Parenting Through the First-Three-Years Fog

  This year I have felt much more like myself, by which I mean more like the person I remember being before I became a mother. Don't get me wrong, I love being a mom and I love my kids. I have learned, grown and changed (hopefully for the better) so much because they are part of my life. I would not go back and change things if I had that option. I am just saying it felt like I got lost a little when I was introduced to motherhood.

  I don't think I'm the only one who feels that my whole life changed when I became a mother. I entered into a new culture of being entrusted with another's complete well-being. Of learning everything I could about another human being and managing their time, creating eating, sleeping, playing, and bathing schedules. Scheduling doctor's appointments and keeping track of just about everything another person did so that I would be able to answer all of the doctor's questions. And, of course, doing all of this on an erratic and inadequate sleep schedule. Not to mention simultaneously dealing with my own physical, emotional and mental recovery.

And then doing all of that again less than three years later while also managing a very mobile, opinionated, mostly toilet trained, desirous of all of your attention individual.

Again, I love my kids. I know that most everyone has very similar experiences in parenting, but I am giving myself permission to admit that it is at times challenging and exhausting and, every so often, I live in survival mode.

  But now my kids are six and three. My youngest is toilet trained, can get mostly dressed on his own, feeds himself and just started at preschool three mornings per week, allowing me some precious me/alone time. And, so far, it has been so refreshing and restorative (because I haven't allowed myself to spend all of my time doing chores or running errands).

  I was talking with a friend a few weeks ago whose youngest is still months away from her first birthday. I was saying how I feel so much more like me these days and it is because I am out of the fog that is parenting the first three years of a child's life. Those years are so demanding of parents. The kids need you to feed and change them. Sometimes they won't allow anyone else to feed them. They can be very clingy so you spend most of your day feeding and holding them. If/when they finally go to sleep for the night you are DONE with being needed or touched. You just want to get away to your own little bubble to rest and think.

  You are often worried about whether they are eating enough, sleeping enough, going to choke on the banana, having enough stimulation/variety in their diets/tummy time/books read to them/wet or dirty diapers. You are constantly monitoring their moods, activities, body temperature. They consume all of your brain and most of your time. No wonder I didn't feel like my former self. Not only was I physically different, but my brain had received an influx of new information that needed to be processed constantly.

  Eventually they begin to feed themselves (which can turn into a battle because you're concerned they'll starve themselves or be nutritionally deficient), learn to crawl and walk on their own (which means baby-proofing the house, still losing a few items that you loved, and kissing a lot more ouchies), and start saying words (and you will regret teaching them "mommy" when they get to be two and say it every three seconds). You love seeing all of the new milestones and the beginnings of independence. But they still need you to help them change their clothes, teach them to be polite and enforce the house rules, brush their teeth, and work around their nap schedule (I love naptime!). They may still want to be carried everywhere and cling to you when in an unfamiliar environment. You still have to get past the looming hurdle that is toilet training.

  Usually sometime between three and four, your precious child is reasonably independent. They have few toilet accidents. They feed themselves and usually eat at least one vegetable and meat to supplement their snacking preference. They can get mostly or completely dressed for the day. They can play on their own a bit. They are (hopefully) still napping or having some quiet room time each day for your sanity break. They can tell you when they are hurt, hungry, sad or mad. They are more adventurous and not as reluctant to be separated from you (my experience, at least).

  There are still challenges like them having their own opinions and not always wanting to obey. Or picking fights with their siblings. They can't yet read or write on their own but I don't mind cuddling and reading books now that I am not always being touched by someone.

  Now that my children are older, I am rediscovering my passions and taking time to refresh myself. I have realized just how important self-care is and have time to do it. It is not easy when you're in the younger years and fear what will happen if you take a shower while the little ones are awake and unsupervised. If you're sleep deprived because your baby or toddler doesn't sleep through the night, of course you're going to be more run down and space out when you get a spare minute.

