First off, congratulations and welcome to the ride! Please keep all hands and feet inside the cart and maybe just maybe you can avoid your baby's bodily fluids.
When you were pregnant I am sure you got a hand full of advice. Possibly from the mother with a few children herself, or the mom with many children and grandchildren, and even from your friend that has no children. You can take it or leave it but nothing you hear will fully prepare you for your life as a mother. Now that you have your own baby also remember everyone's story and child is different so sometimes you will just have to learn as you go. You gave birth to your sweet baby boy or girl, and you are now a super hero with many super powers! So when you feel as if you can't take one more minute of all the chaos that comes along with that sweet baby just remember you have mom super powers.
Your instinct is everything! At first you may not be able to bond with your baby and that is okay and frankly isn't uncommon. Once you become a mother, whether you have bonded with your baby yet or not you will get a feeling in your gut about what your baby needs and what is right. You will also have many voices that may not agree with your instinct. The father, your parents and grandparents, friends, and even the public sometimes try to get their opinion in. You are your child's eyes and hands and feet, you are their advocate for everything. Let that motherly instinct guide you but it's still important to keep an open mind and heart. The father has instinct too for his child and has just as an important role as you do, and your parents have been through it with you so their advice may not always be perfect but it can definitely help you in making the right decision. As hard as it is to admit, your instinct may not always be right, and that's okay too. You will make mistakes and you won't be able to be a "perfect" mother because there is no such thing.
I'd like to give you advice but also just a heads up because there will be many challenges you will face and some people just aren't prepared for what's ahead of them. In my experience the biggest challenge in the beginning was exhaustion. I think the restless nights during pregnancy is training for what nights would be like once the baby is there. People will try to tell you to sleep when the baby sleeps, that's a joke. If you can sleep when the baby is asleep then by all means DO IT! There is always something else to do though. Such as shower, or eat, pump if you are breastfeeding, clean the house or the babies stuff. Once you get the list done your newborn will probably be up and ready to eat again since they are fed every 2-3 hours. If you are able to just lay down for two to three hours while your baby is asleep then your day will be 5x better if you allow yourself to put everything else on pause and rest. My advice is listen to your body. If you listen to your body then you will be in better shape then I was. You will know if those two or three hours should be used to catch up on sleep or if you need to give your body more nutrition, or if you just can't smell the spit up on you for one more minute then hop in the shower! As hard as it is to do with a newborn a schedule and plan will help immensely. Try to be as flexible and adaptable to this schedule and plan because you don't set the routine for the day but your newborn will. Having an hour to yourself a day though is a great time to shower and have a hot meal which will be a foreign concept now. Some days I used an hour to just brush my hair and read part of a book. Find ways to recharge those super mom powers, you need them!
There were days when my baby was sleeping and then I would hear him cry and wake up and I just sighed and looked forward to the next nap. Once I saw his sweet face waiting for me to pick him up I never wanted to put him back down. Even when you feel like you can't get through the day, the love of your new child will give you the strength to push forward. Then there will be breaking moments. At the beginning when your hormones are whacked out and your body hurts and you just want to sleep there will be meltdowns. For me, it happened when my baby would cry and I couldn't calm him down no matter what I did. Somehow I would end up crying even harder then he was. Some one asked me once in the middle of one of the worst meltdowns I had if I could handle it. The tears stopped and I felt a surge of energy and strength and I knew that I could and would handle it. You will too! There will be many tears and breaking points, but I am sure you can get through them and come out of them a better mother. If you don't take away anything else I say in this post that's fine, just listen closely to this. There will be times you feel extremely insecure and you have no confidence with every little thing you do. In those times remember you are your child's whole world! Just holding them can ease their cries and you are what makes them smile, your baby has the purest of love for you. They are totally dependent upon you and no one else can do what you do for them!
Having a newborn is a magical time and is an emotional roller coaster. As I said before Congratulations! I hope you can soak it all in while you are living through it because there is nothing that compares to having your newborn. I also hope you like roller coasters because you just strapped yourself in for a long ride!
I would love to hear from all the mothers that read this post! What is the best advice you received for motherhood? Thanks for reading.
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