One Month: What I've Learned

Cake!

Owen celebrated his one month birthday this past Saturday...already.  A month has gone by and it has been the longest and quickest month of my life.  It feels like an important milestone.  We made it through!  Here are a few things I learned...

1. When people say that "Being a mom is the hardest job," they're not just saying it.  I'm going to admit to a bit of cynicism here: I always figured people just said that as a way to feel better about not working or about not having a "real" job.  And for that naivete, I apologize.  Profusely.  Motherhood is no joke, y'all.  And from what I've heard from fellow moms since becoming a mom, this first month is one of the hardest periods of all.  I can say without hyperbole that this has been the hardest time of my life.  I'll delve into it more in a separate post but between the hormones,  the sleep deprivation, the pain from c-section recovery and the feelings of incompetence and helplessness, this adjustment period has knocked me sideways. I don't think I would have believed it could be this hard before I had Owen.  In fact, when I asked one of my good friends who has two daughters, "Why didn't you tell me it was this hard??" She said emphatically, "Because you never would have believed me."  And it's true.

2.  Having help CANNOT be underestimated.  It's tough.  Our family is all on the east coast.  So figuring out the best time for them come out was difficult.  I wanted my family to be able to come as soon as they wanted to but since we had no idea if Owen would come early/on time/late, it was difficult to plan. We finally decided that since he was due on 2/20, my parents would book their flights for the first week of March.  That way if he was a few days early or late, they'd still be here when he was new.  Plus, that would give my husband and I a little time to ourselves so we could figure out a routine.  At least, that is the way the thinking went.  INSERT LAUGHTER HERE.  We got home on a Tuesday.  My mom, dad and sister were scheduled to arrive on that following Saturday.  I called my mom hysterical on Wednesday and told her I don't care what she needed to do or what it costs - we'll pay it - but she needed to get on the first flight possible. I needed her.  Desperately.  Maybe it would have been different if I had delivered vaginally.  Maybe we would have been better able to manage during those first days.  But I didn't. And things were dire here.  Babies don't like change.  Guess who didn't sleep that first night home?  If you guessed all three of us, you'd be correct.  Owen would scream if we weren't holding him.  I wasn't able to get up to pick him up.  I couldn't get up to change a diaper.  I couldn't walk down the stairs to make food.  I couldn't nurse my baby because my milk wasn't coming in.  Factor in being an emotional wreck from the swinging hormones, it wasn't pretty here.  Dan was basically a single parent and my caretaker, and it was too much for one person.  My mom was a saint and rearranged her life, dropped everything and was here by Thursday morning.  Just knowing she was on her way helped us breathe easier.  She was here for two weeks, we had three days alone and then Dan's parents arrived.  They left on Tuesday.  And we are in a much better place to be on our own.  Which leads me to the next thing I learned...

3.  It does get better.  During the first week, when people said it would get better, I just cried.  I didn't see how it would.  I didn't see an end to the feeding/sleeping/crying.  And when I say "crying," I'm talking more about me than Owen.  But somehow, three-hour interval by three-hour interval, things started improving.  We started finding routines.  I stopped being so hard on myself to do everything "right."  My hormones started balancing out.  The pain from surgery started to wane.  Owen and I started to figure each other out.  I started recognizing his cries - hungry versus tired versus dirty diaper.  And everything started to feel a little more manageable.

4.  There is no tomorrow.  At least, at first. It's three-hour-interval to three-hour-interval...initially.  That first week, Owen lost a pound and he was already small to begin with.  This meant we had a strict feeding schedule of every three hours.  And this boy never woke up to tell us he was hungry.  I had to set an alarm, wake him up by changing his diaper and then keep him awake as he nursed by tickling him or putting my hand in cold water and then on his skin (doctor's orders!).  And when nursing was a struggle, those three-hour-intervals involved more wrestling to get him to eat than it did rest.  So days and nights just blended together.  This past month has felt like one long day.  But we got his weight up!  He's around nine pounds now and is feeding on demand...he actually lets me know when he's hungry.  Days are starting to feel a little more delineated.  Of course, last night he decided he wanted to hang out and party from 3:30am to 5:30am...so there is always something new.  But the alarm system is a little more lax now.

