six months in and we're doing fine

Well, hi.

I have been itching to get an update on the blog about the two little ones that keep me from having time to blog. Ha. (I don't really blame them...entirely!)

It's been a couple of months, and I have to agree it's mostly true about what they say how the second child is not quite as "well-documented." I do give myself some credit because I believe I have taken nearly the same amount of photos as Maisy so far. But her baby book is looking quite scarce, and we can all see the amount of time since I last blogged about her. I don't feel too bad about this because I am instead pouring all of my time and energy and brain power into spending time with her and her brother all day, every day, and then using my last bit of energy and coherence at the end of those days to hang out with their father. 

So, when you look at my blog one day, Maisy Kate, I am sorry you may not read as much about yourself when you were a baby. When you were a baby, Mommy gave up blogging most of the time because she was trying to rest and sleep instead. That way, when you were awake and it was impossible to blog entirely, I could play with you and Graeme and we could have lots of fun. I do love you so. And you were a super cute and fun baby.

My best girl

To try to make up for it a little bit, here's some updates about our Maisy girl...

She's almost seven months old now! I remember when I was very early on in my pregnancy with Maisy, a lady at PDQ (a restaurant kind of like Chick-fil-a for those who don't know) with kids similar in age difference to what we would have told us, "Just get to six months. It's all going to get much easier after six months." I don't even remember why we talked to her or how it came up that I was pregnant.

We've received much advice as we have embarked on this "two young children thing," but for some reason I've remembered random PDQ lady's words. Maybe it's not true for everyone, but for me, YES. I can't even really say the first six months were bad or anything, but in the past month since Maisy has turned six-months-old, everything just seems better. I'm sure it's due to many reasons.

• I'm getting more sleep now. This is probably the main cause of my fog being lifted. Ha. Both kids are in their beds asleep for 11 hours every night. Praise to God.
• She's on a four-hour schedule now. She eats breakfast and lunch at the same time as us. Her dinner time is earlier but then she's happy to eat puffs or Cheerios while we eat. And she still takes three naps. One of her naps coincides with Graeme's nap. Hooray. The four-hour schedule is like a billion times better than a three-hour schedule as long as they're ready for it! The hard part is being patient enough to wait to switch to it!
• She's eating several foods now and the pediatrician's all like, "She can try almost anything. The allergy people are wrong again." (Still no honey, or milk, or choking hazards, obviously.) So I'm not panicking about her accidentally eating something she shouldn't as much as I was with Graeme. She's had peanut butter several times already and it's one of her favorite things! She loves food and is way more interested in what we are eating than Graeme ever seemed to be at her age. 
• She can sit up on her own and play which makes her so much happier. She wants to get moving, so we will see how much longer before she does. I have a feeling it won't be long!
• Graeme finally acknowledges her existence! He even tries to play with her sometimes! And I think he is really starting to like having her around. It makes my heart so happy! He tries to get her to say "Da-Da" and "Bye-Bye." She says those sounds often, but we don't think she associates them as what they are yet. And he also loves to get her to clap.
• She "talks" and laughs and her personality is really adorable. And dramatic. She might be a bit more like her Daddy... She has always been a joy, but there's something about six months going by and now she is at a stage that's so. much. fun. 

Since Maisy is able to follow along more with Graeme's schedule now, we are getting back to a routine that doesn't require us to split in half all of the time. For the first six months, they never ate at the same time, never took a bath at the same time, never went to bed at the same time, etc. The bedtime routine was especially not very fun because we had to split them up to get everything done. Now, we can all sit down for dinner together and it's not as rushed as it was before. They play and take a bath together (we are even conserving more water!) before pajamas. And then Maisy can have her bedtime bottle while we all sit for some books together. Aaron and Graeme read a few more books while I put Maisy in her bed. Then Graeme gets one more potty break before he goes to bed. It's still a lot of work, and it's definitely still more of a two-person job, but I can verify that it's a lot more fun than it was before!

And the firstborn...

Graeme is getting close to being 2.5 years now! Crazy! He is still our little talker and he is hilarious. I can't even keep track of all of the funny stuff he says everyday and I know it's probably only funny to us because he's our kid. His imagination is growing too. The other day he was playing with his Disney castle and using a giraffe and a dinosaur who were "best friends." Graeme, playing with the giraffe, kept saying, "Where's my best friend dinosaur?" So, obviously, he cracks us up.

