I love reading motherhood posts from Kylie at immaeatthat so I’m going to do my own version here.
In some ways I can’t believe it’s already been 6 months of having two kids, and in other ways it feels like we’ve known L forever.
I think so far, the “taby” stage (12 months – 2 years) was the hardest for me. It will be interesting to see if it was just because I was pregnant during that stage and constantly sick and/or exhausted. I find D so enjoyable now. Yes of course there are tantrums, but he’s also so sweet and funny and it’s amazing to hear him say what’s on his mind.
Wise Words from Therapy
I started therapy after D was born and I was suffering from postpartum depression. It came back after L was born which wasn’t very surprising to me. One thing my therapist told me when I first started seeing her is “the first year of the baby’s life is the hardest.” Make it through the first year and everything becomes so much more manageable.
Well, I found out I was pregnant a whole 2 weeks after Daniel’s first birthday. So much for my “easy” year! Obviously I wouldn’t change anything about this, but it’s been a lot to have pregnancy, postpartum, pregnancy, postpartum all back to back like that. Now I’m repeating her advice in my head with L’s first year. It’s already SO much better now that L is sleeping through the night.
Having “Me” Time Again
We sleep trained right around 4.5 months. It’s such a game changer when the kids have a set bedtime and you have at least a couple of hours to yourself or to spend with your spouse before bed. In the newborn days, nights are so unpredictable and I couldn’t plan or look forward to any “me” time. So that’s been huge in feeling a little more like myself.
The Most Difficult Meal of the Day
Another thing that I was reminded of pretty quickly after L was born was how stressful meals are as a new parent. In the early newborn days, it seems like whenever you’re hungry and finally get around to preparing food for yourself, BAM that’s when baby needs to eat. Many meals on maternity leave were eating with L in the baby carrier.
Then later on, L was always fussy around the 5-6 pm hour, and it’s so impossible for me to enjoy a meal when that’s the case. Either James would hold him while I scarf down my food as fast as possible, or try to hold him while I eat, or just eat quickly to get back to momming. Now that L’s on solids, I’m watching/helping him feed himself while I eat dinner.
I just have to come to terms with the fact that dinner is not going to be a peaceful or relaxing meal until L is older. In general I would say the evenings are the most chaotic and triggering time of day. Everyone is hungry and cranky and overstimulated. The noise and hunger can be a little overwhelming. We’ve all had a long day at work and want to unwind, but first we have to do the whole dinner/bath/bed routine before we can relax.
Feeding
With D we did strictly purees to start, but I’m trying the whole baby led weaning thing with L. I’m taking this course mainly because I wanted the recipe ideas, but she’s also great to follow on social media and has a podcast with lots of information for free. So far it’s going well. I like that it’s more hands off (so I can eat lol) and that L can learn and experiment with food at his own pace. The mess can be a challenge though…
Body
I’m thinking I might do a full post on this but I haven’t decided. One thing I do want to say is I think breastfeeding to lose weight is a huge myth. Maybe it’s true for some women but certainly not me. And it doesn’t make sense to me. If your body is trying to sustain another human life, why would it want to be shedding fat?
As always, I’m focusing on appreciation for all my body can do rather than how different it looks. I have started emphasizing movement more in the new year though, which is humbling to be starting completely from scratch. I went on a “jog” (that’s a very generous way to describe it) and it was almost laughable how slow I was. And to think back to when I ran 4 half marathons in 3 years. But that’s where my body is right now, and that’s great. I believe it’s exactly where I’m meant to be.
800 words later and I think that about sums it up! 🙂 If you’ve read this far, thank you! Would you like to see a separate post on postpartum body image? Or on anything else related to motherhood?
