There's a lot that involves being a mom. Most people get the impression that a stay at home housewife and mother sits around in their pajamas all day eating ice cream and watching cartoons with the kids...and you know what...I WAS in my pjs until about 3... I ate the last delicious ice cream drumstick...and I watched the five hour long version of Pride and Prejudice. Yep, being a mommy does have these benefits, but I just think of these as necessary awards for being awesome and to keep us from going INSANE. What people don't know, except all you other moms out there, is that in between that bit of ice cream and movie we are scrambling around trying to find the time to pee and eat an entire meal before baby starts screaming and requires our attention. Let me put it this way, I have a pile of clean clothes on the floor and the kitchen is a mess because little Miss Savannah doesn't think Mommy needs to do anything except hold her and admire her pretty face. Which I do like all the time.
Here's a few things that baby is teaching me.
1. Get sleep whenever you can
2. When you have the option to clean or to sleep...well, do I have to finish that?
3. Savannah now rules the house. Her schedule is our schedule. We do what she wants...or else
4. Early bedtime equals happy Mommy
5. Eating salad is a no no. It results in icky green poop and a very fussy baby
As a new mommy, I'm still trying to get into the rhythm of things. Luckily, I have a cousin who has a daughter a week younger than Savannah and we can bounce ideas off of each other. One recent pearl is that she puts her Laila to bed around seven which helps her sleep better and longer at night. This is something we've been trying to do. Some days it works, some days, like today, it simply doesn't. Right now our little girl is being rocked by Bryce and she is doing her best to be as fussy as possible. She slept for maybe an hour all together, woke up twice, and is now crying. I literally want to yell out "When is it going to get better?!" Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing anything right at all.
I guess what I'm saying is, being a mom is HARD! I now understand why my mom used to say she was going to pull her hair out. I feel like that every. single. day. Everybody says it all gets so much easier at 3 months...and oh boy am I looking forward to 3 months.
Meet my three best friends:
These three items are alternated throughout the day, and sometimes are given all at the same time! The Zantac helps with her acid reflux, the gas drops are for, well, gas, and the gripe water is just my own personal life saver. Basically gets her to stop crying long enough to forget what she was crying about. Too bad there's nothing that I can take to make me feel better....oh yeah, it's called chocolate. (feel free to send some my way anytime you'd like). Most people make parenting seem so easy! But I'm going to go ahead and admit that it's a struggle. It's a constant emotional roller coaster and I can go from wanting to cry and scream at Savannah to be quiet to kissing her cheeks and feeling unimaginable joy within minutes. Now that's exhausting. It's even worse than PMS because you don't have the option to go into your room all day by yourself with a good book and forget about the world.
Don't get me wrong, I love my baby girl. She is the cutest thing I have ever seen and my greatest accomplishment. It's simply that we are both still learning...she's learning how to do things other than cry...and me learning how to get her to not cry. So here's the deal, I would like some advice from you sage mothers on a few topics:
1. What worked best for you at bedtime with your little babies?
2. How often did your babies nurse?
3. How did you keep your sanity?
4. Did your babies cry a lot...if so, what did you do?
Feel free to comment and share your experiences...you will be helping a new mommy figure things out! Thanks in advance...and go ahead and send a few prayers our way!!
Thanks for the shout out! I seriously feel special ;) I'm just a new mommy figuring it all out too but here's a few things I have done.... Laila had TWO nights awhile back where she cried the colic cry. I knew what colic was and wanted to cry myself because of what I knew! After that night the doctor put her on Zantac for acid reflux, I cut out all dairy, caffeine (including chocolate), eggs, spicy foods, garlic, and any gas producing foods, and I kept her elevated after feedings, actually barely ever laid her flat, and had her sleep on a pretty steep incline. I was seriously eating oatmeal (which I had to quickly cut back on cuz I already had huge over supply), bananas, celery and peanut butter, apples, and steamed carrots.....most boring diet ever but it did wonders!! I think the dairy and caffeine were big ones. We recently went on a mini vaca and I decided I wasn't going to eat such a restrictive diet.....we paid for it. I'm back to restriciting just not as much and hopefully by 3 months her little digestive system will be able to handle much more. The Zantac is also working well so we are thankful for that. She nurses every 2 hours except at night ranges from 5 to 3 and sometimes 2. I'm still nursing on demand though so ifshe wants more often that's what I do. She nursed every hour through the growth spurt, it was brutal. Keep my sanity? Well, I'm finally not exhausted every day so that alone helps a ton and when Cory is home I savor showers and they are hot and long! Let's just keep bouncing ideas off of each other and looking forward to 3 months ;)
ReplyDeleteHannah is like a first-time mom genius!!! Just sayin! I say ditto to everything she said!Here is what I can add: my babies nursed every 2 hrs up to around 6 months. Once I started introducing solids, then they nursed more like every 3-4 hrs. I also nursed on demand, but each kid got on the every 2 hr schedule naturally. The best thing I did for a good daytime schedule once my babies were around 3 months was when they woke up in the morning I would nurse them, then they would have their awake time where we could play, do tummy time etc, and then they would be ready for the first nap about 1 1/2 to 2 hrs after they woke up. ( so if Brennen woke up at 6:30am, he would take his nap at 8:30) Then his naps were usually 2-3 hrs and we would stick to the 2 hr max awake time. If babies stay awake for too long it becomes more difficult to fall asleep, and they don't sleep as well or as long. A myth that a lot of parents believe is if they keep their baby up later than usual, they will crash and sleep long. Wrong! Early bedtimes are so much better for babies. So from 3-6 months Savannah should be taking around 4 naps during the day and waking up to eat 1-2 times during the night, maybe 3 times at most during growth spurts. Some babies sleep all night by then. Anna and carter did. I think that if you create a consistent daytime schedule and are home when the baby naps and don't let their awake time go over 2 hrs then you will get into a routine and nighttime sleep will automatically improve, as long as your baby doesn't develop nighttime sleep associations, like needing a binky to sleep or wanting to be held. A good thing to google and read up on are sleep associations and be aware of those. Kya took really short naps so when she was 4 months I had to do sleep training with her. Google that too! I would do the same routine before I put her down for a nap, then whether she was asleep or awake, I would put her in bed and leave. I would let her cry for no longer than an hour before going back in. She never cried for that long, maybe 45 minutes at the most, and then started learning to go to sleep by herself. She struggled with some major sleep association problems. Of course you know my babies cried a lot and had reflux. I always watched what I ate, they always slept inclined, and they outgrew it by around 3-4 months. Crying doesn't hurt babies. It's good for them to express themselves through crying. If your baby cries a lot she might have more gas than usual. Just because she cries, it doesn't mean you are doing something wrong and you don't have to feel like you need to find that perfect tip to stop the crying. Babies cry ALOT during those first few months! When the crying got to be more than I could handle, I would pass the baby off to dad, or put baby in crib if I was home alone, and shut the door and give myself a few minutes to calm down. It's frustrating, but it doesn't do any good to be rough with your baby! As for sanity, find little projects to do here and there. When it's warm, get outside, go for little walks and hikes! Form a group with other moms and get together once a week...that will be a lifesaver!
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