He loves reading books and we have made a point to use the brand new library by our house quite often. We have found lots of books he likes and we check them out when they are on the shelf. He memorizes books after hearing them a few times and helps us "read" them.

He still loves trucks, but has in the past couple of months taken an extreme interest in trains. Namely Thomas and Friends, much to Aaron's initial horror. Aaron very much disliked the idea of Thomas "because he's creepy-looking", but he was out-ruled seeing as Graeme loved watching it and his Mimi kept buying him different Thomas engines. Aaron has come around to Thomas, and you can often find him playing at the train table with Graeme. Graeme's train vocabulary is also hysterical as it consists of phrases like "Oh, the indignity!," "Sir Topham Hatt was very cross!," and "The troublesome trucks pushed Thomas into the buffer!"

We are also still big Disney/Pixar Cars fans too. But not so much sports. Seeing as Graeme yesterday saw his soccer ball outside and said, "Here's my basketball!" Haha.

Graeme is a pretty picky eater. I am hoping he outgrows it. Some days he surprises me like when he devoured broccoli last week. But of course when I made broccoli on Monday he refused to even put it on his fork. Good grief. He finally has all four two-year molars in and he loves brushing his teeth with his "brush teeth."

I am loving this stage we are in right now. Yes, I'm definitely tired, and no, there's not much time for sitting and blogging. But I would highly recommend this "two children" thing. It's double the work to get out the door, double the tears and crying, double the dishes, double the laundry, double the worrying about something and checking the internet to scare myself further, double the tired-feeling. But overshadowing all of those things is double the laughs, double the hugs and kisses, double the snuggles and books, double the cuteness, double the smiles, double our hearts loving them each so much, double the fun, double the thankfulness that we have these two little humans entrusted to us.

Maisy is four months! (And some stuff about Graeme too)

Now that Maisy is almost five months old, I figured it would be a good time to get some sort of post up about her turning four months. Time flies and I haven't made time to sit down and write until now. Oh well.

Happy (belated) four months to Maisy on the blog!

She had her four month well-visit and she weighed 13 pounds, 2 ounces and was 25 inches long. She has gained exactly 5 pounds and grown exactly 4 inches since birth. Her height is up there in the 76% but she's pretty lightweight and only in the 26% for weight. Graeme was already over 17 pounds at four months, so Maisy feels so small to us! Haha. We are so thankful that she is healthy and growing right on track.


Maisy had a busy third month of life in April.

1. She slept through the night. (Hallelujah!) She doesn't sleep all night every night, but she has done it several times and I think by the time she turns five months she will be pretty consistent with it. Of course by "sleep through the night," I mean we dream feed her, so she is sleeping for 12ish hours but still eating once before we go to bed late at night. Aaron is a true gem and usually does this feeding as I can barely stay awake past 9pm. On the nights she has slept all night, she does wake up for comfort maybe one other time, but will go back to sleep with a pat on her back or her pacifier and doesn't need to eat. I never know what nights she will sleep all night and what nights she won't, but when she does, it's glorious.
   
2. She rolls from back to tummy, although I still haven't seen her do this. She has done it twice during the daytime (both times I was occupied with Graeme), and she has done it a few times at night in her crib. At night it causes her to wake up crying because she apparently does not like to sleep on her tummy. This is funny to me because Graeme slept on his tummy as soon as he could and has never stopped.
   
3. She laughs! It's just the best thing ever to hear a baby laugh. Maisy is super ticklish and her giggles usually come out because we are tickling her. But she will also laugh at something we say or a sound we make every once in awhile. She thinks Graeme is the most hilarious of course, seeing as he is the only one who has no interest in making her laugh. Ha!
4. She is getting quite efficient at reaching and grasping toys and chewing on them. And also throwing them when she loses interest. A lot of her toys are passed down from Graeme, who actually got almost all of his toys from Bensen and Keyen. But we have bought her a few pink, girly toys of course.
   
5. She has developed a little bit of separation anxiety already. Depending on her mood, she may or may not want to be out of my arms. She is pretty obsessed with her Mommy. I do not mind this.
6. She is super observant and does not like to be left out of what's going on around her. You can already see the desire in her to move and be in on the action. Maybe she will crawl early.

She will be five months old in just a couple of weeks, crazily enough! She is so pretty and her eyes make me swoon. We are so in love with this little princess.

