Before I say anything, I need to preface this post with somewhat of a warning and explanation. This post is not meant to crush anyone’s spirits. It is not meant to scare people out of having children or make pregnant women terrified for their newborns to arrive. It is not meant to be negative, and it is certainly not meant to generalize the experience. I also am not looking for sympathy and not complaining.
My purpose for writing this is one fold – to help other parents.
I want you to know that if you have these feelings and these experiences, you are not alone. I believe that knowing that others have done what you have done and have made it to the other side alive, is huge for coping with difficult experiences. So be forewarned: I am going to be brutally honest here. I may say things that will strike a chord with people, or make some people feel uncomfortable. Some people may disagree with me or not want to believe me. If you’re pregnant, you may be angry with me for putting a damper on an otherwise exciting time in your life. For that I apologize, but I believe getting this information out there is so important. I’ve thought about it for a long time. I’ve been conflicted about sharing my experience, and the experiences of other moms I know because I’ve been afraid of offending people or crushing spirits. But it is time we stop sweeping this type of stuff under the rug and start helping each other out as mothers. Even if what you read today does not resonate with you, hopefully when you are having a hard day or night with your baby, you will remember something I said and some of the loneliness you are feeling in that moment will be lifted. I am sharing my own personal experience, so it will by no means be exactly like this for you. I know many moms who have had similar experiences, so I know I am not unique. It is very likely you will go through or are currently going through one, some, or all of things that I did. At the very least, I hope what I am about to say helps at least one person get through one of the most difficult and exhausting things any of us will ever go through.
Okay, now onto the brutal honesty.
Before you had a baby, what did you picture when you thought of babies? It was something like this right?
An approximate 7 month old child, sitting in a high chair at a restaurant, or being pushed around in a stroller in the mall. They are inevitably doing something cute: smiling, learning how to wave, maybe screaming in joy, and learning how to crawl. They’re so cute and fun and I want one! Most people don’t picture an 8 pound newborn who can barely open her eyes, can’t smile, can’t do much of anything except eat, sleep (maybe), poop and cry. Even though in your head, you know that babies don’t pop out cute little crawling, smiling tiny people, it is still a bit of a shock that first week or so when you realize all you’re going to be doing for a long while is holding this tiny helpless thing, feeding her, changing her, and trying anything and everything to get her to stop crying. That wasn’t really part of my fantasy of being a mother. And some babies cry a lot, sometimes for no apparent reason. For most people, the newborn stage (first 4 months or so) is the single hardest part of child-rearing.
I’m just going to come out and say it: It sucks.
My baby is now almost 9 months old, and sometimes I get little pangs of guilt when I look back on those early days. The happy memories are easily buried by ones of exhaustion, sadness, emotional roller coasters, and self-doubt. I think, “I’m a horrible person. I wasn’t elated. I wasn’t on cloud 9. I was in hell.” Isn’t that a terrible thing to think about your little precious baby’s early days? Terrible! But it is true. And I have slowly learned that I am not the only one who feels this way. Why didn’t I know that everyone goes through hell and back in those first few months (or longer)? Sure, people gave me little hints here and there disguised as funny remarks, “You’ll be tired!” “Just wait til the baby gets here!” “Just wait..just wait…just wait…” These comments are so easy to brush off. “Yeah yeah yeah, I’ll be tired. I get it.” But I understand why no one wanted to tell me the real, honest to goodness truth. It’s the same reason it has taken me this long to write this. It is hard to admit these feelings, and it is even harder to tell a happy, excited, pregnant woman that it may not be what she is imagining at first.
Okay, back to the “it sucks” part.
Tired does not even begin to describe what you will feel. I used to stay up until 4am in college, get up at 8, go to class all day, go to work, study, repeat. That was tired. There isn’t even a word for the lack of sleep new parents experience. Not only will you be working nonstop all day, and staying awake all night, but you’re body is making milk, dealing with a sudden drop in hormones, and recovering from labor.
The first night we brought Hannah home, we tried from 8pm until 3am to get her to go to sleep. If there is one thing I’ve learned as a parent it’s that sleep is not something you are born knowing how to do. I thought, she’s tired, why isn’t she falling asleep?? I still don’t really know the answer to that question, but it is hard work trying to get a baby to fall asleep and most importantly, stay asleep.
