During my first pregnancy I read Harvey Karp's Happiest Baby on the Block and learned that really babies need to be in utero for a whole extra trimester - but that was resulting in a lot of maternal and infant death so we've evolved. That doesn't mean that the next 12 weeks, or the 4th trimester aren't super important for both mom and baby.
This is a weird time and biology makes you forget about it because it is really hard. Starting from labor and delivery, we're predisposed to 'forget' about how hard times really were. In talking to some friends about the fourth trimester lately, we realized that you really do forget the hard parts. I mean, if we remembered it exactly how it was and how it felt, would we do it again?? In the last few weeks, I've had to remind myself of the temporary-ness of the hard parts more than once.
ROSES: Things That Are Going Well
No one is in physical pain anymore over here. I'm all healed and actually feel as though I'm physically recovered faster and stronger than I was last time...which was surprising. Going back to exercise, I feel as though I'm not starting from scratch as much as I was last time - no rhyme or reason to why.
I was worried about trying to breastfeed Mackenzie because a lot of people warned me about the older child being jealous or just making it super hard for you to feed the baby other than using a bottle. I was prepared for this to happen and appreciated all the friends who shared that advice - but honestly the BF journey has been much smoother than before. My supply seemed to regulate much faster and I rarely feel engorged. I've noticed that I'll catch less in the Haaka or Elvie Curve as it gets closer to bed time. Even if she goes 5-7 hours of sleep overnight, I don't have to get up and pump. HALLLEUJAH for that because that was the literal worst part for me. Cool, my baby is sleeping but I still have to get up.
Overall, the anxiety I felt being a first time mom is much less. My days at home just Mackenzie and I are stress free. Whereas with Charlotte, as soon as she'd cry my blood pressure would rise. I would avoid doing anything that would make her cry because of the fear of not being able to calm her down. With Mackenzie, if she cries when I'm eating lunch or wakes up when I have 5 minutes left in my workout, or starts stirring as soon as I was about to jump in the shower - I still do what I wanted to do and she can wait. I would have NEVER done that with Charlotte. I was so consumed with taking care of her, that I'd put myself on the back burner. I remember being stressed about if I'd be able to take a shower that day or if I was going to have to get up at 6am in order to do it before everyone else woke up. All of that kind of anxiety is gone. I think I'm doing a much better job of taking care of myself and doing things I want to do...like shower and eat lunch.
With Charlotte, my nighttime anxiety was terrible. I turned into a literal ball of anxious and not pleasant to be around anxiety as MY normal bedtime got closer and closer. I was so anxious about not being able to sleep because of the baby not sleeping. The fear of the overnight unknown was almost crippling. Phil was so great at helping and knew that this was hard for me and stepped up a lot. I was worried about that creeping in this time. But it's been completely different. There have been times when I'm frustrated that Mackenzie isn't sleeping well overnight, but the anxiety is gone. Sleep is still a challenge and I'm glad the anxiety is gone, but, the sleep problems are only temporary.
Charlotte is so sweet with Mackenzie. She tries to help all the time and is actually very helpful in entertaining Mackenzie. We get way more minutes out of the swing when Charlotte's home to dance and play in front of Mack in the swing. Another warning we got from so many friends who have young kids super close in age, the older one will be jealous. We got lots of advice about making sure to carve out time for the older child, to make sure you're not blaming the baby for reasons why you can't help them or play with them at that moment. Those tips have been really helpful and I think instrumental in the way the girls are getting along. Charlotte is a very mild mannered 2 year old. If she does get upset, it doesn't last long. But that's how she's always been. THANKFUL for that. Caring for a newborn and a 2 year old is a lot, so I'm thankful that Charlotte makes it as easy as possible.
There's my positives. We've got some good things going!
THORNS: Things That Are a Pain In My Side
Back to the topic of sleep...whoever coined the phrase "sleeps like a baby" has never tried to make a baby sleep or keep them asleep. We swear by Taking Cara Babies and Cara does a great job making it simple to understand. But what she can't do is make your baby follow the rules or enact her strategies. That's all on you. In these first 12 weeks, we've been on such a rollercoaster with sleep. Thinking, oh this is better than it was before! (Cue the whole, you forget about how bad it was) and then the opposite, WTF she should be better at sleeping at this age!
Charlotte had way more preemie tendencies than Mack does, so with Mack technically being earlier than Charlotte (by 18 hours) I had been airing on the lower side of wake windows and all that jazz because that's how I remembered Charlotte being. So we followed the adjusted age wake window time frame for Mack, and we'd be spending an entire wake window trying to put her down for a nap because she just wasn't ready yet. In the last week or so, I've realized this and have extended her wake windows - and she's going down for naps much better!! However, she's only wanting to nap in her crib for 45 minutes at a time (one sleep cycle) OR contact nap. Which I do love a good contact nap but sometimes there's stuff mom wants to do during the day. All my friends with similar in age kids are having the same problem, so at least I'm in good company there.
Daytime and nighttime sleep are related....so if there's problems, those are likely related too. The ideal bedtime for newborns is 8-10pm. As a new parent you spend all day doing backwards math. If I want them to be ready at this time, I need to do this at this time...etc. So trying to get her to be ready for a bedtime of somewhere between 8-10pm you need a break before the last nap and night sleep....Well Mackenzie was refusing to nap post 5pm. Which of course is the most complicated part of our day because Charlotte is home then. Charlotte needs to play and eat dinner and have a bath and do her bedtime routine, all while Mackenzie is choosing not to nap. We gave her the nickname Katy Perry because she's wide awake. This was where speckles of nighttime anxiety would come back to life. BUT in the last week, we've been doing better. I don't know how parents do it singularly all the time...because the only way we have been able to do this whole two kid thing is by playing man to man. This has been the hardest part of two kids so far - what to do when you are alone. The advice from above about tending to the older child first still stands true. Mackenzie isn't going to remember crying for 5 minutes while I put Charlotte to sleep, but Charlotte will remember constantly being second fiddle to a crying baby. HOWEVER that doesn't mean I'm not internally (or externally) a pile of stress during this alone time.
So overall, 12 weeks in and we're surviving. Everything has gotten better by the day. We still need some work on how to solo parent two kids, especially at bedtime - and Mack needs to figure out the whole sleeping thing...but we're improving and not regressing (yet). It's all temporary, right? Please don't let this be the mostly part....
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