And because I hate to leave him out entirely, here's a quick update on Graeme Grayson:

1. He's really and truly potty trained! Woo hoo! His accidents are becoming few and far between. He still wears a Pull-Up for bedtimes, and sometimes he will wear one out and about depending on where we are going and how long it takes to get there. I am so, so, so glad we decided to potty train him this early. It's wonderful.
2. He moved up to the two-year-old class at church. This transition probably would have been hard and we would have had a few weeks of tears as we dropped him off in a new environment, but lucky for him, his grandparents and aunt and uncle are the teachers in his new class. So, of course, he's in heaven. In his previous class, it was mostly just free-for-all playtime, and now he is in a class where there are no toys. They have structured activities and crafts and a large group time. Since I have the inside scoop from my mom, I know he only had one little moment of panic his very first day. Now, he loves it and he is learning so much. Tonight, randomly, he said "God made the birds!" I concurred that was right and said, "Yeah! God made everything!" And he followed up with "God made my trains!" Oh, how I have been praying for these moments since he was born. We are witnesses to his little mind first learning about the inexplainable power and love of God. 
3. He loves the library and we have been checking out about 20 books every time we go. If it's a book about trucks, it's pretty much a guarantee he will love it. We have been to story time a few times. He likes the songs the most. And the bubbles at the end.
4. He knows his full name, who's in his family, and how old he is. It took a few days for him to remember that he was two. At first, when I would ask him his age, he would say, "Strong!"
5. We are biased, but he's so stinking smart. I wish I could record him all he time because I can't even keep track of everything he says anymore. But every day, at least once, I think to myself, "How in the world does he know that?" Like in the bathroom the other day, he pointed to the bathroom fan on the ceiling and said, "Is that a smoke alarm?" I was surprised at how well he formed a question, and that he remembered about a smoke alarm from the one book we have checked out of the library that mentions it. He blows my mind.
6. He's sweet, and I hope he always is. Today, he said, "Thank you for walking with me, Mommy!" and also, "I love Cheerios!" out of the blue, and "That's a good idea, Mommy!" at my suggestion of where to put something. 

And, thank goodness, he will finally eat ice cream!

Me and my two kiddos.

two kids

So, we have two kids now. 

I am trying hard to document Maisy as well as I documented Graeme. Haha. It's definitely busy around here these days! Priorities are a must, and sadly, blogging is not a very high one right now. I am enjoying experiencing Maisy as much as I can which lends to less time to write about it. It's the better choice though, for sure! 

Maisy is already almost two months old and the days keep flying by. We've fallen into a nice routine for the most part and our days move along quickly as it seems it's always time for someone to eat, sleep, or get their diaper changed. I am definitely a schedule person, and thankfully, Maisy seems to be too. Graeme is already routine oriented (almost too much so sometimes!), so we all will get along just fine.

Tonight was the first night I had to do the bedtime routine all by myself. I was half dreading it/half excited for a new challenge. Well, everyone made it to bed on time and without too much trouble. It required quite a bit of prep work and a rock-n-play in the bathroom, but we made it work.

I really am loving having these two young little ones. For every hard moment, there are so many more incredibly fun and sweet moments. Yes, we are tired, but it's a very good tired. 

I feel like I should definitely tell you more about our Maisy Kate though! There's a lot to catch up since you've really only heard up to her being born. So...we will maybe try a list-type fashion?

