they mean well, and you won't mean a thing by repeating to yourself "go f-ck yourself" 801 times over. Preferably in your head. Silently.
And when it's all said and done, you will pick up the phone and call your older (and wiser) sister, who will listen to you vent and then offer up the best nugget of parental advice she can muster ... followed by the sentence, "but it's your baby, so you have to do what you think is best."
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