There will be many moments during motherhood that you will look back at and laugh because they were just downright impossible, stressful, ridiculous or scary and at SOME POINT during your pregnancy you really thought you were “ready” and knew it all. #SMH
Below I’ve written about the top 10 moments that you might want to read about now in order to take some of the shock factor out of motherhood later.
You’re welcome. 😉
1. The SECOND night with baby
So the first night after your sweet new love is born you will be so full of adrenaline that you will be ready to take on all that motherhood has to throw at you. By the second night you will feel like you’ve been hit by a bus and wish that this little life would give you a few minutes to breathe. In that moment you might start to feel like you aren’t meant to be a mother. You will feel weak and unprepared and totally overwhelmed. You will still be healing from labor and delivery and also responsible for this small life. You might let the nurses take your baby for an hour or two and you’ll feel incredibly guilty for it. You and your baby will get 0 sleep while in the hospital and it is honestly a really crappy start to the parenthood journey. My daughter cried SO much those first 2 days and I remember thinking “there’s NO WAY I can do this”. The good news is that once you go home you can begin your life, routine and feel much more normal!
2. Going home
This is a SCARY time. There aren’t nurses around to ask questions to, no one to give you a break (besides your spouse) and you suddenly you have a messy house and real life surrounding you and your new responsibility. The day I arrived home I had no idea what to do with myself or my baby. It felt like we should be doing something but really, we just sat in the recliner all day and she napped and ate over and over with the occasional diaper change. When nighttime approaches you will probably be a little discouraged that you can’t just hop in bed like usual. I remember discovering that the beautiful rocking chair I’d upcycled for the nursery was incredibly uncomfortable to nurse in! My sweet baby’s head or feet (depending on nursing position) would bump the wood arms and that was not going to fly. At 11pm my husband was using a dolly to drag a cushy recliner from our living room up the stairs to our bedroom (whoops, he was probably still a little tired too…) Our set up was so well thought out but just not what was actually needed for baby. Just prepare that everything will go pretty terrible on night 1 but know that you have endless nights after that to perfect your routine.
I also had the “perfect” lamp picked out to go next to that uncomfortable nursing chair… it was way too bright for nighttime feedings. For the first few days I threw a sweater over the lampshade to dim it but soon realized how hot it was getting and bought a dimmable lamp (I HIGHLY recommend this).
Bonus life hack (iPhone users only): I also realized that even with my brightness settings all the way down on my iPhone I still couldn’t use my phone during night feeds without the light waking my daughter, especially because it was so noticeable in a very dark room. So I found an even darker setting on my phone! Instructions here.
3. The bleeding that seems to never end
Gross I know… but the reality is that if you aren’t used to wearing pads or even underwear to sleep you will be in for a rude awakening. I was so uncomfortable for weeks and I can remember googling over and over again “when will the bleeding stop”. It’s totally normal and you’ll even probably get a pamphlet that tells you not to be concerned unless you pass a blood clot LARGER THAN A GOLF BALL! —> Not a joke! So just hang tight mama, things will go back to normal soon enough. If you seriously hate wearing pads or panty liners like I do then maybe you’d be open to trying cloth panty liners. I know… it sounds gross! I actually found these on Etsy and fell in love with how comfortable they are! I could use them with some of my cuter, lower “coverage” undies too! Check them out here.
4. Staying awake while nursing in the middle of the night
So this one is a little tough. Yes, this stressful time will pass but that really doesn’t do you any good in the moment. Work on building a solid schedule for your baby from day 1. Don’t let anyone tell you that it’s too early to start- they’re wrong. You can read about some sleep tips here. But while things are tough just be smart. Don’t leave the lights on too bright and turn your screen brightness down as much as possible on your phone during nighttime feedings (see my “bonus tip” above). Until your baby is asleep focus on the nursing and don’t play on your phone; your main focus should be on them- otherwise they’ll be distracted by your Facebook feed and stay awake. Once asleep, use the time while their eyes are closed to read an eBook or do something you somewhat enjoy. Go to sleep when you put your baby to bed, you need all of the sleep you can get. “Me time” will come soon enough but right now it’s about survival and getting enough sleep to function.
5. The first night that NOTHING consoles baby
So this one will scar you for a while. After my first experience where my daughter was truly inconsolable (she wasn’t hungry, had a clean diaper, didn’t just want to snuggle, didn’t have a fever, etc.) I had major anxiety about bedtime for months. See more about that here. We tried everything and my husband suggested that we let her “cry it out” and get an hour of sleep. Instead of falling asleep I spent my time researching how high levels of cortisol are produced in little babies when they cry and it can cause SIDS. I was a F&%KING mess! Luckily she fell asleep after like 10 minutes but I vowed to never do it again – sleep or not my girl was going to have her Mommy (ask me how that’s going at age 1 – haha). Luckily after that she really didn’t have many episodes like that but I’ve always prioritized practicing extreme patience with even the most difficult moments- I think that one night scarred me forever. So my point here is that there will inevitably be moments where your baby will just be unhappy and you just need to keep in mind that it won’t last forever and this too shall pass. You will do what you think is best and sometimes you’ll decide that’s no longer right. We are all just trying our best to navigate the new parent waters.