  Parenting kids through their first three years is tough (in my experience). It takes a lot out of you. But, take heart, it's just a season. You will once again have time for things that fill you up. Your kids will grow and change and you will do the same with them. You may be sad to leave the baby stage, but you have so many others to look forward to - school, activities, kids being old enough to do their own laundry. Give yourself grace. It's okay not to love every minute of every season.

  I am loving my kids' current ages. I am not loving homework time. I don't particularly care for the illnesses that appear when school starts. I love that they play well together. I love watching my six-year-old gain confidence as she learns new abilities like reading, riding a bicycle, dancing and playing the piano. I enjoy the imagination and creativity of my three-year-old. I love his sweetness and hearing him tell me he loves or likes me at least once per day (I know that won't last). I love that my oldest can help the younger one with things when needed. Every parent loves a specific stage in childhood. Right now I feel like this is my sweet spot.


How old are your kids? What age(s) do/did you enjoy the most? Did you also feel like the first three years of a child's life were the most challenging for you and your identity? If not, how did you successfully manage motherhood and self-care during the early years?

The Joys and Perils of Pregnancy and Babies

We are less than two weeks away from my little man turning one. As we are currently planning on him remaining our youngest I thought it would be fun to recap the good and bad of being pregnant and having a newborn baby.

Me and my "babies".

Things I Will Miss About Being Pregnant and Having a Baby

*Feeling my baby kick from the inside (until the last month when he/she kicked my bladder, ribs, etc and it seemed like they were training to be MMA fighters).

*Seeing my baby kick on the outside (a little freaky but overall pretty amazing; also, see caveat above).

*Preferential treatment (being offered chairs everywhere, first in line for food, a pass on lifting things and emptying the litter box).

*Deciding on a fun way to announce the pregnancy to my husband, family, and friends.

*Seeing the baby for the first time (such an amazing moment!).

*Showing off my baby and hearing how adorable he/she is.

*The downy baby hair (LB still has soft hair but I know my days are limited).

*Seeing the baby smile/laugh/clap/roll over for the first time (just about all of the milestones).

*The toothless grin.

*Baby babble (they sound so cute when they're making no sense and aren't yet professional whiners).

*The tiny clothes.
*Watching my baby sleep in my arms.
*Witnessing my body growing an actual person and then being its sole/main source of nourishment.

Things I Will NOT Miss About Being Pregnant and Having a Baby

*First trimester nausea (I only vomited once in two pregnancies and I imagine that is much worse but feeling like I had to vomit all day was still pretty bad).

*The last five weeks of pregnancy (unable to get comfortable to sleep, heartburn, millions of bathroom breaks, sciatica; generally it's the last month but my special boy thought I needed an extra week since I missed out on the full experience with BB).

*The inappropriate comments and intrusive questions ("You know how that happens, right?" "Was it planned?").

*Dietary restrictions.

*Hearing horror birth stories.

*Not being able to make plans in the four(ish) weeks surrounding the due date.

*The glucose test.
*The uncertainty of when the baby would arrive and how my body would handle labor and delivery (um, yeah, still don't know what labor's like).

*C-section recovery.

*Not sleeping through the night for the first two, four, six, eight, twelve months...

*The breast pump (no additional information needed).

*The first 40 days of breastfeeding (ouchie!).

*The amount of time spent breastfeeding each day (thankfully this decreases over time).

*Teaching babies how to fall asleep on their own.
*Having to plan my day/activities around feedings (there's still nap times to plan for but they are a bit more flexible and there are fewer of them).
*My house crammed with large contraptions for the baby's stimulation (now we will just have lots of tiny toys to injure feet).

*Changing diapers (oh wait, I still have another year or two...)


Did I miss any of the joys and not-so-fun parts of pregnancy and babies?

For First-Time Parents:Maintaining (or Starting) a Quiet Time

This is Part Five of the First-Time Parents series. Check out the other posts about sleeping, napping, feeding and potty training.