Since she hated every sleeping contraption we had, we co-slept for the first 3 weeks. I had to wake her every 2 hours to feed since she wasn’t gaining weight. Breastfeeding was difficult. Sometimes it took me almost 15 minutes just to get her latched on, 45 minutes of feeding, and who knows how long trying to get her to go back to sleep after all of this. If you lost count, that is about an hour and half I was awake every 2 hours. I started dreading bed time because I knew what was coming. It’s not like when you have a hard job, you come home, you get to rest, go to bed, recharge and start it all over again in the morning. With this job, it never ends. The nights run into the days and I rarely got a chance to recharge.
After the first 3 weeks of doing this, we moved her to the Rock n Play sleeper. It’s reclined and much cozier than typical baby beds. She loved it and we started to get more sleep.
That lasted about 3 weeks or so before she started waking every 15 minutes, which led us to co-sleep until she was 5 months old. The co-sleeping started out pretty good. She slept in 3 or 4 hour stretches and I didn’t have to get up to feed her. Then she realized she had an all-night milk snack bar and slowly started waking more frequently until she was up every 30 minutes to an hour. Although I love the idea of co-sleeping and loved cuddling with her all night long most of the time, I quickly realized this arrangement was not working for our family. The thing is, we had no other option. We were completely out of ideas. What do you do when your baby won’t sleep in the crib, bassinet, or Rock n Play? We were completely lost, so just kept trying to survive doing what we were doing.
During all of this Hannah was also refusing to nap. The first month or so, she would just fall asleep while nursing or in the car or whatever. Then she got to the age where I actually had to try to get her to go to sleep. She would cry and cry and the only thing I could conclude was that she was tired, but wouldn’t sleep. She would sleep in the Moby wrap, but only if I was standing, so I would have to stand up for 2+ hours to let her nap. She would sleep in the car, but would wake up once we got to our destination if she wasn’t in a deep sleep. So I would drive 30 minutes to my parent’s house, and hang out there while she napped in her car seat. But most of the time, the only way I got her to nap was in my arms or in the wrap. This meant I was literally attached to her 24/7.
Lots of things did not work out the way I imagined.
Hannah refused to sleep flat on her back. The bassinet was useless. The crib was useless. She slept in my arms, in my bed, and for a short period of time in the Rock n Play sleeper until she got sick of that, too.
She also refused to take a bottle. I thought I would be able to pump some milk, and let John take over a night feeding sometimes to give me extra sleep. Or at least let him give her a bottle in the evenings, so I could take a long bath or a nap or something. Nope. Bottles were her worst enemy, as were pacifiers. Nursing was our only tool to soothe her most of the time. Everyone tells you breastfeeding is hard, but no one told me bottle feeding might be impossible.
She cried, and cried, and cried for no apparent reason. We figured later that she was most likely colicky, but knowing that doesn’t necessarily make it easier to deal with. If she wasn’t sleeping or nursing, she was crying. I had a swing, a bouncy seat, a bassinet – places I was supposed to be able to put her if I needed a break to pee, shower, cook dinner, or just give my arms a rest. Guess what? She hated all of them. I held her all day long, and when she stopped sleeping at night, I held her all night, too.
Babies get hungry way more often than “every 2 hours” like some books say. I would feed her, 30 minutes later she would be crying. We would try everything. Diaper change, swaddle, white noise, bouncing, rocking, blah blah blah. “She can’t be hungry! I just fed her!” She was hungry. Or maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she just wanted to suck on something because it is very comforting for babies. Have a comfortable chair or spot on the couch with all your essentials nearby because you may not leave that spot for 3 months.
People offered to help, but I didn’t want it.
The word help stressed me out and still does. Since Hannah wouldn’t take a bottle and was pretty much crying unless she was sleeping or had a boob in her mouth, I was terrified to leave her. I didn’t even want someone to come watch her while I laid down in the other room and slept. There was no way I would even sleep. Sometimes I would try while John watched her, and I could hear her crying in the living room, so would just get up.
I was terrified to leave the house.
Since the only tool I had to soothe her was nursing, I was terrified to be out in public and have her melt down. I’m all for nursing in public, but back then it was still such a production to feed her. I couldn’t do it without my boppy pillow, and it was so difficult getting her latched. I did not want to attempt that in the middle of the grocery store.
Then it wasn’t about nursing, but it was about naps. I was trying to establish a good nap routine and get her used to sleeping at home, so I didn’t want to be out and about while she was tired. She would inevitably fall asleep in the car seat and wake up the minute I got home, then refuse to take a real nap and cry until she was tired enough for the next nap. It wasn’t worth it for me to go through that, so I stayed home. If friends wanted to hang out, we had lunch in my dining room.
