What a wonderful month we’ve had! Isaac is becoming so much more aware of his surroundings, he is as squirmy as a worm, he’s laughing, he’s interested in everything, & every day is a joy to watch him learn & grow! Here’s some highlights of what this FTM is learning!
Isaac is 5 months old!
Let Me Give You Some Advice: I always got frustrated whenever someone would dole out advice before we had Isaac. You get a lot of it, but little did I realize that these people weren’t necessarily trying to tell me what to do, they were trying to help. There’s value in listening to someone who has been there! Of course, there will always be advice that isn’t helpful or realistic or applicable to your situation, which you are free to ignore, but I wish I wasn’t so quick to roll my eyes & forget what the mom-of-four was trying to tell me. It may have made some things easier if I would have been more quick to listen.
The most common piece of advice we got before Isaac was born was to get him on a schedule. Now, there’s a lot of differing opinions here, & I have my own, but I will say that having him on a loose, flexible schedule is the best decision we’ve made so far. I wish I would have done it earlier!
Another one was probably the most common saying on the face of the planet (you’ll hear it every other second) & although the repetition does get annoying, it’s true: They grow up so fast! Make yourself enjoy every day. Make yourself slow down & spend some time just cuddling. Make yourself put down your phone. Make yourself put away the camera & enjoy the cute moments instead of trying to get the perfect photo of it. And in the hard moments, remind yourself that everything is temporary. Every good & bad thing you go through is temporary. Enjoy it!!
He’s standing! With help, of course. :-)
Confession: I swore I wouldn’t be that mom who gave out advice, but here I am, with only 5 months of parenting experience under my belt, & I’m giving it to you, whether you want it or not! ;-) Disclaimer: Not all of you will agree with me, & that’s fine, but this is my opinion from what I’ve learned with our son.
#1: Nursing Isaac to sleep every night in his first few months was a bad decision. I would nurse him until he was deeply asleep & if he woke up when I laid him down, I would pick him right back up & nurse him again. I wish I would have nursed, burped, kissed & cuddled, & then put him down to fall asleep in his crib. Same goes for naps. I would nurse him to sleep & just let him stay in whatever position he fell asleep. As much as it was nice to be so close to my baby, next time around I will put him down for naps too.
#2: Nursing on-demand is nice because you don’t have to watch the clock, you just nurse your baby whenever you think he’s hungry. But I came to realize that if you’re going to nurse whenever he wants during the day, you better be ready to nurse whenever he wants at night. It’s not fair to expect him to follow my schedule at night when he’s had his own way during the day. So we started a feeding schedule, day & night, that I control more than he does. This has been a HUGE help in getting him to sleep longer at night.
#3: Not all crying is bad. In the early days, I would rush in to stop Isaac from crying because I hated the sound. I still hate the sound, but now I know that his crying doesn’t necessarily mean he needs me to rush in to save him. He will often wake up crying/fussing/whining & fall back asleep in a few minutes. If I rush in there, I’m unnecessarily waking him up further, making him more upset! By us letting him fuss a little more before we intervene, we believe we are teaching him to fall back asleep on his own. And you know what, it’s working!
Disclaimer here: Ok, so, I have to say that in the beginning I think you should always respond to your crying baby. I also have to say that if he’s really wailing or screaming, we’ll go in to him. We don’t really ignore our son’s cries, we’ve just come to believe that we don’t have to shelter him from “expressing himself” all the time.
#4: Lastly, I would advise any of you parents or parents-to-be to seek out advice from many different sources. Before Isaac was born, I believed strongly in one kind of parenting philosophy, & I didn’t do much exploration on different styles of parenting. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t read books. I just had my beliefs about how I wanted to parent & I stuck with that. But then Isaac came along. And because I didn’t know anything else, I was forcing him into what I thought was the best parenting style & it wasn’t until 3 months later I realized I needed to get additional input. At that time I started asking questions, seeking out alternatives & finding different methods. I wish I wouldn’t have been so stubborn in the beginning & instead been more open to listening to advice & meshing everything I learned into my own, unique parenting style.