• The day Maisy was born (a Monday) was of course wonderful and amazing. But it did turn a bit scary for awhile. About 12 hours after her arrival our nurse noticed her looking a little yellow. I knew not a whole lot about jaundice because Graeme never had it at all. A quick scan of her forehead gave her a bilirubin reading of 14. We were told that was extremely high for a baby her age, and they needed to do blood work right away. The electronic scanner always reads it higher than it actually is, and the blood work came back a little lower with a score of 11.4. This was still way too high for such a young infant and they immediately wheeled in a light bed and an overhead light. In an overwhelming whirlwind she was taken from our arms with instructions to not get her out of the lights under any circumstances. She even had to eat and have her diaper changed on the bed! It was pretty scary until we were finally able to talk to a neonatal doctor and she explained more clearly the situation. We learned that my blood type (O+) and Maisy's blood type (A+) did not agree well with each other (apparently this is common in moms with O+ blood...who knew?!). The antibodies Maisy received from me were attacking her red blood cells and causing her to be unable to flush out the bilirubin fast enough. The doctor told us that if the numbers didn't steady soon she would need to be taken to the NICU and worst case scenario would be a blood transfusion. Well, thank God that never had to happen. (But thanks for the scare, guys.) Maisy was under the lights for about 36 hours total, although we were able to take her off for 30 minutes here and there on Tuesday. Finally, on Wednesday evening, her blood work came back at a low enough number that we could be discharged. They continued to check it at the pediatrician's office for the next couple of days, and by that Friday, it was stable enough that she didn't have to endure any more heel pricks! Yay!
• Maybe something a little happier now, yes? Maisy was born with a head full of dark hair. This was a bit unexpected as her brother has always had blonde hair as well as both of her cousins on the Bauer side. Aaron and his older brother were both blondies until they were older kids. We figured Maisy would follow suit, but so far she has beautiful brunette hair that takes more after my always-has-been-dark hair. There is a chance it could turn blonde still so we'll see! My mom had bought her a custom-made baby doll with blonde hair before she was born. It has since been replaced with a brown-haired doll. Ha.
• We have learned quickly that Maisy is LOUD. Now, she is almost always completely happy and content. But when she wants or needs something, she literally goes from being quiet to screaming bloody murder in an instant. There's no warm up. We tell her she's quite dramatic. It's pretty comical actually. I guess she's a typical girl. Already bringing the sass.
• Much to my delight and sanity, Maisy instantly fell into a 3 hour routine with barely any straying from it since. After the first couple of weeks where we had to wake her up to feed her during the night every 3 hours, we got the ok to let her go 4 hour stretches at night. Then at around 5 weeks we were able to let her sleep as long as she would. She's been a pretty fabulous sleeper at night, thankfully. The longest she's gone is 8 hours, but typically she goes 5-6. Some nights we can time it with a late feeding before we go to bed (well, let's face it, I crash while Aaron does this feeding), and then she will sleep till about 5:30am which is basically our wake-up time anyway.
• This past weekend she started giving us some real smiles. Melt my heart to the floor. She's kind of stingy with them still, but oh my goodness they are the sweetest. Every new stage I am reminded of just how fun each new stage is. Babies grow and learn so much the first year. And we are only in the first two months still!

Well, there's a few more things about sweet Maisy. We do love her so!

And Graeme Grayson?

I am due for a post on him too. Can you believe he's almost two?! Because I cannot. For now, I'll say that his sister grows on him a little more each day and if you ask us he's a total genius and HI-LAR-I-OUS.

To close this post, a recent conversation with Graeme:

(Maisy is napping. Aaron and I are getting ready in our bathroom. Graeme is playing in the play room.)

Graeme enters bathroom.

"Somefing in my mouf, Mama!" as he sticks his tongue out with a disturbed look.

I look and see nothing. "I'm sorry, buddy, what's in your mouth?"

"Somefing in my nose!"

"In your nose too?"

"Boogie in my nose!"

Laughing, "Oh, no! Do you need a tissue?"

"Uh huh! "What's in my mouf?" he asks with a curious expression.

And we will never know.

my time change cheat plan

Normally, my "blog days" are Wednesdays. Aaron and I meet my parents at Starbucks, and they take Graeme with them. And we have a coffee date before work.

However, today is Thursday as we sit in the Starbucks. I had my last day of "work" last Wednesday. It never really felt like work to me because I loved doing it. And I still plan on doing a lot of the things I did at Journey as a volunteer.

My mom might lose it if I kept Graeme (and eventually Maisy) with me every day now that I'm not working, so the plan is for him to spend Thursdays with Mimi and Grandy. This will allow me to have a day to get housework, laundry, shopping, and other things done that are easier to do when I don't have a toddler tagalong. It works out for all.

And Aaron and I still get our weekly morning coffee date, which we love and look forward to. Right now, I am writing this and he is reading. So we aren't talking much or anything. But just sitting here with each other is a really perfect date sometimes.



Anyway.



Our due date is less than two months away now! We are getting excited about our baby shower in a couple of weeks. Maisy's room is coming together and my goal is to have pretty much everything in order for her arrival by the time Thanksgiving gets here. I want to be able to focus on enjoying Thanksgiving and Christmas with Graeme, as it will be the last time when he is our only little one!




