I had a pretty big baby bump, being about 8 months along. We knew we were expecting a boy, but boy did we have no idea what to expect. You think you have the gist, you watch friends and family go through the new baby experience. You try to prepare yourself, but there's really no way to know what it will be like. I expected to lose a lot of sleep. I expected the baby to cry a lot. I expected to feel unsure of myself. And most of all, I expected that I would experience a love unlike anything I have ever felt or could even imagine.
Well, I did lose a lot of sleep, but not as much as I expected to. Emmett slept 4 hour stretches at night as a newborn, and in the first few months even slept 5 and 6 hour stretches, which is quite impressive for a breastfed baby. During his 4th and 5th month we had some rough nights where he would wake up every few hours, sometimes every hour, but we got through it and by 6 months he was sleeping through the night quite regularly. Now, at 10 months, I don't even wonder if he'll wake up, because I know he won't. I can't remember the last time he woke up at night and required nursing or rocking. And I'm going to take this moment to comment on sleep training. There are various pediatricians and child development specialists who say that you have to teach your baby how to sleep. I find the whole concept ridiculous. These people say never nurse your baby to sleep, never rock your baby to sleep, because if they wake up in the middle of the night, they will not be able to fall back to sleep on their own without your help. They say to put your baby in their crib awake and let them fall asleep on their own. If they cry, don't pick them up, reassure them by talking to them or patting their back until they go to sleep. Well first of all, if your baby wakes up at night and cries, there's a reason for that! They need something. Maybe they are hungry (most likely, when are babies not?) Maybe they need a clean diaper. Or maybe they just want to be held and cuddled and made to feel cozy and safe. Why would you deprive them of any of these things? Even after waking up every hour with Emmett during those tough months and nursing him or rocking him to sleep, he still learned to sleep through the night on his own. I still nurse him at bedtime and then rock him to sleep while singing to him. I wouldn't give up that experience for anything. And when he wakes up at night (which is rare), he puts his pacifier back in his mouth, maybe cries for a second or two, and goes right back to sleep. I also rock him to sleep before his naps and he takes naps that are an hour and a half to two hours long. If he wakes up during his nap and he's still tired, he puts his pacifier back in his mouth and goes right back to sleep. Sleep training is crap. What it teaches your baby is that if they wake up at night, don't bother crying because Mommy and Daddy won't come, so you might as well go back to sleep, miserable or not. This is just my opinion. I am not a doctor. I do have a Bachelor's Degree in Child Development, however. But this is not based on that expertise, it is based on my experience as a mother. Now, this not what this post was intended to be about, so I am going to get back on track.
I am lucky that Emmett never had colic. I have heard horror stories from mothers whose babies would scream and cry for hours and hours. I still expected him to cry more than he did. He has always kept his crying to a minimum, and when he did cry it was because he needed something. When that need was met, the crying stopped. I am glad that I decided to stay home with him, for so many reasons. It definitely made breastfeeding easier. I can count on one hand the number of bottles Emmett has had in his life. And the funny thing about that is, I bought a bunch of bottles, thinking I would need to pump milk when I was gone and other people would need to give him bottles. At that time I may have been entertaining the idea of going back to work. But I have a bunch of brand new bottles that have been removed from the boxes and washed once. I sure wish I could take them back.
At the beginning I definitely felt unsure of myself at times. The first day that I was at home with him by myself while Chris went to work, I was quite nervous...for about 15 minutes. And then I just got over it. I found that being a mother really did come natural to me. Not everything did. Breastfeeding sure didn't. He and I had to work hard to figure that out together, and we have had our ups and downs with it. There were many things that Emmett and I went through in general that I wasn't sure how to handle. I googled everything. I would spend hours and hours on the computer doing research, trying to find the "right" answers. If there's anything I've learned as a mother, its that there are no "right" or "wrong" ways to do things. Just different ways. Bottom line is you have to find the right answer for you and your baby. That is when you will find confidence.
I knew I would love my baby more than my own life. But I didn't know what that would feel like. Now that I do, its the most powerful love that I have ever felt and will ever feel. There is a plaque on Emmett's nursery wall that says "I love you to the moon and back". That doesn't even do it justice. My whole purpose for living changed when he was born. I finally found my reason for being. And I've never been happier or more content.
And my little reason for being just woke up from his nap!
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