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Becoming a first (or second or third…) time mother can be overwhelming. You likely are tired from frequent feedings and the huge learning curve that is your new baby. Life will never be the same so how are you expected to keep on with your previous life as usual? How are you supposed to find an extra 15/30/60 minutes in your day to spend time with God as you did pre-baby? More than likely, you won’t be able to replicate your previous quiet time schedule. However, if you are willing to be flexible and think outside the “quiet time” box, it is possible to still spend time with God in a meaningful way.

Image by graur razvan ionut at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Your day is made up of multiple cycles of feeding, changing, and putting your baby down to sleep. New parents are encouraged to “sleep when the baby sleeps”. If you have older children at home, this isn’t really possible. In this case, you could begin “quiet room time” for your older child/ren during one of the baby’s naps and use that time with God (or to nap initially, because honestly sometimes that’s what has to happen in order to function). Once you are getting better night time sleep you might be able to forgo the nap and turn it in to your time with God.

There’s another way to spend time with God and still get those much needed zzzs. The great thing about prayer is that you can do it anywhere at any time. Newborns eat 8 to 12 times each day. During that time your arms are occupied, but you can spend that time praying. Pray about your current circumstances, your new baby, other mothers, concerns that you know about, your church – essentially anything and everything. I found this was a great way to spend my time when I was up in the middle of the night for a feeding. It helped me to stay somewhat alert and the time passed a little faster. Perhaps God wants to create a new group of prayer warriors through new moms willing to make use of these chunks of time.

For time in God’s word, get a Bible app for your phone. You can then also read the Bible while feeding your baby (assuming you can feed and still have one hand free). If you need a guide for what to read, YouVersion has a variety of devotionals to choose from including several specifically for parents.

If you are someone who journals, you can attempt to type in a document on your phone, but that’s pretty tedious. Either accept that this part of your qt will have to go on the back burner for awhile or make time for it when your child is sleeping.

You will probably be tempted to temporarily suspend time with God in the early weeks. I would recommend attempting some of the above suggestions instead. You will be exhausted, frustrated, overwhelmed, and possibly experience some depression symptoms. You will want and need God’s provision for comfort, strength, endurance, hope, and peace more than ever. Be faithful to God and he will be faithful to you.

Eventually you should be able to get back to time with God that looks more like what you had pre-kids. Now that both of my children sleep all night I have been trying to daily get up thirty to forty-five minutes before my kids to spend time with God before the day takes over. It is a sacrifice for me (I love sleep) but I feel much better when I make God a priority.

Have you thought about how you might continue to meet with God when your current routine changes? Do you already have children and are working this out? Have you figured out a way to carve out time to meet with God each day and have advice to share?

Preparing for Childbirth

I have been described as organized and a planner. I was a good student in school and did plenty of research for papers and studying for tests. I like to be as prepared as possible for whatever situations I will be facing. This was no different when we decided to have a child. I only have one brother who is two and a half years younger. My family moved away from our relatives when I was three years old. I didn't have younger cousins close by that I spent time with as babies to understand how child rearing worked. I babysat some as a young teen but that was only for a few hours at a time and never for children under one year of age. As an adult I knew very little about taking care of a baby. So how was I going to get ready for becoming a parent? The same way I prepare for anything else.

LB's birthday. More confident the second time around.

I checked out multiple books from the library on pregnancy, labor, delivery and caring for a newborn. I signed up on pregnancy websites that would let me know what to expect each week and month of pregnancy and gave advice about babies and child rearing. I signed up for a class at the hospital. Sounds like normal stuff of every expectant parent. A year or so before thinking I was ready to become pregnant I signed up to volunteer in the nursery at church. I thought perhaps a little hands-on experience might help me feel more comfortable with handling babies, changing diapers and listening to crying. Now that was only about an hour per week, but it was much better than no hours per week leading up until childbirth, and I got to test out the 5 S's I'd read about in Dr. Harvey Karp's The Happiest Baby on the Block book.