6. When everything is soaked…
” It felt like I was drowning her with milk, shooting in her face, eyes and all over her outfit leaving her wet and cold. ”
Ah, this was an uncomfortable time. There were not pads thick enough for me to make it through the night without being totally soaked. I slept on multiple bath towels in order to avoid ruining the mattress and always woke up freezing! I would feed my daughter and the second she would pull away milk would go everywhere! It felt like I was drowning her with milk, shooting in her face, eyes and all over her outfit leaving her wet and cold. I learned to set a towel under by breast and draped over her chest to soak up anything during those moments. For most women it only seems to take a matter of days/weeks to regulate their supply but mine was months. I spent the first 4-5 months sleeping with a hand towel stuffed in my bra in order to avoid waking up soaked…
Eventually I did discover these super absorbent breast pads from Etsy and I never turned back.
My other tip would be that if you have a really strong let down, you may want to either hand-express or use a manual pump (I LOVE my Hakka) before nursing. This can be a pain and doesn’t fit into a routine every time but when possible it can certainly help.
7. Cluster feeding
I can’t tell you how much frustration this time caused me. I think it started around 3 or 4 weeks old and it lasted at least a month. From about 5pm-10pm I would literally spend 90% of my time nursing. My daughter would nurse and by the time she was done and I tried to hand her to my husband so I could pee or eat, she would scream and be hungry again. I swear I actually lived in the brown recliner in our living room during that time. My husband would bring my dinner to the end table and sometimes help feed it to me if I needed both hands.
My advice for this time is to plan ahead! If you’re working then have something ready to eat that you can easily grab with one hand and that you don’t mind getting cold. Put on comfy clothes and just take it for what it is. Go ahead and just plan to soak in those snuggles (trust me you’ll miss them soon enough). Don’t feel guilty for taking a few minutes to shower! If your baby gets upset it can be helpful to do skin to skin with Dad and keep something that smells like Mom around to comfort them.
Bonus Tip: If you’re planning to restrict screen time then use this time to load up on all of the tv you can while your baby is still focused enough on nursing to not watch. Once they start to notice and want to look at the tv in a month or two you might be like me and go months between ever watching television!
8. Being on time
This is basically a joke because even the most planful, Type A personalities (like myself) cannot easily manage to be on time with a newborn. Trust me, I made it happen but it required likely far more effort than it was worth.
Storytime:
My daughter and I had a 10AM monthly checkup at her pediatrician one morning. In the most planful way possible I made sure that we had enough time for her to nap and eat before we needed to leave (only 15 minutes before the appointment since we literally only needed 5 minutes to get there). Well, although we started naps in plenty of time I had such a hard time waking my girl to get her to start nursing. She would suck for a minute and then stop and fall back asleep. I turned music on and bright lights – the works. By the time she woke up enough to really start nursing we had 15 minutes left before needing to leave. In the early days that wasn’t nearly enough time to nurse, she would sometimes take an hour because she was slow and her tummy was small. To add to the fun, suddenly I had to go #2 – it was an emergency and felt very ill. I knew I didn’t have enough time to take a bathroom break and nurse her (and going to a doctor appointment on an empty tummy would be a recipe for disaster). So of course I ended up finding a way to nurse her while using the bathroom in major discomfort. We left 5 minutes late but still arrived at the appointment 5 minutes early.
My tip here is that you can still be on time but even with the most careful planning things can happen that will derail your plans. Just laugh at the craziness and do what you must to multitask or rearrange plans.
9. Spit up is scary
This can be a really scary experience! If you have a baby with reflux it can be really hard to manage those hypochondriac tendencies (which all come to a climax as a new mom) when you see your sweet child hurling milk. First, know the difference between spit up and reflux. Spit up will come back up basically the same way it went down. Reflux comes from the stomach and will be curdled, smell foul and might look chunkier or more yellow. If your baby continues to have reflux you will want to talk to your doctor. You will also want to avoid laying your baby down right after nursing. Allow them to sit up, burp and digest properly before laying down flat. Also, please for the love of God, do not put them in their swing after nursing (learn from my mistakes, friends!)
The amount of liquid that comes out can really seem like a lot too – just beware. One night my daughter covered half of my brown recliner, my whole pant leg, the floor and some of the dog in milk. I didn’t even realize that much could fit inside of a tiny person!
10. Bath time or potty time?
At some point in the early days you will come to the realization that it’s a dangerous game to take your child’s diaper off for 10 minutes to give them a bath. That time is fair game to use the restroom and that = a big mess! There’s nothing you can do to prevent this really so just know that it’s coming and don’t panic when it does. If your baby pees you may not even notice if it’s just a small amount (gross, I know) – so don’t worry about that too much. The bigger concern is when they poop (especially at the small age when their bowl movements are still very loose). If this happens then just let your baby finish (try not to let them play in it), pull them out and lay them on a towel, dump the dirty water in the toilet, clean the baby tub and start over. You may want to lay your baby on a diaper while you do these things since sometimes the cold air can make them have to pee.
Try not to get too grossed out and know that it all washes off in the end!
