Updated June, 2021
With my hormones leveled out and a certain routine provided to my days, I am finally able to take a deep breath and look back on these first few weeks (almost two months already!) of being a mom with a reasonably level perspective. Society has a tendency to project what motherhood is going to be like. I was told that I would be exhausted all the time, that my relationship with my partner would disappear completely, that I would probably end up quitting my job (as if that was a financial option!), and I would probably be overprotective.
I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t meet society’s expectations and avoided all of these experiences. I was surprised at how many experiences I did have that no one talked about. We normalize all these negative aspects of having babies but forget to highlight anything that actually matters. These are my First Time Mom Experiences that no one warned me about.
Breastfeeding can be hard. Now this is something that I read about in a lot of pregnancy books. I knew that it might be difficult. Unfortunately, the advice out there seems to be to either figure it out or talk to a lactation consultant. No one tells you that as you work on figuring it out, you can convince yourself that your baby is going to die and that you are a terrible parent and you have completely failed.
Monster latched right away when our midwives were present. They ate a hearty meal and were good for about two days. At the end of two days, as my milk started coming in, my already large breasts became huge. Monster was no longer able to latch, and even when they could, they couldn’t breathe. I think they went almost 12 hours without eating on that second night (in retrospect, I suspect it was nowhere near that long, but it clearly felt that way to me at the time). They had previously been eating every 2-3 hours. They were starting to become dehydrated and could barely stay awake, despite their hunger. I was sure we weren’t going to be able to breastfeed.
The options of figure it out or talk with a lactation consultant weren’t available to us at that point. Figuring it out wasn’t working, that was for sure. Of course, we were having problems late at night as well, so contacting a lactation consultant to come to us at 11:00pm at night, or even for us to go to them, was out. I was adamantly against using formula. So what was I to do?
Thankfully, one of our midwives had mentioned something called a nipple shield to my partner in a one off conversation they had prior to the birth. My partner ran out to the store at 11:40 at night and was able to get one. This nipple shield allowed me to breastfeed Monster until they were able to figure it out themselves, which they did within a few weeks.
I think the recovery phase is talked about in only a fluffy sort of way. People mention that you will be tired because your child will keep you up all the time (not true). What isn’t mentioned is the physical discomfort, the lying in bed, and the crazy hormone changes.
I had a baby without taking so much as an aspirin. Again, while I wasn’t perhaps a picture of calm grace, I did it. After their arrival though? I was popping Advil like it was candy (only a mild exaggeration). My vagina hurt so bad, I was sure that everything inside me was just going to fall out if I stood too long or didn’t move carefully enough.
I also spent a few days strictly in bed, and at least two weeks mostly in bed. When you are used to being active all the time, lying in bed all day every day tends to be hard work. My butt and back and legs hurt just as much as my vagina from lying around all day. I was able to carefully do a few cat cows, but mostly, I was just uncomfortable until I was able to be more mobile.
Even now, weeks later, I still feel like I am recovering. My body is nothing like it was before pregnancy. I had to spend weeks working to close my abdominal diastasis so that my stomach had at least some chance of looking normal again. I do keagles every time I am breastfeeding so that hopefully my uterine muscles will learn how to hold pee again, and I’m still working on accepting the big ugly stretch marks that showed up in the last two weeks of my pregnancy.
3. The Importance of Temperament
I knew about temperament in advance of Monster’s birth because of my background in Early Childhood Education. However, no one really seems to talk about it, which I find fascinating. There are enough fussy temperament children out there that everyone expects that to be the norm.
Monster has an amazing temperament. They are calm, love cuddles, and love sleeping. They don’t scream all the time. They are already almost sleeping through the night and have been since four weeks. They don’t mind being passed around to a lot of people, and while I am the one that can sooth them when it comes to food, they are just as happy to be loved by anyone that wants to love on them.
Every child is unique, so lumping them all into one category of miserable doesn’t honor who they are. I’m sure if I had listened to everyone and expected Monster to be a miserable child, they would have lived up to my expectations. Instead, I gave them room to let their temperament emerge naturally and found a child who seems to love life already.