The hospital class covered mainly labor and delivery. We received a tour of the hospital and talked about how to recognize the different stages of labor and the many options of coping with pain. I almost felt like I was in the class too soon because I had more time to go than anyone else. I know now I would not have finished the class if I had waited to take the next one. It was kind of fun talking about our ideal scenario for labor and delivery. I thought perhaps I might like to labor as far as I could without an epidural. I wondered if my labor would be short like my mom's was with my brother. I hoped that it would not be like my birth (I started to arrive feet first so my mom was knocked out for an emergency c-section). The only truly useful thing I ended up getting out of that class was to "be flexible".

Because I was undecided about an epidural I took an additional hospital seminar, Everything You Want To Know About Epidurals. I figured getting some information about this specific subject would be useful. It was led by one of the hospital's anesthesiologists. He covered the differences between an epidural and a spinal block and the risks and percentages. Afterward I felt that I would be fine should I decide that I wanted an epidural sometime during my labor.

Fast forward to my thirty-sixth week of pregnancy. My husband and I go into my 36 week appointment together. I had gone by myself the week before and learned that my baby was breach and I had already begun dilating. After stressing and crying about the real possibility of a c-section during the weekend, I came back with my support team. The doctor checks me and then requests the ultrasound technician to take a look at the baby. It is discovered that the baby is still head up and is essentially sitting on the umbilical cord. This means that if I were to go into labor, the cord could come out first and cut off the oxygen supply to the baby which is obviously very dangerous. The doctor turns to us and says, "You are having a baby today!" Definitely not what we were expecting. PB had to drop me off at the hospital and then go home, pack our hospital bags, and come back. And let work know he would not be in that day. Or the next several.

And that is why "be flexible" is the best advice I received from all of my info gathering. Pretty much everything else I read about labor and delivery was not needed. Of course, I should have read more about what to expect with c-sections. No matter what you study, there's always a curve ball on the test.


Looking back on your childbirth experiences, what was the best advice you received? Did you feel prepared?

For First-Time Parents: Nap Time

 Here's part two of the First-Time Parent series which addresses topics common to all parents. Part One was about night-time sleep.

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BB napping on PB

As a first time mom, I really struggled with getting my daughter to take regular naps of decent length. When she was very young, she would fall asleep on whoever was holding her at the moment. No one minded because she was new and everyone wanted to spend as much time with her as possible. When all of our help left, she still preferred to nap on people (usually me, because I was home all day) and often immediately after feeding (also me because I was breastfeeding). For a while it was fine because I would usually choose to fall asleep with her, during the exhausted phase of having a young child.

Eventually I decided that I’d like to be able to do other things while BB napped besides sit in a chair with her in my lap. I thought I’d try to transfer her from my arms to her crib. This was rarely successful. She would wake up within ten minutes of being laid down.

As she got older and stayed awake after nursing, I would rock her to sleep and then try to lay her down in her crib. Sometimes this ended in a 45 minute nap but I couldn’t get those 1.5-2 hour naps I had heard about from others. I chalked it up to her not being a good napper.

It’s been long enough that I do not remember much between then and when BB transitioned to a one-nap schedule around 18 months. I do know that eventually I put her down awake (probably because my arms were getting fatigued from all of the holding and rocking) and eventually she took a 1.5-2 hour nap in the early afternoon.

When she was close to two and a half, we moved BB into a big girl room with a regular bed and side rails. She did well at not getting out of bed, but she didn’t always fall asleep at nap time. Some days she would lay in bed and sing or talk. When it became apparent that she stayed awake more often than she napped, we turned the afternoon nap into “quiet room time” (fondly referred to as QRT among the adults). She was allowed to play with her toys but she could not leave her room. This has been a great mommy break, especially now with two children.

Armed with experience (and the knowledge that I couldn’t hold LB all day while he napped because I also have another child to care for), I started early on to lay LB down for naps in his crib (after our grandparent help left). I tried to lay him down awake as much as possible. When he was really little he slept hard, so it wasn’t always possible. When he was awake, I would let him soothe himself to sleep. In the beginning it was difficult to endure the ten to fifteen minutes it took him to fall asleep, but seeing him successfully go to sleep on his own kept me hanging in there. We used a white noise machine to help cancel out some of the noise of our then-two-year-old during the day.

