If I could go back and do it all again with my first child I definitely would. There are things that I regret. There are things that I missed that I wish that I could recapture. There are things that I know now that I wish someone would have told me before I wanted to even get pregnant. Wouldn't it be nice if constructive and helpful advice were easy to come by?
When you first find out that you are pregnant, a million different questions come to mind: Will I be a good parent? How am I going to afford this? What is my child going to look like? If you are like me, then you begin an insane amount of research on how to be pregnant, how to be a good parent, how to handle labor, etc. And then it happens… the unwanted advice.
It's gradual... First it’s your grandmother telling you the best position to get babies to sleep. Then it’s your aunt telling you the best nursery colors to use to enhance your baby’s intelligence. Then it’s the woman scanning your groceries at the grocery store telling you that formula will cause your baby to have cancer and has rocket fuel in it. The advice and personal experiences seem to get more and more outlandish as time goes on. Some of the advice is potentially useful, while other pieces make you wonder how this person got through adulthood without being committed to an insane asylum.
This post is going to be an explanation of three statements that should help you through most decisions that will affect both you and your impending baby.
Trust your instincts
You remember you instincts, right? It's that little voice that tells you that something bad is about to happen in movies... and not to touch hot stoves... and gives you general little "feelings" about events that happen in your life. We all have them. And we used to use them. Well, not we... but we as a people. A thousand years ago women used to give birth just fine without doctors telling them when to push and nurses telling them to lay back so they could be checked for the 9th time in 2 hours. I'm not suggesting that people should stop going to doctors and have all their babies unassisted at home because that's how they did it in the past. However, I am saying that perhaps we should learn how to listen to our inner voice a little bit more and men in white coats a little bit less.
Perhaps if we paid more attention to our instincts and less attention to what a stranger over the internet says to do with our children to make them smarter then we could lean at the same time. If we sat down and played with our children instead of buying them games teaching them how to play then we could be better parents. Don't you remember when you were a child there was this newfangled idea called 'playing outside'? You just were outdoors playing with your friends, or by yourself and no one had to teach you how to do it; you just knew how to do it. You played with rocks and sticks and dirt and trees. I'm not judging this one at all because my two young children have iPhones. It's a learning process.
Do your own research
I remember a time, when I was a child, when I had this insatiable desire to learn. Some people have that need to learn languages; others feel that way about cars. Why doesn't anyone feel this way about anything important anymore? Shouldn't we feel like, as a parent, that we should be insatiable learners about vaccines that we give to our children? Or car seat safety? Or the lasting effects of high fructose corn syrup on our bodies? Why do we want to take someone else's word when it comes to our legacy? We should care to know what's going into their body and what they are exposed to. If you find out that what the "experts" say is, in fact, the case for your family and situation, then good. Don't you imagine that you would feel a sense of accomplishment knowing that if someone asked you a question about your choice that you would be able to answer and not just say "oh, well, the almighty Google said so".
Truthfully, this might sound completely opposite to my first piece of advice, but it doesn't have to be. You aren't going to be able to live completely 100% free from the outside world. Eventually you are going to need a doctor for a high fever, and you will definitely need a car seat if you are going to go anywhere. Do some research for your family. The most important thing is not necessarily that you made the best choice, but that YOU made the best, most well-researched choice for your family.
Be flexible
This piece of advice is usually used annoyingly and condescendingly by a lot of women to talk you through a labor and delivery that you don’t want or to get you to give in to something that you don’t want for your baby. “Oh you want a natural birth – be flexible because you will change your mind!” “Oh you want to cloth diaper your children –be flexible because you will do it one day and be tired of it!” I am not using it in that way. I am saying that if you decide that you want to co-sleep with your baby before he is born because you like the idea of the bonding and closeness that comes from this sleeping arrangement, don’t get all bent out of shape if your child needs his sleeping space. Just alter a different part of your life to get that bond from some other part. Learn that being flexible doesn’t mean giving in on items that are important to you, it simply means opening your mind to alternate solutions.
My husband and I swore up and down that we would NEVER bedshare with our kids. His eldest children were bed-sharers and it was torture to get them eventually into their own sleeping areas and routines. Corry and I love our sleep and are both cranky without proper amounts of rest. We felt that it would be in everyone’s best interest if our children had their own beds. We knew that we would co-sleep for the first year at least, because our baby room was upstairs and I didn’t feel comfortable being that far away from our daughter. We had her crib all set up in our room for months before she was born with the intention of bringing her home and her settling right into it. Until she was born… and it was quickly discovered that she wouldn’t sleep longer than 15ish minutes unless she was being held. She wouldn’t sleep at all at night unless she had her head on my arm and was clinging to my side like a monkey. I’m not talking that she whined if she didn’t sleep like this – NO ONE was getting sleep unless she was in this exact position. She slept this way until she was exactly 16 weeks old and then one night decided that she could sleep in her own bed. I was prepared for this same fate with my son and he HATED to sleep next to anyone. He will forcibly roll himself around until he gets away from any other person sleeping in his same area. He slept in his own bed from day one. We have learned to be flexible to our children’s needs and desires, while still keeping with our family values and morals.
Remember that it's going to get better. Eventually people will stop givng you constant advice.
- Sara
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