Today is my good friend Jessica’s birthday. It’s hard to describe how lucky we’ve been to share this experience – this experience of being parents – with such an amazing person. Jessica is strong and patient and hilarious and a great writer and a wonderful mom and friend. I didn’t expect when I walked into our prenatal class nearly 2 years ago now that I would walk out with such strong and amazing friends.
Jessica and I often joke about how we were separated at birth. We look alike, we think alike (you know, except that she’s Team Jacob and I’m Team Edward) and we adhere to similar parenting philosophies. Our kids have similar names – Aiden and Zayden – and we like the same products.
During the year of Jessica’s maternity leave, we saw each other several times a week. She kept me sane when I was sleep deprived and helped calm the “what is wrong with my baby?!” questions that every parent has when wondering about things like personality and whatnot. Jessica is more than missed now that she is back at work. I love her like a sister and wish her a very wonderful birthday.
I returned to full-time work in January (I am a high school Social Studies teacher), a bittersweet milestone to begin my second year as a mother. The transition was easier than I had thought it would be. I love my job and was excited to be working with my students again. The mental challenge of preparing and teaching lessons was wonderfully stimulating after living by a baby’s routine for a year (wake up, eat, diaper change, chew on some toys, etc.). I think I also had an easier time transitioning back to the world of work because I had never allowed myself to imagine an alternative. I knew our family financial situation wouldn’t allow me to stay home full-time and the nature of my job makes a part-time schedule challenging. I also knew, after my first few months at home, that I wasn’t cut out to be a full-time homemaker.
But being back at work meant being away from Zayden for most of the day. That part of the transition was harder. Luckily, my job is a pretty high energy one with plenty of distractions that keep me from missing him constantly. I put a picture of him on my lectern in my classroom; it made me smile in the midst of a stressful class, but could just as easily make me miss him all the more.
We are very lucky that Justin’s mother is retired and willing to take care of Zayden full-time while I am at work. Flexible childcare is amazing, especially considering the realities of my job. I rarely leave work at the same time everyday. From tutoring students to play rehearsals to photocopying, I can leave the school anywhere between 4 and 5pm, and I don’t have to worry about getting charged extra for a late pick up. I also know many teachers who pay for a childcare space they don’t use in the summer or over spring break just so they don’t lose their child’s place at the daycare. It is also comforting to know that my son is being taken care of everyday by someone he loves spending time with and who loves him in return. We never had to deal with the heart-wrenching first days of daycare with a little guy crying and clinging to us. Instead Zayden was excited to be at his grandparents house; some days, when I come to pick him up, he doesn’t want to leave. But most of the time I get an excited “Ma ma!”, a happy smile and a hug when I come through the door, which is one of the best moments of my day.
Overall, going back to work has been a good experience. The only downside is that I have a lot less downtime in the evenings because I now have to juggle getting a toddler fed and ready for bed with my usual evening chores and any work that I have brought home (marking, lesson prep, etc.). But it’s manageable. Besides, no one has ever said that being a working mom is easy.
Zayden is now officially one-year-old, which means I have also survived my first year in the trenches of motherhood. It is a journey that has changed me profoundly and that has brought more love into my life than I can even fathom. There are incredible highs and frustrating lows, but every moment has taught me important lessons about myself, my son and parenthood in general. Here are a few of the biggest lessons I learned. I figured these all out the hard way; hopefully you won’t have to.
- As long as it’s safe, do whatever works. Everyone—book authors, family members, perfect strangers—will have free (and often unwanted) advice to offer on how to raise your child. While these tips can be useful on occasion, more often than not they are an annoyance that can sometimes make you feel like you must be doing something wrong. As often as possible, try to ignore unsolicited advice and remind yourself that you know your child best and persevere with what works for you and your family. As for those well-intentioned advice givers, keep a few comeback at the ready to politely deter any further suggestions. My two favourites were: “Thanks for the tip, but we already tried that, and it didn’t work.” and “This is what our doctor advised us to do.”
- There is light at the end of the tunnel. The only trouble is, you’ve never been through the tunnel before so you don’t know when it’s coming. In the midst of your 900th mid-night feeding or 84th explosive diaper or 22nd day of teething hell, it is hard to believe that the torture will one day come to an end, but I promise you, it does. I think that’s why second babies are supposed to be “easier”; because you’ve been through it all before, you have more faith that you can survive it a second time.
- RELAX! Easier said than done, right? This was the hardest lesson for me to learn. In fact, I’m still learning it. It is really easy as a new mom to start to obsess about tiny details until you drive yourself crazy. Look back on some of our ActiveMama posts and you will see that Arieanna and I have stressed about everything from how often we needed to shampoo our little guys’ hair to how many ounces of milk they consumed in a day. Sometimes you need to relax about the big things too. I drove myself mad trying to “fix” Zayden’s sleep “problem” when he was only a few weeks old and perfectly normal. When I gave him the time to develop and figure things out on his own, both he and I got more sleep with less stress.