Aaron and I were able to sneak away last weekend for a last getaway before we have two children. It happened to fall on the weekend that I had scheduled Graeme's flu shot AND the time change. He stayed with my parents, and I apologized for leaving them with two "inconveniences." Ha. There's not much I could do about the flu shot. He needs it and it takes two seconds and then he's fine anyway. But, I did try to help out with the time change.

I'm sure you've heard that when you have kids, young ones especially, the "extra hour" we get in the fall is a big joke. Example being:  Graeme goes to bed at 7:00pm and sleeps until 6:00-6:30am. So, when the clock shifts back an hour in the middle of the night, his little internal clock does not. And he therefore wakes up at 5:00am. If you're thinking, Just put him to bed an hour later that night and then he'll sleep an hour later in the morning, you would be mistaken. At least for my child. Typically, the later he goes to bed, the earlier he wakes up.

I realized this dilemma last year and decided to try to beat the system. And it worked. So I did the same thing this year. And it worked again.

It requires a bit of planning and adjusting the week before, but I think it's worth it. It makes the hour time change much easier on Graeme and doesn't have us (or my parents this year!) waking up an hour earlier on Sunday. If you are curious for next year, here's what I do:

This works for us because Graeme is on a (fairly) consistent schedule. I'm sure you could make it work for your child even if they weren't necessarily on a schedule too!

The Saturday a week before the time change is when I started. I shifted everything 15 minutes ahead, starting with breakfast. That meant 15 minutes later for all meals. 15 minutes later for nap time. And 15 minutes later for bedtime. I did this exact same schedule for Saturday AND Sunday.

On Monday, I shifted everything 15 more minutes. This meant it was 30 minutes later than what his normal schedule was. We did this for two days as well, Monday and Tuesday. By Wednesday morning, his "wake up for the day" time was starting to catch on, and he slept in until 7:00am.

On Wednesday, we did another 15 minutes shift, putting us 45 minutes later than a normal day. This is when the day started to seem really long! He was adjusting fine, but a 7:45 bedtime just seemed really late to us! Another two days of this (Wednesday and Thursday).

By Friday morning, we had reached the beginning of "Phase 4," the final 15 minutes that put us an entire hour later. This meant he slept in until 7:30am. He ate lunch at noon. He went down for a nap at 1:00pm. He ate dinner at 6:00pm. And bedtime wasn't until 8:00pm. My parents took the torch and finished off the time change plan on Saturday using this same schedule.

Therefore, by Saturday night, he was an entire hour ahead of time. If that even makes sense. Ha. And when time fell back an hour that night, he fell right back to normal. I texted my mom on Sunday morning, "DID IT WORK?!" And I was happy to receive, "He slept until 6:30!" back from her. Back to normal. And no trouble at all from then on.



So, if I seem entirely crazy to some of you, you may be right. I try not to be "schedule nazi" too much, but yeah...I am pretty reliant on our nice routine we have going for us most days! There's a time to flexible, and a time to want sleep, right? Right?!

about our visit from the tooth fairy's not-so-nice relative, teething

I remember reading somewhere that just when you really feel settled into a pretty perfect routine with your baby...

teething comes along.

Yes, yes it does.

Sophie might not have legs left after this teething business...

Graeme now has two bottom front teeth poking through. They're super cute. He is still pure joy to be around, but teething, coupled with his vaccines last week and some diaper problems, if I may be discreet, has really thrown our little man off. Plus, he has had an awful runny nose and a bad cough/congestion. I am not sure if the latter is due to actually being sick, or if it's just part of teething for him.

Anyway, he has been very clingy, especially to me. (I, of course, don't mind this much.) He's also been a little more fussy during the day. The hardest part has been the nights. We had just settled into continuous nights of almost 12 hour sleep from him, and then all of a sudden:  mayhem.

A couple weeks ago, he started waking up between 5:00-5:30am and either taking a really long time to fall back asleep or not falling back asleep. A couple mornings he seemed really hungry when he woke that early so I fed him and then he would go back to sleep. I was unsure if he was just going through a growth spurt or what. We tried adding the dreamfeed again, but he still woke up before 6:00am. We pushed his bedtime back a little, but that also failed to do anything.

Finally, we noticed the tooth, and that seemed to explain his disrupted nights. The next week, he acquired the runny nose, and then he went in for his vaccines. He's never really had trouble with having his shots in the past, but this time they did a number on him. We had to give him Tylenol for the second time ever. Most nights last week found him having a hard time getting to sleep and then waking up throughout the night. He usually just needed to be picked up and held for a few minutes and would fall back asleep. I tried those teething tablets, and I guess they would help him. It's hard to say. Our pediatrician said she was "indifferent" about them...I think I would agree.