Even now, I don’t leave the house during nap time.
We did not have any semblance of a schedule for a looooong time.
Don’t let people tell you that you should be on a schedule. When I say schedule, I mean a by the clock eat at this time, sleep at this time, type of day. It’s impossible with a baby. Hannah is 8 ½ months old and we literally JUST got on a schedule last week. I know people with kids her age who are still not on a schedule. You can try. You can try really hard to feed by the clock and put down for naps by the clock. But babies are just little humans and their needs vary. Sometimes I would think we were getting somewhere, but it would all blow up in my face and completely change for some reason. This can be really frustrating. I could never set a time to meet up with people. There were lots of different mom and baby classes I was interested in, but could not reliably attend because I had no idea when Hannah would sleep. And if Hannah was sleeping, there was no way in hell I was waking her up to go to baby yoga. I couldn’t tell friends, yes! Let’s meet up at 11! It was really frustrating. This was another reason I just told friends to come over if they wanted to hang out.
I got no positive feedback from my baby for at least 3 months.
Babies will start to smile a little here and there early on, but it’s not predictable. The work you are doing is selfless and even though your baby is healthy and thriving, you will secretly wish she could look at you after eating and say, “Thanks mom! That milk was yummy and just what I wanted. Good job!”
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The important thing to remember about all of this is that you will get through it. We got through it. Hannah is 8 ½ months old, sleeping in her crib at night and taking two solid naps per day. Sometimes she has some bad nights where she wakes up a lot, but it’s manageable. I want to clarify though, that she did not just magically start sleeping better one day. I read every sleep book on the market and worked very hard to get to the point we are at now. That's why I am still nervous when we ever have to change our routine. I worked my butt off to get those two naps and to get her in the crib. My biggest fear is to ruin it! She still doesn’t take a bottle, but she eats solids and drinks water out of a sippy cup. Nursing isn’t a big production, and most feedings only take about 10 minutes. We take her with us everywhere because I’m not afraid of a melt down that can only be fixed by nursing. And if I absolutely had to, nursing in public is super easy now. She plays, she smiles, she giggles. She reaches her arms out for me. She holds my hand while I feed her and plays with my hair. She interacts with the world around her and it is fascinating to watch her grow as a little person.
Let me say it again because it is the point of this whole post:
You will get through this. It is temporary. It will pass. You are not alone.
Babies are hard work. Kids are hard work. Don’t feel bad if your baby arrives and you aren’t as elated as everyone thinks you should be, if you feel like ripping out your hair, and if you question what you have done. We’ve all been there. And the hardest part for me was the guilt of having these feelings. I should have been happy. I should have done things differently, I thought. The truth is, I did everything I could to just survive and that is fine! A friend of mine once told me that the first 6 months are pure survival and I just needed to close my eyes and get to the other side. Nothing is more true than that statement. Having a baby is the most beautiful and wonderful thing I’ve ever experienced. She loves me unconditionally, relies on me for everything, and I made her! It has also been the single hardest thing I have ever experienced. Do not feel bad if you aren’t happy all the time. That’s normal! Just trudge through it. You can do it!
I don't want to minimize what dads go through during all of this, (although I am going to be biased and say moms have it worse!) My husband had to sleep on the couch for 5 months while Hannah and I took over the bed. He would get up at 2 in the morning while I melted down and she wouldn't sleep. He would walk around the house with her, shhh-ing in her ear until she fell asleep, then wake up and go to work the next day. He had to listen to me cry, tell me it would all be okay, and give me the positive reinforcement I so badly wanted. All the while, he was starting up his own business, and trying to grow it big enough so we could pay our bills, (since we were now a one income household.) Fatherhood sure wasn't what he thought it would be at first either, but he got through, too! We got through it together, and we're stronger now because of it.
People sometimes ask me if I regret anything that I did. If I could do all over again, would I make different decisions. The truth is: no. We are going to do it all over again someday with a new baby, and I probably won't do it much differently. Now that I know what to expect, I won't be as blindsided. I expect it to be hard, or harder, but hopefully it is not as huge of a shock! Also, sometimes I made a decision because it was literally my only option, so there is no way I could change it. Co-sleeping, for example, was the only way to get any sleep whatsoever. Looking back, I really love the fact that Hannah got the security of sleeping with me for those first 5 months. We definitely created an incredibly strong bond. As for breastfeeding, I do not regret it at all. Breastfeeding is probably my single most favorite thing about parenting right now. I'm almost glad now that she never took a bottle because our nursing relationship is beautiful. I'm so glad I got through the difficult times of it because it was so worth it. I really have great empathy for women who want to breastfeed and can't. That is just one more thing on top of all of this that must be very difficult to deal with.