5. Breastfeeding is hard.  And that's ok.  I touched on this a bit before but we really struggled with breastfeeding.  And that was a tough mental hurdle for me.  I wanted to breastfeed exclusively.  I wanted to breastfeed for a year. But that wasn't in the cards for us.  And I beat myself up about it initially.  But the more moms I talk to, the more I realize how common this is.  And I started to be a little more forgiving with myself.  I still pump.  He gets about half breast milk, half formula at this point. And oddly enough, he started latching on as "snacks" between mealtimes when he went through a growth spurt last week.  So it seems like feeding from the source is still a possibility.  I never would have thought that after thirty days we'd get back to where I had hoped we started...but here we are.  However, I'm not giving up bottle feeding on the overnight feedings!  That has been the secret to my sanity.  Instead of fighting for the better part of an hour to get him to latch, feed, burp, etc., I put together a bottle and we're done in fifteen minutes.  And we're back to bed.  And we get much needed rest.  I'm sure there are purists out there that will tell me I'm doing it wrong but this works for us.  And we're all happier for it.  And that counts for A LOT.

6.  Paper plates are bad for the environment...but great for new moms.  Soon-to-be moms, stock up now.  Using paper plates for your meals will save you a lot of grief.  There will be plenty of other things to clean up.  If the environmental impact bothers you (as it does me) I just remind myself that this is a temporary fix and I'll get back to friendlier eco habits soon enough.

7.  Make lists.  I never know how long Owen will nap but I do know my chore list just keeps growing now that we're on our own again.  The laundry is piling up, the bathroom needs cleaned, the bottles need boiled, I need to shower or brush my teeth...you know, all the tedious but necessary things around the house.  And yes, while sometimes I'll nap with him, sometimes I need to get a few things done.  And it's really easy to do things that aren't as high on the priority list first (ahem, surfing Twitter and Facebook) and then run out of time to do the bigger things because he's awake again and I'm on baby duty.  I'm still working on this one.  But the goal is to write down all that I need to do and then rank them.  And do them by importance.  Ugh.  Like laundry.

8. You can't have too many newborn clothes (especially with a boy).  I don't know how he does it but during the first three weeks, every time he peed, he managed to escape his diaper and soak whatever he was wearing and whoever was holding him.  We tried three different brands of diapers but nothing could contain this boy.  He has Houdini pee.  We were going through nearly ten outfits a day, it seemed.  His pee is a little more under control now but every once in awhile, it makes a break for it.  He's already on his third outfit today.  Hence the need to prioritize laundry.  And have lots of itty-bitty clothes around the house.

9.  This Rock-n-Play Sleeper is the bomb.  We tried a lot of different ways to get this boy comfortable enough to fall asleep.  He doesn't like to sleep.  He fights it like he doesn't want to miss out on anything.  We were having him sleep in his pack-n-play.  Then we tried his crib.  And a little co-sleeper that went in the bed.  He was swaddled and warm but it didn't matter.  Then we tried the Rock-n-Play and it rocked our world.  He loves it.  He's on an incline, which helps with digestion and congestion but it also lets him look out for awhile.  He'll contently sit in it and watch us eat dinner or watch me clean up the living room.  Then...he'll fall asleep!  It cradles him just right so he doesn't feel like he's laying in the middle of nowhere.  And it's so lightweight we can take it upstairs and downstairs easily.  It's a major must-have for us.  The link above takes you to Target's site, which is where I got it from.

10.  Trust your instincts. We have them for a reason.  Everyone has an opinion or a story or a thought on how you should do things.  And all the advice can get overwhelming.  So here's the one piece of advice I did listen to:  Take a deep breath, take a step back, and listen to yourself.  We're finding what's right for me and my baby.  And what's right for us may be different than what's right for others.  But we made it through this first month.  And I'm listening to him grunt and coo in his swing right now as he fights sleep. Life is good.