I felt so bad for him, and I was getting worn out! Over this past weekend, he slept a little better, but still needed some hugs during the night and a feeding one early morning. On Monday, his second tooth was on its way through, and I was talking to one of my neighbors. She mentioned an amber teething necklace might help him.

I knew some of my mom friends used them, so yesterday I asked a couple of them their thoughts on them. (I'm a bit of a skeptic sometimes.)

However, I trust all of the people that I talked to that like them, and the necklaces aren't too expensive. I figured it didn't hurt to try. I finished work early yesterday, and since my mom had Graeme, I drove to Cary to pick one up at a baby boutique. 

Now, it has only been less than 24 hours since he's worn it. Last night, I didn't want to leave it around his neck, so I took the advice of my friend and wrapped it around his ankle twice before I put his pajamas on.

I'm not saying I'm a 100% believer yet, but I will say this:  It was the first night in over two weeks that Graeme went to bed at his normal time (6:45pm) and slept without even a peep until 6:30am. That's the 12 hours that we've all been missing!

So, like I said, it hasn't been long enough for me to say, "Yes! Go buy these beads! They will solve all of your problems!"

I will definitely keep you posted though. And I will pray that last night wasn't a fluke!

Another plus of the beads:  they're super adorable.

to wanna-be moms and gonna-be moms (the first timers)

I definitely recommend this.

I've talked to some future moms lately. Some are already pregnant. Some plan to be one day. The questions I usually get asked first are "What's your favorite thing about being a mom?" or "What's the hardest thing about being a mom?"

Those type of questions are always hard for me to answer. I have a hard time choosing a favorite movie, let alone choosing my favorite part of motherhood. It changes each day.

So does the hardest thing. I don't think being a mom is hard in general, but of course, there are hard moments each day. And they change day to day.

But, I do have some opinions about motherhood (emphasis on opinions...I definitely don't claim to know much!). Here are my thoughts on some things that God has been teaching me since I became pregnant and now as I try to mother my five month old baby boy... 

1.  "Expectation is the root of all heartache."

I found this quote and it is very questionable if anyone famous actually ever said it. 
It is not a William Shakespeare quote, say his adoring fans. I don't know who said it, but I think there is some truth to it. Aaron and I talk about expectations a lot. They are almost always the root cause of our frustrations and disappointments. (example being: I expect him to do such and such a thing even though I may not say it out loud, and when he doesn't do that thing, I'm frustrated with him.)

I do think there is such a thing as a good expectation and I definitely don't think you should go around expecting the worst from everything and everyone just so you're not ever disappointed.

All of that being said, let's get around to what it has to do with having a baby, specifically, labor and delivery:  have reasonable expectations. 

On the one hand, I think you should expect the best. Having a negative expectation of labor won't make it easier. You'll be so worried about it that you will probably be very tense and on edge. It will be easier if you have a healthy expectation that yes, it's not going to be a day at the spa, but it's going to go by fairly quickly, and you'll probably be like "Aw that wasn't too bad let's have another one someday."

Now, on the other hand, I don't think it's wise to go into labor with a very cut and dry expectation of how it will go for you. There are all of these templates out for making your "birth plan." I don't think there's anything wrong with having a plan...in fact, I'm typically all about a plan, and I filled out one of those birth plans for fun. But, with having a baby, I think the best plan is:  Do whatever you need to do to have a healthy baby delivered safely.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with planning on a natural labor. But if that's your expectation and that's your only plan, what happens if it doesn't work out? You shouldn't feel like a failure because you need to have surgery or use some medication. Your baby might need to arrive safely that way.

There's also nothing wrong with a plan to have an epidural. But, if you're like, "Give me an epidural right away! I can't do it without one!" Well, that expectation might not work out the way you want.

So, I'm not saying you shouldn't plan on natural labor or plan on an epidural or whatever else. I'm just saying don't expect it to go that way with no questions asked. It might, and that would be great. But if it doesn't, you might be in for some unnecessary heartache.

Expect the best, have an idea of how you want things to go, but be willing to change your plan if you need to. It will be less stressful for everyone involved.