LB’s nap schedule has changed as he’s gotten older. He is down to two naps each day. He still fusses for a few minutes before he falls asleep, but he has at least one nap of 1.5 hours or more. I think it helped that I used a schedule of sorts that dictated length of awake time. I paid attention to his tired cues (yawning, rubbing his eyes) as well and remained flexible. He's nine months now and his nap periods are generally at the same time each day.

With the addition of LB, the QRT has changed the time of commencement to coincide with one of LB’s nap times. For awhile, LB’s longest nap was his third one, so QRT was in the late afternoon. BB was taking naps at QRT but she was wired when bed time came because her nap had come too late and lasted too long. We are now in a decent rhythm with QRT being at LB’s second (and now final) nap which is early afternoon. Sometimes BB naps and sometimes she doesn’t. Either way, we all get some time alone to relax or be productive (I tend to alternate activities between days – exercising, writing, cleaning, reading).

Did you have any tried-and-true methods to get your kids to nap well?

To Wait or Not to Wait: Is it a boy or a girl?

Proof that black really is slimming (7 months pregnant with BB).

When we found out we were pregnant with our first child, we had that debate of whether or not to find out. In truth, there really wasn’t a debate. My husband magnanimously deferred to the pregnant lady’s choice. I decided that I didn’t want to know until we met him or her in the delivery room (which turned out to be the OR, but that’s a different story).

I really enjoyed not knowing. I didn’t have my hopes set on either a boy or a girl. It seemed to bother other people more than me. I heard a lot of “I’m a planner so I would have to know.” Hey, I’m a planner, too. In fact, not knowing what we were having allowed me to create a gender-neutralish registry and nursery (I say neutralish because yellow and green tend to be more boyish than girlish) which worked out well as we have a boy and a girl now and have been able to use many things for both of them. (When I was pregnant the second time, we turned the guest room into a girly room for BB which freed up the green nursery with tree and bird decorations for LB.) The baby doesn’t care what color he or she is wearing anyway.

It really wasn’t hard not knowing throughout the first pregnancy. I was worried that we’d accidentally find out as we ended up having four ultrasounds throughout the pregnancy. My husband and I made a list of boy and girl names we liked. I didn’t think I wanted to have the baby named before it was born because I wanted to meet him or her first. I did feel a little sorry for my mother-in-law because my sister-in-law was also a wait-and-see person so she didn’t get to do any pre-birth shopping for anyone.

The big day arrived and we had our lists of names ready. We had a favorite among the boys’ names but were still fairly undecided on the girls’. When BB was born, the doctor held her up for PB to share the good news. He responded “It’s a girl…I think?” He was correct and we were both quite excited. I don’t think that we had planned for him to announce the gender, but I loved that it was how I found out. Because BB was a girl, we had to decide what she was going to be called. It took about an hour to decide and then we could call family and let them know that everyone was healthy and doing well. When PB called his mom, he said something to the effect of “The baby’s healthy – 6lb 4.5oz, 18.5inches” then stopped. His mom yelled “What is it?” through the phone and he happily shared that it was a girl and her name, her first granddaughter. One friend asked us how we spelled BB’s name and we had to deliberate on our two choices for spelling after that.

When we found out we were pregnant for the second time, I offered to let my husband decide, assuming he’d elect to find out. He knew that I would rather not find out and, being the considerate man he is, said it could be a surprise as well. I was excited!

Everything went about the same, though this time I was definitely more tempted to find out. Especially since LB went past his due date. I enjoyed answering all of the “Is it a boy or a girl?”, “Do you know what you’re having?”, etc questions. I once answered “Yes” to the “boy or girl” question and then heard, “Both?!” “No! I’m having a boy or a girl.” After that I went back to “We don’t know.” One person responded, “You’re never finding out?” to which I answered, “I don’t think that’s possible. We’ll find out when he or she is born.”