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Post Partum Depression is a very real thing, and although I was never officially diagnosed, I’m sure I had a bit of that going on on top of everything else. That being said, even if you don’t officially have PPD, you may feel some of the things I’ve mentioned.
If you ever feel angry with your baby, be sure to put her down and walk away for a little bit. I admit I had to do this more than once.
Make sure you have someone to open up to about your feelings, and don’t feel bad if you have to cry…a lot. Seek support from other moms, too.
When in doubt, call your doctor or midwife and tell her how you’re feeling. It is nothing to be ashamed of. You will be able to take care of your baby better if you take care of yourself first.
Take a shower every day – no matter what.
I used to shower in the morning while John watched Hannah before he went to work. Then Hannah and I started sleeping later, so I had to wait until she was napping, or put her in the bouncy seat in the bathroom. As you read above, she rarely napped, and she hated the bouncy seat at first, so it was difficult to say the least. But showering was a huge priority of mine. I needed to feel human and get out of my pajamas everyday.
Even if you just go in the backyard for 10 minutes a day. Get outside. I didn’t follow this advice and I think it would have helped. Hannah was born in October so it was cold outside when I needed to be out, but I could have made it work.
Don’t have too many visitors that it gets overwhelming, but don’t cut yourself off from the world.
Yes, I was afraid to leave the house, but I talked to friends on the phone a lot, and a few times a week, people stopped by to say hi. It was a nice change of pace. That being said, if too many people are dropping by that it overwhelms you, put a stop to it.
Don’t worry if you don’t “sleep when the baby is sleeping.”
That is the oldest advice in the book, but it isn’t always realistic. I always felt this pressure to sleep, so would lie there thinking “Sleep! Just sleep! The baby is sleeping and this is your only chance!” So it didn’t happen. If you’re like me, try to at least rest while you can. Sit on the couch and watch TV or read if you get a moment to yourself. I didn’t always follow this advice either and should have!
If help with the baby stresses you out, at least let people help out in other ways.
The single most helpful thing anyone did for us was bring us food. So many people brought us food that I didn’t have to cook for 3 weeks. I don’t know what we would have done without that food. There is no way I was cooking dinner, that’s for sure! If people ask what they can do, have them do your laundry or clean your house or go to the grocery store. They may be expecting that you will want them to watch the baby, but those other things can be much more helpful.
Don't Let the Facebook world get you down.
We all do it. We post cute photos of our babies on facebook. Don't look at your friends' photos and status updates and think, "They are having such an easy time with parenthood! It was so hard for me, why isn't it hard for them?" The truth is, it is hard for them. They may not be having the exact troubles you are, but they are struggling. They just aren't posting photos of the 3am wake up or Cry Fest 2012.
Remember that even though you feel exhausted, sad, and overwhelmed you do love your baby and your baby does love you. You’re doing a great job, and just a few short months from now, things will be better. There are still hard moments. I’m still tired everyday, but I’m finally to a place where I truly enjoy every minute with this little person. Being a mom is the best job I’ve ever had in my life, but it definitely took me some time to warm up to it J
Moms who are reading this, feel free to share your own experience. It may help a new mom out one day. Let's all make an agreement to let the cat out of the bag from now on and not sugar coat our experiences. We owe it to each other to tell the truth and validate each others' feelings.
And please, share this on facebook and Pinterest or where ever you feel it is appropriate. There may be someone out there who is feeling isolated in her feelings who needs to hear these words. Pass it on to all your current mom friends (even if their babies are all grown up!), and future mom friends.
Here are anecdotes from some friends who were kind of enough to share:
"I rock to the the tick of the clock matching its rhythm. My legs burn from exhaustion. I can do this in my sleep. This Is how I sleep. In motion. Upright. Exhausted. Seconds at a time. I sleep between the ticks. My eyes itch. I don't dare rub them. The baby is asleep. Whoever coined the phrase sleeping like a baby had a sick sense of humour. I can hear my husband snoring. Snoring means sleeping. Rage engulfs me. He is sleeping peacefully in a soft bed amid cool crisp sheets. He showered before bed. He ate with both hands. He went to the bathroom without a baby with him and a toddler banging on the door. He isn't in pain. His legs don't burn. The clock blurs as frustrated tears burn my dry eyes. The squeak of the chair. The tick of the clock. The rumble of snoring. And the silent slide of tears."
