Things No One Told You About Parenting #327 – Mommy Blogger

02/22/2019

Hi, My name is Brittany and I’m a first time mom to a beautiful baby girl! I live with my (common law) husband of 5 years, our 4 year old rescue dog, Luna, and of course our daughter, Claire. I have a full time job with the City of Saskatoon that I will be returning to in September. In my (very little) free time I enjoy video games, board games, and Netflix. I live for coffee and craft beer. I enjoy cooking and baking but don’t have nearly as much time for meal prep as I’d like. Being a parent is both the most exhausting thing I’ve ever done in my entire life and also the most fulfilling. I can’t wait to share my experiences – good or bad.

Things no one told you about parenting #327: SO much of this is guess work!

The amount of contradictory advice available out there is staggering. It’s hard to know if what I’m doing is “right” because my grandmother did things differently than my mother who did things differently than my best friend did. I could read all the books and all the internet articles and be no closer to knowing what is “right” than if I read nothing at all. Parenting is already terrifying, so let’s add a thousand different ways to do the same thing and guess what will work!

I try very hard to be a go-with-the-flow parent. I want structure and routine but I also want Claire to be flexible and adaptable. We have a fairly solid schedule at home but I never wanted to be the kind of parent that couldn’t go out during the day because it would interrupt the plan. I am an extrovert so being holed up inside my house day after day is agonizing. Where is the happy medium between rigidity and fluidity? If you find it – please let me know!

I’ve been around various babies throughout most of my life so when I found out I was pregnant I tried not to make too many plans. I know what babies are like. Babies are going to do what babies are going to do. They don’t care about your plans or how you want things to go. I didn’t make a birth plan; I bought a breast pump and bottles even though I planned on breastfeeding; I set up her crib before we even brought her home from the NICU, even though I planned on having her sleep in a bassinet in our bedroom for the first 6 months. None of the things I planned ended up happening. I had emergency C-section at 2:45 in the morning 7 weeks before my due date, I was unable to breastfeed, and I lasted 2 nights with Claire in our bedroom before transferring her to the crib in her own room. (Little known fact – preemie babies are LOUD!)

I feel a lot of pressure to be a Super Mom and to do the right things. I’m afraid of judgement and worried that someone is going to think I’m not a good mother. I told a nurse this past week that I felt bad about the amount of time Claire spends on the floor playing by herself. I felt ashamed telling her this, but she told me that letting my daughter play alone on the floor helps her development in a way that being constantly present and stimulating doesn’t. She said that allowing myself to put her down and walk away for a few minutes helps her learn independence and this is why I have a 7 month old child who is crawling and sitting up all by herself. So I feel bad about things that are directly benefiting my child because I read something somewhere that babies need constant stimulation?? Isn’t that a little insane?

When it comes to my parenting style much of it has turned into me just shrugging and letting whatever is going to happen, happen. There’s too much varying information out there for me to try and choose any one thing and make a solid plan. Claire doesn’t like plans. It’s like she senses when I really need something to happen a certain way and then she cackles in my face and does the direct opposite. So we have rough plans. She naps “roughly” every couple hours, she eats when she’s hungry, if we go out she can nap in the car seat or stroller and it’s not going to hurt her.

My best laid plans never pan out, so we do what works for us. We adapt. And in the end we do just fine.