At LB’s birth, I requested to have PB tell me the gender. He wasn’t sure he wanted that pressure but complied for my benefit. This time, when the doctor told him to share the gender he said, “All I see is a butt.” So they turned LB around and he said, “It’s a boy!” Once again we had lists. This time we had a girl’s name we really liked. The doctor asked what his name was and I said, “I don’t know.” We decided on it much more quickly this time, which was good because our family was waiting in the hospital lobby. We did call and announce it over the phone to our daughter (and all of the other family members listening in) before they came to meet him.

I must now admit that the title of this post is slightly misleading because I can’t really give an argument for finding out the gender before the baby is born as I haven’t experienced it. Here are my guesses as to the pros for finding out: you can get all blue or pink things, you can have a distinctly girl or boy room, you can decide on a name with plenty of time to monogram every article of clothing and receiving blanket you receive at your shower. [HOWEVER I have a friend who was told at her ultrasound that she was having a girl. She had named her and had tons of pink and monogrammed things. At delivery, she learned she actually had a boy.]

Oh, and BB received loads of girl clothes and LB received loads of boy clothes through the mail and in person after they were born. They both even received monogrammed blankets, burp cloths, and bibs – so no worries about not being properly outfitted if you wait.

Did you find out the gender before your child was born? Were you told you were having a girl or boy at an ultrasound only to find out later that the technician was wrong?

For First-Time Parents: Sleeping Through the Night

[Every parent has things they’d like to share with other parents, especially those just starting out on the journey. We have been through the trenches and have success and failures that we believe can help others. I do know, however, that no matter how wise or useful advice may be, sometimes it can only truly be appreciated standing on the other side. So, if you’re a first-time parent, I completely understand if you choose to ignore what others (including myself) are trying to tell you. However, perhaps this will help you to remember that you’re not alone in your struggle.]

LB, swaddled and sleeping

Once you become a parent, you truly appreciate (and miss) all of that good sleep you got before your beautiful newest member of the family arrived. You are now willing to do just about anything it takes to get some more precious slumber. There are mountains of books you could read about helping your child sleep. I think having a consistent routine and schedule could help, but I also think that it also depends on your child.

Our first child “slept through the night” at eight weeks. To me, this means sleeping for a decent stretch of time without needing milk. In our house, this meant that she nursed at 10 pm and then slept until 6 am when she wanted to nurse again. She probably didn’t get put down into her crib until closer to 11 and I think she still woke up a couple of times, but I didn’t have to feed her, just soothe her to sleep. The time interval slowly increased until it was 7:30 p.m. for the last feeding and then sleeping until about 7 a.m.

We would still get up once or twice per night to soothe BB when she’d wake up. I hated hearing her cry so we tended to rock her until she fell asleep again and then lay her back down. One night, sometime in the ninth or tenth month, my husband and I had both taken turns in the middle of the night trying to soothe our daughter. Nothing worked. Finally we were both so tired that we just let her cry and laid in our bed listening to her. The only other thing I remember is waking up the next morning and realizing that she had finally soothed herself to sleep and we had gotten some sleep as well. After that, she became proficient at soothing herself back to sleep when she woke up at night and we finally got real, unbroken sleep.

With our second child I had high hopes of him following in his sister’s footsteps and “sleeping” early on. This time around, I decided that I wanted to put him down for bed at the same time as his sister and risk waking up for an early morning feeding so that my husband and I could get some down time in the evening. [Otherwise we’d be dealing with kids until our bedtime and then as soon as we got up and that sounded too overwhelming for me.]

For a while LB would wake up as we were heading to bed so I thought that perhaps we could kind of do the same schedule we had with BB. Not quite. The overnight pattern with LB was soooo unpredictable. He’d have several weeks with two feedings and then a night with only one feeding followed by a night with three. There were a couple of sporadic no-feeding nights which were awesome (followed by complete disappointment when he went back to multiple feedings the following night).