- Don’t allow yourself to become trapped in the house. This means finding activities to do with your baby in the community to help break up the day and to keep you both happy and stimulated. Social time with other moms and babies is a key ingredient to actually enjoying your maternity leave and to helping your child develop. But getting out of the house also means making time for date nights with your partner and making time for a few solo excursions as well.
- Laugh. For me, the fastest way to combat the stresses of parenting is to laugh about them. When Zayden farted poop on the wall mid-diaper change, we laughed when it might have been easier to get frustrated, angry or tearful. Laughing your way through it also helps you to find and to focus on the tiny and often overlooked joys in your day—the funny oatmeal beard at breakfast, the drooly hug, the sheer delight in throwing every toy in the toy box all over the room.
- Record it when it happens. Taking pictures is the easy part. We have lots of those, but if I tried to fill out Zayden’s baby book right now, I wouldn’t be able to remember half the stuff that happened this year. At least a few times a month, sit down with your baby book or journal and record some of the milestones and memorable moments from your baby’s first year.
- See milestones as a guideline not a a checklist. Don’t worry, your child will get there. Sometimes your baby will be the first to achieve a milestone in his group of baby friends and sometimes he will be the last. Zayden was one of the first to roll over in our group, but he is quickly becoming one of the only ones who can’t walk. But I know it will happen when he’s ready. A week or two can make a huge difference in a child’s development at this age, so your little one may catch up with his buddies before you know it. And doctors usually wait months, not weeks before worrying about missed milestones.
- Never be afraid to ask for help. We have some trusted family and friends on speed dial to help us cope on overwhelming days and to babysit when we need a baby-free night out. We also hired a housekeeper instead of continuing to fight and stress about the state of our home. And when sleep issues started to rear their ugly head again, we went to a talk with a professional sleep consultant that helped us get things back on track.
- Think ahead. Don’t commit to anything you wouldn’t want to do longterm in order to cope with a parenting challenge; it can be very hard to go in reverse once a habit is developed. Before Zayden was born, we talked about our childrearing goals and the pitfalls we wanted to avoid. We decided against bedsharing for numerous reasons because we didn’t want to wake up one morning with a 2-year-old lying between us. We also made it a priority to take turns putting Zayden to bed so that he never became dependent on one person to help him fall asleep. But the biggest goal we stayed committed to was our plan to leave him with a sitter as soon as possible because we didn’t want to reach his first birthday without going on at least one date. Now that he is used to being cared for by others, we can enjoy date nights without worry and feel much more confident about leaving him with his grandparents when I go back to work.
- Be flexible. Babies are unpredictable, so you need to learn to go with the flow. In case Plan A fails, make sure you have a Plan B and sometimes you may need to develop a spur of the moment Plan C. It’s all part of the fun of parenting. While it can be frustrating, an unexpected change of plans can turn into a cherished memory—like the day Zayden rejected the lunch I had prepared, which resulted in a walk to the Lonsdale Quay, the purchasing of some Mexican food and an impromptu picnic in Waterfront Park in the August sunshine.
What was the biggest lesson you learned in your first year as a parent?
When it comes to feeding Zayden, I have had a few obsessions in the past year.
My first obsession was breastfeeding. I was fortunate to have a baby with a good latch and a good milk supply—sometimes too good. Sometimes my letdowns would come so fast and furious that Zayden practically drowned every time he ate. I would experiment with different positions to try to minimize the milk flow and make things less overwhelming for him. Between feedings I would analyze how the latest position had worked and try to decide if I should use it again at the next feeding or try something new. On top of that I had the same internal dialogue that all moms new to nursing have: Am I nursing him too often? Not enough? How much milk is he actually getting? Do I have enough milk to pump some and save it for later?
By the time we introduced solid foods, I had learned to take the ups and downs of breastfeeding in stride. But when we introduced solids, I developed a new obsession: Zayden’s iron intake. I read labels and learned the iron content of many foods. Any day that he rejected meat I would worry that he was going to be anemic. But soon these worries past and I began to trust that as long as I offered him a variety of foods and he ate well most days of the week, we were probably covered in the iron department.
Now that I have completely weaned him, I am obsessed with his milk intake once again, but this time I am counting the ounces of whole milk he drinks each day. According to my sources, he is supposed to drink about 16oz. a day, but I’m lucky, most days, if he’ll drink 10. But I am trying to resist the urge to begin obsessing and fretting again. My new mantra is, “Whatever he won’t drink, he can eat” and we give him yogurt and cheese a lot for snacks to make up for what he lacks in milk.
Motivated by the sleep talk I attended with Helen Sands, Justin and I began sleep training Zayden on Wednesday morning. We had two goals: 1) get rid of the soother and 2) put an end to super early morning wake ups. It’s been a challenging journey so far, but we are seeing amazing results after only a short time, so it has been well worth it.