I love my son so incredibly much. You can’t say that because I do this method or don’t do that method that I love him any less. I do everything for him in the best way I can.
But Joy Comes with the Morning: It’s amazing how different the challenge is to care for a crying baby at night when it’s dark compared to during the day when the sun is out. When the baby cries & you have to get out of bed in the middle of the night, for the third time, you feel so hopeless that things are ever going to change. When he doesn’t go straight back to sleep, you feel like you just can’t do this anymore, you’re to your breaking point, you just want to sleep! Then, this miraculous thing happens once the sun comes up. You realize you don’t feel as tired as you thought you would, you don’t feel as desperate as you thought you did, & you think back to the middle of the night & realize it wasn’t so bad. Really, everything looks better when the sun comes up!
‘Good morning Mama!’ And suddenly I can’t even remember how many times I got up last night!
Confession: I do, on occasion, turn off the volume on the baby monitor when Isaac first starts to fuss at night. I figure I can hear him from the next room if he gets really upset, & he often puts himself back to sleep anyways. Getting awakened at 3am by a baby cry doesn’t exactly stir up emotions of love & affection. But before you think I’m a bad mom for ignoring my baby, I will assure you that I do… eventually… get up. Most of the time. :-)
Babies Don’t Fit Into a Formula: I’m the kind of person who loves algebra, loves to-do lists, loves step by step instructions, & loves schedules. You go through the process in a logical order & you get the outcome you’re promised. A+B=C. Make the grocery list, go to the store, & you can follow your recipe to make dinner. Put the A screws in the A slots & you have a sturdy crib. We each have our own color marker for events on our family calendar. I am a lover of all things logical.
Let me blow your mind here: Babies are not logical. Babies do not fit into a formula.
Oh, how I wish they did. I wish someone could tell me exactly when to feed him, exactly how long to play with him, & exactly what time to put him to sleep so he will sleep a blissful 10 hours straight. Oh how I wish. However, if I have learned anything, I have learned that babies don’t always go by your schedule. Babies don’t always give you the result you want. No matter how hard you may try to set up the perfect formula, I guarantee it won’t always go according to plan. Inevitably, a wrench gets thrown in the schedule. Make that 10 wrenches. Baby wakes early from his nap; Baby gets a cold; Baby hits a growth spurt; Baby didn’t sleep in the car like you had planned; Baby is tired early. What a beautiful lesson in self-sacrifice & flexibility. As most good lessons are, it’s not easy, but I can see how through this process of caring for an infant, I am becoming (slowly but surely) less rigid & more accommodating to his needs above my own. How beautiful is that!
My baby got his first cold! That sure threw a wrench in our sleeping schedule…
Confession: I have read many books & talked to many people & I can’t say I 100% agree with any of them! I’ve taken my own approach to parenting & I am more confident now than I ever was before! I’ve read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth, The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley, Attachment Parenting by Dr. William & Martha Sears, & On Becoming Babywise by Gary Ezzo. I’ve gone to a sleep class, for goodness sakes. I’ve talked to many moms about their methods. And I’ve taken pieces from everything & made my own parenting style. I encourage all parents to do the same!
Being a SAHM is… What in the world is she talking about? If you’re a SAHM, you know the lingo. but if not, I’ll share: Stay at Home Mom. Actually, I would classify myself a WAHM (Work-At-Home-Mom) because I do work 24 hours a week from home. These days, you don’t find a lot of SAHMs because our culture encourages & almost requires a dual income household. I knew from long before we had Isaac that I wanted to be a SAHM. I am so thankful to get to spend the days home with my baby because I know that most moms go back to work. I’ll tell you, it is great, wonderful, awesome, fantastic, amazing; it feels right, it’s a blessing, a dream come true. I get to see all his smiles. I get to watch him drift off to sleep. I get to have all the playtime in the world. We get to exercise in the middle of the day (let’s be clear: by exercise I simply mean put Isaac in a stroller & take a walk around the neighborhood…). I love it & I wouldn’t want it any other way. But. It’s also… lonely… hard… tiring… mundane… repetitive… solitary… I am alone, in my home, with a desperately needy, sometimes loud infant who doesn’t understand a single word I say, for 9-10 hours a day.