As we stumbled through his fifth and six months of life, the schedule slowly improved and leveled out to one or two feedings at night. Shortly before his half-birthday, he started sleeping from his 7:30 p.m. feeding until about 6:30 a.m. Praise the Lord! We’ve only had a handful of rough nights since then that I can recall and they were due to pain from cutting teeth and/or being in a new sleeping place on vacation. While it took longer to cut out the night feedings, LB was almost six months ahead of his sister on length of night sleep. And we don’t go into his room to soothe him like we did BB as we have laid him down awake and allowed him to soothe himself to sleep from the beginning.

I share my experiences to let you know that it is possible to do many of the same things and still get different results. Both kids were breastfed on set intervals throughout the day. Both kids were swaddled to sleep for at least the first couple of months. Neither child started solids until six months. I think LB has gotten more and better naps than BB did (which may have helped some), but that is out of experience and necessity and is probably a topic for a different day.

How long until your kids slept through the night without feeding? Did you put them down awake? Do you have any tips that worked for your family that might help others?

Two Things Not to Say to a Mom of One

There is a long list of things people, especially strangers, should not say to young mothers (or fathers). Below are two that have bothered me the most.

Me and BB

1. Having one is SOOOOO easy.

Looking back at one child from the view of two or more, it is easy to say that. Not long after my son was born I saw the advantages of having one instead of two (especially one who is much more self-sufficient than her newborn baby brother). It’s much easier to get one dressed, fed, and ready for outings. One is easier to keep track of while on an outing. One is easier to keep entertained. There is more time to do the things I want/need to get done during the day. But, of course, as your family grows, you tend to forget what it was like the first time around.

When my daughter was born, I had no idea what I was doing most of the time. Every experience was new and I had to figure out how to handle each one in a manner that worked for our family.  I read quite a few books to try to help me through various situations – weaning, solid foods, sleep scheduling, potty training. You name it, there are thousands of books to tell you the “right” way to do it. And there are plenty of conflicting ideas, as Ava Neyer pointed out.

All of the helpful advice can be overwhelming and make you feel like you’re doing it wrong and you’re going to screw up your child and you are so not cut out for this and on and on and on. Sometimes you end up trying it all only to find that your child does not fit any of the molds. Sometimes you will do something you swore you’d never do or that many people say is bad for the baby but it works and is saving your sanity so you go with it.

As a first time parent, EVERYTHING is a big deal. It is super important for the baby to follow the schedule to a T every single day. I know that once you find something that works, you try to hold onto it for as long as possible, which doesn’t tend to be that long as babies are always changing things up, especially that first year. By the time you get a good three nap schedule down, they decide to drop one. When you are finally figuring out a good time for errands, the baby will get sick and keep you home for a few days (or a week). It’s one giant guessing game.

It is so tough being a first-time parent. Experience makes the second time around A LOT better.  I still am not getting everything “right” but I know (from experience) that everything is a stage that WILL pass and that really helps get me through. And, of course, I’m still continuing to experience plenty of firsts with our oldest child.

2. So, when are you having another one?

As my journey into relationships with other mothers has progressed, I have learned that there are a lot of reasons families have one child. The simplest reason is that it is what the couple has decided completes their family. But, many times, this is not the case. I have quite a few women in my circle who have had issues with pregnancy. For some, their first child was a miracle. They would love to have more, but they didn’t even think they could have one. Some are in the process of trying to get pregnant a second time, but have had months, or years, of disappointment. Some women have dealt with the sorrow of one or several miscarriages before and/or after their first child. Other women had such a rough first pregnancy and/or delivery that they don’t want to risk having the same, or a worse, experience.

Most of these are issues no one wants to discuss with strangers or even well-meaning friends. The question may hit a sore spot without you ever knowing. I know of one instance when I asked that question to someone who had just suffered their second miscarriage (I didn’t know that until later). Since then, I have chosen to refrain from asking this question. I would caution you to also think hard before using this question as a casual conversation topic.

Do you have any additional suggestions on what not to say to a mom of one? Do you remember inappropriate or insensitive things told to you with your first or only child?