Our plan looked like this:
- Bedtime at 7pm and wake-up at 6am.
- We would go cold turkey with the soother, something we had done before with his swaddle. Given our previous experience, we were a little apprehensive about the amount of sleep we might end up missing for the first few days, but Helen Sands had said that it was pretty much the only way to get rid of the soother for good.
- Our initial plan was to let him cry for 15 minutes before going in to pat and ssh him, but we discovered on day 1 that if we entered the room and refused to pick him up and give him a soother, he was just going to get more upset. This meant we had the difficult task of staying out of the room and letting him cry for as long as it took him to fall asleep (more on just how difficult that was later).
- We maintained our usual bedtime routine with a couple changes: eat dinner, bath time, brush teeth, put on pajamas, D-drops (this time rubbed on the inside of his cheek with a finger instead of given with his soother), story time (now while holding his blankie so he attaches to a lovey to replace the soother), lights off, rock for a brief time in the rocking chair with his blankie, placed into the crib awake while repeating our “sleep mantra”.
- We added a short nap time routine to his day, which is just the last four steps of his bedtime routine.
Day 1 began with a 5am wake up, but we didn’t go to him. Instead we stayed in our room and listened to him cry for 7 minutes before he fell back to sleep. He then woke up shortly after we did at 6 am. We felt buoyed by this early success, but soon discovered that naps were going to be much more difficult. He cried for 30 minutes straight before falling asleep for his morning nap. I didn’t try going in to comfort him because he began to cry intermittently before the 15 minute mark. But after all that crying, he only slept for 40 minutes–a huge change from his usual 1-1.5 hour naps when he had his soother. He fell asleep in the car on the way home from Gymboree, so the afternoon nap began more smoothly than the morning nap. Then he woke up only about 20 minutes after being transfered to his crib. I knew he needed at least an hour’s sleep to make up for the short morning nap, so I thought I would let him cry until he fell back asleep. I sat through an excruciating 45 minutes of crying, and a good 20 minutes of it was a full on raging cry that I could hardly bare to listen to. To make matters worse, he would get even more hysterical and angry if I went into the room to ssh and pat him, so I had to give up on that and just endure it, all while feeling helpless to comfort him. It was probably the longest afternoon of my life exacerbated by the fact that when he finally fell asleep again, he only slept for another 15 minutes. But we persevered and were rewarded at bedtime; he went to sleep after only 10 minutes of crying and slept through until 6am.
Day 2 began with a good night’s sleep for everyone in the house, so we felt committed to continuing. The morning nap was a little better: 13 minutes of crying followed by about 15 minutes of sleep followed by another 18 minutes of crying and then about 40 minutes of sleep. The afternoon nap improved dramatically. He only cried for 5 minutes when he was put down and slept for about 25 minutes before a brief 3 minute awakening and another 30 minutes of sleep. That night he cried for 15 minutes before going to sleep, had two brief awakening of less than 2 minutes each and both before 9pm. Then he slept through until 6:15am.
By Day 3, I was starting to feel pretty good about our decision to sleep train. We were getting more sleep, and Z didn’t seem to be missing the soother as much as I thought he would. Naps were more fractured than they had been with the soother, and he was definitely having a harder time settling down to sleep without it, but I had already seen major improvements in the amount of crying. But on Friday I faced a morning nap dilemma: our cleaning woman was going to be there during morning nap time. I worried what she would think if I just left him crying in his room if he woke up halfway through his nap, and I also worried that he wouldn’t be able to settle himself if he could hear her working in the other room. When he went to sleep after only 5 minutes of crying, I was hopeful he might sleep for a full nap, but he woke up after 30 minutes. At that point, I made the judgement call to let him get up rather than let him cry while there was another person in the house. The decision meant a very early afternoon nap. Zayden fell asleep quickly this time (after 3 minutes) and slept for over an hour. Normally this would be a successful nap, and I would have gone to him feeling like a major sleep training success. The only trouble was he woke up well before 3pm–the minimum wake up time if he’s going to make it to bedtime. I decided to see if he would settle back down; it took 15 minutes, but my gamble paid off. He slept for almost another 40 minutes. But that evening was when our hard work really paid off: he didn’t cry when I put him in the crib! He went to sleep without complaint. He stirred briefly at 5am, but otherwise slept through until his wake-up time.
His first nap today also went smoothly. Only a few little whines before falling asleep. I just hope the success of the last 24 hours continues.
I resisted the “cry it out” methods of sleep training for so long, instead preferring to let him figure things out when he was developmentally ready. For the most part, that approached worked with Zayden, and he was already a pretty decent sleeper when we began this process; we just had a few kinks to work out that didn’t seem to be going away on their own. I am glad we decided to do this now, but don’t really wish we had done it much sooner. Sleep training is like a lot of things in life, you need to wait until you’re ready.