4. The Random, Irrational Fears that I Know are Irrational
I am not an over protective parent. I never felt the need to be. Monster is safe, and the people I surround myself with are all competent people. I don’t mind passing them off to be loved by a family member or friend. I don’t feel the need to baby proof my house and watch them every second of every day.
Even being as relaxed as I am, I find I have a few irrational fears. That’s the thing though, I know they are irrational. I imagine a lot of new moms have irrational fears and know it. For example, I am afraid of Monster falling from a very tall height, either by being dropped or rolling off somewhere high. I’m afraid I will put them in my car and the doors will lock and the keys will be stuck inside and it will be hot. I’m afraid that if I leave my front door open while they are in the front room and I am not, someone will walk into my house and take them.
I know these are all things that probably aren’t going to happen. But they are the terrible things my brain can think of in order to help push my natural maternal instincts. I think these irrational fears help a mom to be protective and control things so that the worst doesn’t happen to her child.
5. Wanting Space
I am a spacious person and always have been. I enjoy my social interactions, but often want alone time as well. I like getting things done and feeling productive. I enjoy physical contact, but not every second of every day.
For me, this meant that it didn’t take me forever to put my new baby down. I didn’t want to hold Monster every second of every day and I still don’t. This was the big one that made me feel like a bad parent, because everyone else wanted to hold Monster all the time. Thankfully, I mentioned my feelings to a friend, who assured me that wanting to do things other than hold Monster was not only fine, it was probably really healthy.
I cuddle and love on Monster a lot still. I love holding them a little extra when they first fall asleep and getting me to do anything when they are super active and awake is almost impossible. I have learned that taking space and doing my own thing is completely okay though. Most importantly, it doesn’t make me a bad parent.
6. Crying - A Lot
I know about baby blues and postpartum depression and hormone changes and all of that stuff. I knew my hormones would change and a certain fluctuation in emotions was to be expected. I knew to watch for extended sadness or thoughts of hurting myself or my child. Even knowing that, I didn’t expect the baby blues phase to be as rough as it was, or for it to come so late in the game.
I cried every day for probably two weeks. This wasn’t right after Monster was born though, which is when I expected baby blues to hit (it’s when my hormones are changing the most rapidly). It started about a week and a half after their birth. I worried that I might actually have postpartum depression even. It made bonding with my baby incredibly difficult. I didn’t want to feed Monster if I was crying, or even hold them, because I didn’t want to negatively affect them. Lack of bonding with them only made me want to cry more though. It was an incredibly vicious cycle.
Thankfully, the need to cry all the time mostly faded away. Instead of crying every day it was more like once every few days, then eventually not at all. I still get teary eyed sometimes, but the sense of loss and misery isn’t as strong. I just felt like this emotional part of having a child was significantly underplayed in everything I heard and read.
7. Missing My Social Group
My partner and my best friend both live with me. Even so, my job has always been where I had the majority of my social interactions. Then I had a few hobbies, such as rock climbing and horseback riding where I also had acquaintances and met my social quota. Everyone in my life was really respectful and gave us a lot of space to bond with Monster. For me, it was too much space.
I’m not sure I made it even a full week before I was desperate for some social interaction outside of the people that lived with me. I missed talking with adults. I missed having a drive beyond sleep, eat, and baby. I asked my friend who set up my Meal Train for me to start it earlier so that I could start seeing people. I let people hold Monster as a way to entice them to stay and visit longer. Just having Monster every day was not enough.
8. Time with my Partner
I knew my relationship with my partner was going to change after Monster was born. A lot of our time would be spent on them instead of on each other. Prior to the birth, I would often stay up really late with my partner (or at least try to) for quality time. With Monster, it has turned into more of me getting up early and my partner staying up late. It’s great for Monster, but certainly has taken time away from just the two of us.
None of this was a surprise to me though. I knew things were going to change. I’m more surprised at how much time my partner and I do spend together, despite what I had been told during my pregnancy. We made time, because that was something that was important to us. We took showers together and snuggled in bed while Monster slept and watched movies together as a family. Having a baby does not feel like the end of my relationship.