Watching him learn to blow raspberries… We get to play in the snow together…
He helps with the laundry… We exercise…
We take lots of pictures… We play with coconut oil…
Before you say it, stop here. It’s not as easy as you would think to just get out. Seems like a simple solution, right? *Sarcastic laugh.* Isaac is awake for only 2 hours at a time, & in that time he has to eat & get at least one diaper change. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for getting out. Even a quick trip to the grocery store has to be timed perfectly so the whole schedule isn’t thrown off. Before you think you have a solution, I guarantee you it’s just not that easy.
I love to be home with my baby! It truly is a blessing!
More than that, it can be a challenge to find significance in this season of life. I know in my head that I am doing a very important job, but I don’t always feel that in my heart. Amidst the many diaper changes, the hours spent shh-ing, repeating “Blue. That’s a blue circle,” over and over and over and OVER, it can be difficult to see the significance in my day. I question if I am, right now, really doing anything that matters. We all want our lives to mean something, don’t we? And I think, am I changing the world? Well, no. But I have to think… am I changing his world? Yes. There is my significance. I am important to him. I am his lifeline. I am his first provider, teacher, caregiver, encourager, and while the world may not feel the impact of the billion kisses I give Isaac every day, he feels it. It doesn’t mean I always change diapers, clean spit up, & rock a crying baby cheerfully, but it does mean that I keep doing it because I make a difference to him.
Confession: I get why so many moms post to facebook throughout the day. Earlier in my life I would sometimes think to myself, “Sheesh, get off facebook & go enjoy your kid already.” I even had a plan to only check facebook & email twice a day, so I would spend more energy focusing on my kid. But I will tell you that facebook has turned into my connection to the world, to other people! It’s like a substitute for the real life interaction I’m not getting. I also said I wouldn’t watch TV during the day. And thankfully we don’t have cable, so I don’t have that many options in the first place (Judge Judy is only entertaining like, once), but I do turn on the news just to see other adults. In some delusional way, I feel like if I can see other adults, I’m somehow connected to the outside world. It’s crazy, I know. (“Good morning Amelia, I just love that dress! And that necklace, oh my. You just look fabulous today. Oh, you like my yoga pants? Thank you! They’re from Target…”)
How’s Sleeping Going? It really depends on what day you ask. Our ideal night is that Isaac goes to bed around 7pm, wakes at 11pm and 4am to eat, and then is up for the day at 7am. That happens… occasionally. Over the last month he’s been up anywhere from one to six times at night. It’s like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates: you never know what you’re gonna get with him! We have seen him gradually wake less & less, so we convince ourselves our “sleep training” is working & we’ll keep going. And we tell ourselves that no 16 year old cries out for his mama at night, so he will get it at some point! :-)
I also try to remember that God made Isaac just the way he is, even those little small details. He made Isaac to be a great eater, mediocre sleeper, fantastic roller-over, & every detail about Isaac’s life is known by God. And is supposed to be that way! Every smile, cry, laugh, whine, & temper tantrum are seen & known by the God who created him. Who am I to say, ‘No, not what I wanted. I’ll fix him.’ He has his temperament & personality for a reason!
Confession: We always swaddle Isaac for naps & bedtime, but recently he’s just too strong & breaks right out of it. Unfortunately, he still doesn’t have much control over his hands so he often wakes himself up after he breaks out of the swaddle. So, we just spent $75 on two zippity zip zipup something or other that you put the baby to sleep in that’s supposed to transition them out of the swaddle. Yes, we are crazy. TBD if it actually works…
That’s all for this episode, hope you all make it a wonderful month & we can’t wait to celebrate Isaac’s half birthday next month! ;-)
