I am sure that there are other hard things and I wouldn’t necessarily say these are “hard” but I would say they can be the most frustrating. These are the types of things that all of your parent friends have barely even touched the surface about parenting when they are telling you tips and tricks about raising a child. I will also like to point out, When you decide or if you decide to have a family, ANYONE will try to give you advice on how to raise that child. Whether it be family or friends who have had kids, or whether it be people you know who don’t even have kids. There will always be someone out there who is going to try to tell you the “Right” way to do things. The best thing I can say is this, If someone tries to do this with unsolicited advice. Listen. Because you never know if it will in fact help you or be something new. That being said. Them telling you this does not mean you HAVE to listen to them. Just know that basically when you have a child anyone and everyone will want to throw their 2 cents into the mix.
Trying new things is extremely challenging. Especially when it comes to foods. I know my boyfriend and I are so scared to try new foods with my son mostly because he has yet to have teeth at the time of writing this (Approx 9 and a half months old/Ill add an update after this paragraph depending on when I release this!) We are starting to do more lumpy and not pureed food but out doctor basically panicked us into thinking he MUST have different foods or else our son will be so far behind. I think as parents we over react to many things and when we thought about it we really aren’t doing that wrong by this. our son has eaten rice with hamburger and tomato sauce, he has eaten bananas as well too mushed up, or even peas or blueberry pieces. We immediately felt like we were doing a total disservice to our son when really we were doing okay! Trying new things with your baby or child is terrifying but it has to be done. If you really research it though and go for it then you will be fine with finding the right way for you and your family!
Knowing when to change routine is also challenging. You are taught so often that you should be trying to keep things on a schedule. As hard as that may be when you have a new born you still need to try. For us we typically are up at 5am right now (Though remember I pre-write blogs so I will update with a ** when I re-read before publishing this!) and he goes to bed anywhere from 630pm to 7pm. He also is now currently on a 2 nap maybe the odd day a 3rd nap if one of the other two were shorter. this goes with particular things. When it comes to how much food to give your child for example. Maybe you started like us with 2 ice cubes of puree. As he grew we went to 3 and now for some meals we give him 4 cubes of food. Knowing when to change your routine is good. Even if you are just trying to play with some element of it to try to better how it goes. Nothing feels better then at the end of the day you can stand back and think how smoothly it went. And nothing is more exhausting then when you are struggling to get through a day where everything seems to be out of wack.
Okay, I lied. The last thing is keeping it simple. I have been guilty of this more times than I like to admit. Picture this, Your child is in bed and they start stirring and fussing. You go in try everything. You console them, leave, try the cry it out a bit, try a soother, try a cuddle, change pajamas, change sleep sack, turn on white noise, turn off again. turn on a night light, turn off again. Check that his diaper is clean 3 times just to be sure because you are seriously wondering what the problem here is. Only to realize that if you cuddled and walked with your child for a little and patted his back that you would hear a little burp and easily back to sleep again. I’ve been there and I am sure many of us have. Sometimes the most simple things are the easiest to overcome. Remember when I mentioned before that I had the air conditioning on in our bedroom and my son had his door open in the summer? So the noise of the AC was there and when fall and winter swung around we obviously removed it, only to wonder if his sleep habits were out of wack due to the fact that it was too quiet? Right, If you can remember keep it simple it will save you a lot of head and heart ache trying to wrap your brain around things that are happening in your life and your child’s too.
Those are my thoughts, right there! As you can probably guess if you were to ask me to re-do this blog in a few months time that I will probably have even more to add or even change about being a parent. So often we think it looks easy when people have everything together on the outside but on the inside things are challenging. Being a parent is by far the hardest job I have ever had to do where I just go through the motions and try to push down feelings of self doubt. I need to remind myself that even though things get hard I am a great mom and hope to be lucky enough to be a mom again, and again!
What do you find challenging about parenthood? Are they different than mine? Or are they the same?
Let me know in the comments below!
-Stacey
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Stacey J. Girard 