The first months after maternity leave are honestly a blur. With any infant, you’re going to be sleep deprived. And you are going to desperately try to find any tips or tricks that will help your little one sleep, especially on the nights of inexplicable screaming. Or something to help you get through the next day.
I have a new appreciation and understanding of Lorelai Gilmore now that I'm a mom.
If you're like me, you are going to scour the Facebook groups and internet in general to find something that fixes the sleep problem. The truth is that there are no tried and true methods that work 100% of the time because our babies are all different. Your Great Aunt Petunia can swear her old school methods will work, but your Great Aunt Cecilia will argue that her methods work better and Petunia doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
I mean, if Great Aunt Petunia is saying "Give 'em a sip of whiskey" then yeah, you might wanna go with Aunt Cecilia. Alcohol + babies = bad. But still.
You’re going to get the unsolicited advice. They mean well. Your friends and family love you and just want to help. But what they suggest doesn’t come with the guarantee they say it does, and you have to decide what to try and what not to. Example: No way I’m going to have my daughter sleep in a crib in another room. Is that a bad choice for other parents? No. Will my anxiety allow me to sleep in another room and not be kept up all night with worst case scenarios running through my mind? Absolutely not.
So here’s my unsolicited advice for this time period: Get to know yourself and your baby, and give both of yourselves grace. That is the best method you can have. I was told to listen to my instincts as a mom a lot in the beginning, and it would hurt so much when people told me this because I felt alone. Like they didn’t understand that I was a first time mom and had no idea what I was doing. But they were right. My instincts were to be simple with my baby. Hold her. Sing to her. Cosleep. Remember that her crying is her trying to communicate something and it might not be the basics (fed, burped, diaper changed, held). Sometimes all I could do was rock her until she calmed down, just reminding her that whatever she was feeling that was overwhelming her, I was here.
(Oh, and don’t come at me about the cosleeping - I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone but I’m probably the lightest sleeper you will ever meet, so she so much as hiccups and I wake up.)
When I gave up on overcomplicated methods or gadgets, we hit our stride as mom and baby. I stopped trying to put her in her bassinet while I worked and held her, letting her sleep in my arms while I made customer calls. I tended to start with the no-cost or low-cost methods since we’re on a tight budget. One thing Great Aunt Petunia might be right about is that singing to your baby and just letting them hear your voice might be the best remedy for what ails them. You are their world just as much as they are now yours.
No comments:
Post a Comment