2.  Have confidence in the decisions you make.

God created you and will help you be the mom your baby needs. You are made just for your baby! There are so many options for how to do things when it comes to having and raising a baby...

Birth at home with a midwife? Birth in a hospital with an OBGYN?
Disposable diapers? Cloth diapers?
Breastfeeding? Formula?
Stay at home? Go back to work?
Co-sleeping? Sleep training?
Demand feeding? Scheduled feeding?


The list goes on.

I am pretty sure that most parents love their babies so much that they would do anything for them. With that kind of love, you're going to do what's best for your baby because you can't help but do what's best for them. And you and your spouse get to decide what's best. Not people's opinions on Facebook. Not a lactation consultant. Not a book. You and your spouse. That's it.

What you decide is best for your baby might seem like the opposite of what is best to someone else. But that's their opinion. And they don't know your baby and your family like you do.

So, do some research. Always keep your baby's health and safety in mind. But when it comes down to it, choose what works for you and don't worry about what others think about it.

People often like to pick a side of the things I listed above and then condemn the other side. Yes, there are some things that we all have to agree on like eating healthy during pregnancy and getting exercise. When the baby comes, we would agree that they need to eat, sleep, and have their basic needs met. 

However, how you do those things is really up to you. There isn't a right answer. If you want to breastfeed, that's awesome. If you can't or choose not to, that's awesome too. Your baby will be loved and healthy either way. And you are an amazing mom either way. This goes for all of the things listed above.

You will figure out what works for your family. Make a decision with your spouse and then be confident in the decision you make.

Remember, God had you in mind for your baby. Seek Him, talk with your spouse, trust your mommy instincts, and then don't worry about anything or anyone else.

3.  Have a schedule/routine, but be flexible.

I think schedules and routines are really good for babies and for their families. They help everyone know what to expect, including the baby. You don't have to rush right into a strict schedule the minute you get home from the hospital. But, eventually, when you are all feeling ready, some kind of daily schedule is very helpful.  Even if it shifts a little each day, it will give you an idea of how to plan things out that you need to get done. And it will help your baby regulate their eating and sleeping.

Now, some days, the schedule goes straight down the drain for various reasons. Moreover, you should never be so strict with your schedule that you aren't giving your baby what they need. If your baby is truly hungry or sleepy "when it's not time" don't deprive them of sleep or food!

And it's okay to not follow your schedule somedays (I'm telling myself this too!) Sometimes, it's okay to run out during nap time. If there's a night every once in awhile that you need to be out past bedtime, everyone will survive. I promise. 




4. Make necessary changes to your lifestyle, but don't let life completely revolve around your baby.

You may have to say no to some things that you could do easily before a baby came along. Those late night movies on a whim are a thing of the past. 

But life doesn't stop forever. It doesn't change totally and completely. After the first couple of weeks (when life really does seem to stop), introduce things from your "old life" back in gradually. Cleaning, errands, exercise, dates. Everything that you used to do is still possible, it just requires extra planning, time, and help. 

Babies require a lot of your emotions, your money, your patience, your time, your laundry room. Yes, it's easy to get overwhelmed.

I've learned that flexibility and prioritizing are so very important, as well as accepting help.  Whether it be from your husband, your parents, your in-laws, or friends. Find some trusted people that love your baby and let them help you. You aren't in this alone.

Most importantly, whatever else you do, find time to ask the One who made you and your baby for his help each day. He will give you strength and wisdom to get through every difficult moment.

Goodness. That's a lot. I don't know if it is helpful to anyone, but if it is, I'm glad. I really just want you girls that are about to be a mom or want to be a mom to know that you are wise and capable and you will love your baby more than you can imagine. And because you love them so much, you will know what's best for them. And as you figure out what works for you and for your baby, you may see something on social media or Facebook that calls the way you're choosing wrong or neglectful or crazy or unhealthy. But most likely, it's not. What's considered "good" or "bad" is always changing. (Your parents probably had totally different "rules" when they had you and their parents before them and so on!) If you are using your common sense and your "mommy sense" and making decisions that work for your family, you are doing an awesome thing. 

You will be an amazing mother. You will make some mistakes, but you will learn from them. You will have a hard day, but you will get a smile from that little face that will make it all better. You will find some things that seemed scary to be not scary at all. You will find things that looked easy to be very difficult.

You can do it though. No doubt. You will be the mom God created just for your baby. And you are enough. Because the Jesus in you is more than enough.