-C.K. Mother of 3
"I cried and cried and cried some more. Breastfeeding may be natural, but that doesn't mean it won't hurt. I felt jealous of everyone else who's lives were uninterrupted. I was up every single hour. Never ate a warm meal for the first month at least. Loved my kids with all of my heart, but thought oh man what have I done? i don't know if I can handle 2 kids. I took a lot of pain meds that made me very tired. 3am to me was just the same as 3pm, time didn't matter- around the clock was just the same repetitiveness. Change, feed, put down, take pain meds, back to sleep for 30 min to an hour. Oh and my stomach was giving me problems after my c section and I literally had to nurse on the toilet a few times. No joke. I know it's gross but I literally HAD to go. Wouldn't change a thing though. It's tough in the beginning but totally worth it. I just prefer to skip the newborn part."
-T.J. Mother of 2
"You want the truth, eh? Well, like many pregnant women I tried to be realistic with my expectations while still thinking positively (often we get what we expect--we create our own reality, so why not imagine the best?), but it's impossible to know which of those expectations will get the proverbial slap in the face. So here's the truth about what I didn't expect:
- I didn't feel an overwhelming sense of motherhood when my baby was handed to me. I was in so much shock from experiencing the most pain I'd ever felt and the fact that I actually just pushed a baby out of my body, that I didn't have the awareness and appreciation in that moment that I assumed would just be there.
- Problems with my labor and delivery tainted the experience of welcoming my baby into my life: Because the hospital basically ignored me throughout my labor until I was ready to push, and I knew my baby would have to get stuck with a needle due to this neglect, I was feeling very shocked and angry in the moments and hours after my delivery. I spent our first night together lying awake in bed just replaying everything over in my head and despite my efforts against it, I kept focusing on what went wrong rather than my beautiful, healthy baby by my side. Every few weeks or so I still get angry just thinking about how unfair it is that they robbed me of the treatment we all deserve when giving birth.
- Postpartum Depression: I worried that I might get this since I'd had depression in the past, but I didn't realize it would come so soon and so powerfully. It started shortly after we got home from the hospital as I was sleep deprived and began to fear that life as I knew it was forever gone. I was especially mourning my life with my husband as we couldn't do the things we had done everyday for several years like eat together, watch TV, walk the dogs, stay up late and sleep in (since those first weeks we've been able to recover some of our routine). For over 2 weeks I had tears just waiting in the wings for the slightest trigger. I felt their pressure in my head and a sickness in my stomach. Both my husband and I had little appetite and we often cried together and talked about what we were going to miss and what we feared. We could sense each others' mood, and when one of us managed to feel better, it didn't last long because we could tell the other was hurting. He recovered much quicker than I, and was amazingly supportive. I can't imagine what I would have felt if he wasn't, because the depression was so powerful even through all his love. In fact, almost nothing anyone said or did for me could do much to take the feeling away. Everyone said it would get better, but I just wanted to know when. If there was deadline for it that I could mark on my calendar, I could have handled it much better. But I didn't know if it would last weeks or months. And what if it got worse and I got the suicidal or homicidal feelings I'd heard about with postpartum depression? The unknown was daunting.
- Fussiness! WTF? For some reason, I was banking on having an "easy" baby, or being such a great mom that my baby wouldn't cry that much or that I could stop it easily. I had heard of colic, but I assumed that on a small percentage of babies had it and I would probably luck out. What I know now is that fussiness is on a spectrum, and even if your baby doesn't have "colic," it is very likely that you will have to deal with seemingly inconsolable crying for some period of time. The truth is that I should have researched this more before giving birth, so I had all the tools in my belt before that first long evening of bouncing, shushing, rocking, swaddling and frequent feeding. My almost 4 month old is definitely less fussy, but some days it's like she's a newborn again, but with a louder cry. And a long night of unexplained wakings every hour is followed by a long day of trying to keep it together while you silently ask yourself what the hell you're doing wrong and when she'll finally grow out of it.
- No clear answers. Before she came I was counting on an innate ability to know what to do with my baby, like I would know when it was time to just be loving and comforting, and when I had to "do what was best for her" and let her cry it out. I realize now that not only is that not the case, but letting her cry and fuss is way harder than I imagined. I play these mind games of wondering if she's already learning how to manipulate to get her way or if she truly does need to be comforted every time she cries. And if not now, then when does this shift occur?
I always knew parenting wasn't easy, but there truly is something to be said for the "immersion experience."
