The Mom I Was Never Going to Be

01/22/2015

Hi everyone, my name is Jen and I’m the new Director for Mommy Connections Leduc and Beaumont. Right now I am new to a lot of things: I am new to blogging, I am new to Mommy Connections, and I am still fairly new to being a Mom, so I hope you bear with me while I learn all of these new roles. Lately I’ve been having a lot of conversations with other moms about all the things I used to think I knew about being a mom. Before I actually became a mom, I thought I had it all figured out. I knew exactly the right way to raise children, what I would do in most situations and, more importantly, what I would NEVER do. I knew being a mom would be tough, but I figured I had years of practice working with children, so it would be easier for me. And then I had my daughter; my perfect little 8 lbs, 19 inch daughter who came into this world in 7 hours and changed my life forever!

It started the first day we brought our daughter home. You see I was NEVER going to let my child sleep anywhere but their crib or bassinet when we were at home and she needed a nap, or it was bedtime. But my daughter had other plans because every time I put her in her bassinet she would sleep for 20 minutes maximum and then wake up. I was stubborn about this, and stayed up the entire first night trying to get her to sleep in her bassinet. By night 2, I had resorted to sleeping on the couch with the bassinet beside me and basically sleeping for 15 minute periods when she would sleep, and then waking up every time she made a noise. Let’s just say that it was a rough 3 days. Then I realized something: I would not survive with this level of sleep. I needed to get rid of all preconceived notions of what I was and was not going to do, and I needed to do what I needed to do for my baby and me to get through. Enter co-sleeping; the absolute one thing that I always said I was never going to do!!! I started off sleeping on the spare bed, which was unbelievably hard and uncomfortable, away from my husband, with a small blanket over myself and my sweet baby on the other half of the bed away from all edges and my hand on her at all times. All of a sudden some miracle happened and my daughter would sleep 4 hours at a time, with small 15 minute feeds!! It was like heaven!! After 2 weeks, I finally felt comfortable enough that I moved back to my wonderfully comfortable bed and we all survived. From this point I ended up doing a lot of things I thought I would never do: I held my daughter pretty much all the time just because I wanted to; if she made a noise I went and picked her up; I rocked her or breastfed her to sleep all the time. I realized I wanted to do all these things I said I would never do because it would ‘spoil’ my child because you can only do them for so long and I didn’t want to waste a second of my time with her!! There are some things that we are now having to work on, but she is a happy, healthy baby girl who is secure in the fact that she is loved by everyone around her and that is what is important to me! She smiles at everyone, she plays on her own or with others, she will willingly be held by other people in the room with us and she is developing perfectly normally, even though I did a lot of things that my previous self believed would ruin my child forever!

Please understand that I am not saying everyone should co-sleep and their life will be grand. My point is that that specific incident made me understand that I actually knew very little about parenting before becoming a parent. Even now, I only know how to parent the child I currently have…the next one could be a whole new ball game with a completely different set of rules!! In fact, just when I think I have my daughter figured out, something happens and she changes just to keep me on my toes! I have also learnt that what is right for me may not be right for the parent beside me and it is not my place to judge them or tell them the ‘right way’. I love getting advice from people (honestly I do!) and I will listen respectfully to every piece of advice given and then I will decide if it works for me and my family. The great thing about being a parent is that it is a constantly evolving position and therefore it is impossible to ever get bored!