first time mom

5 Things I Love That I Did With My First Baby
Babies

5 Things I Love That I Did With My First Baby

by Jill
written by Jill

The other day I heard a first-time mom talking about planning her baby’s first birthday party and all the favors she was hand-making, and I was taken right back to my first baby ‘s first birthday and the alien stuffies I sewed up myself to give the other babies coming to the party.

image of baby's first birthday with parents

I could feel the mom-of-4 in me laugh at mom-of-one me, and then I told her to STFU because  you know what? I love that I did that even though I’d probably never have the time or desire to do it again.

So, in that spirit, I thought I’d share 5 things I’m glad I did with my first baby – no shame- even though I wouldn’t go on to do that again for baby #4 (and sometimes #2 & #3). 

1. Cloth Diapers

I love that I cloth diapered him 100%. I was FULLY committed. He was in cloth diapers nearly his whole diapered life, including nights, potty training, and even when we traveled. I would never be able to commit that fully to cloth diapering the other 3, but damn we saved some crazy money on baby #1 by doing that! And we needed it. Our budget was suuuuuper tight when he was a baby.

2. Made Baby Food

I love that I made all of his baby food. It’s important to note here that back then I didn’t have a job. I had this blog, but it was not a business back then and I had a lot more free time. Making his baby food was fun for me. It’s not something I prioritized as my time became more scarce with the other 3, but I’m glad I got to do it when it was fun and I had time for it. 

3. Weekly Playgroups

I love that I took him to Gymboree classes and playgroups weekly. These activities were less about him and more about me, to be totally honest. They gave me a reason to get dressed and get out of the house regularly, and they introduced me to some incredible women I am still friends with to this day. Regular commitments like this became harder to stick to with each baby after him, but I had a solid base of local mom friends by then, and I knew all the words to the Gymboree bubble song. 

4. Incredible Birthday Parties

I love that I planned him some really incredible birthday parties. We’ve moved away from doing elaborate, themed parties every year, but it was a fun creative outlet for me. I didn’t plan them because I felt like I had to impress anyone. I did it because I enjoyed it. And I’m actually looking forward to doing more for my littles when we get off the road and settled into a community (sans hand-sewn favors). My oldest, though, is pretty much past this stage, and I’m glad I relished it while I could.

5. World Revolved Around My First Baby

I love that our world revolved around him for a couple years. That one-baby life was pretty special, and while I do lament that I wish I had ignored him more, I don’t regret the hours and days he was our only entertainment. I don’t regret the nights we kept him up a little late or the mornings we let him sleep in bed with us. We were much stricter about routines with him than with the other 3 kids. I think that mostly had to do with us needing to feel in control of this wild and new thing called parenthood. I’m most fond of the memories of when we let those routines fall away for a bit. 

BE EXTRA if you want, first-time parents! There is no shame in cherishing this new role and going all out IF YOU WANT TO. 

image of mother with first baby at hospital

Tell me what brought you joy when you had only one baby that you refuse to feel shame about. 

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My Tips For Preparing For Your 4th Trimester
Postpartum Anxiety & DepressionPregnancy

My Tips For Preparing For Your 4th Trimester

by Jill
written by Jill

There was a brilliant piece on Bust circulating earlier this year about why you should skip a baby shower and have a 6 week long Postpartum Party instead. It was mostly popular with my mom friends who had been there, birthed that, and knew how very real this advice was. The postpartum period- also referred to as the 4th trimester- can be REALLY hard, but moms are expected to “bounce back,” host visitors, and be so happy all the time because their baby is such a special gift and they are hashtag blessed.

Photo credit Kelly White Photography

Some things about having a baby got easier for me the more I did it, but the 4th trimester was never one of those. In fact, it only got harder. My last recovery period was so brutal that I wrote I wished someone would please take my ovaries out and EAT THEM so I would never experience that again.  You can read about that here.

I am really glad that by the 4th time around I realized I needed to stand my ground and put up some boundaries when it came to guests, and that I thought ahead to plan out what I’d need in the house to keep me comfortable and occupied. It didn’t shorten the time it took me to get through all of that, but it certainly helped me feel in more control.

Here are some things I recommend you do to prepare for your 4th trimester:

1. Make a postpartum mental health plan
I wrote about this for Today earlier this year, and I have an entire chapter of my book dedicated to it. Become familiar with the signs and symptoms of perinatal mood disorders, and share them with your partner and support people. Be sure they are watching out for them, too. Discuss with your medical provider before you have your baby about what you should do and who you should call if you begin to notice any symptoms.

By the time I had my 3rd and 4th babies, I had prescriptions already written for me that I could go fill because we knew to expect my postpartum anxiety to return.

2. Come up with a plan for visitors
If you have a lot of friends and family that live nearby, you’re probably going to have a lot of people who want to come over as soon as possible to hold your baby. I’m not saying to tell them no, but keep some things in mind:

  • You need to keep your newborn baby healthy. If it’s cold and flu season, you gotta be super strict about who’s coming around with the sniffles.
  • A happy visit can suddenly exhaust you, and you need to feel comfortable telling visitors you need to go rest.
  • Too much time passing baby around and keeping you separated can interfere with your baby sending your body cues to make milk if you’re trying to establish a good breastfeeding routine. At minimum, too much between feedings can make you engorged and uncomfortable.

If you’re going to have visitors over, I highly recommend having some kind of word or phrase you can mention to your partner that will signal to them that they need to come up with a reason to get everyone to leave. This shouldn’t have to be on you. If you discover that you just passed a clot that warrants calling your doctor about, or if you are just suddenly really overwhelmed, you shouldn’t have to tell that to everyone in the room if you don’t want to.

 

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Finally a sweet snugly #WallaceAustin pic with @kelly_skelly She’s been so busy cleaning and cooking and holy shit I owe her so big.

A post shared by Baby Rabies (@babyrabies) on

Some guests may even want to come from out of town and stay at your house. No matter what anyone says, no matter how helpful they promise they will be, here’s what I suggest is your test for if someone can stay overnight with you those first few weeks: Are you required to be fully dressed in front of them? Are you okay with them seeing your nipples hanging out? If you blow up at your partner and scream-cry at them because you’re so overwhelmed and exhausted, would that be awkward for them to witness? There are exactly two people in my life who pass this test- my mom and my sister. Those are the two people who get to come stay the night with us in the weeks after I have a baby.

3. Stock your nest
While you’re filling your home with bottles and diapers and anything else for life post baby, don’t forget to think of yourself! Be sure to stock up on the following:

4. Plan ways to entertain yourself
Fact: Your baby will be the most beautiful baby ever created. Also fact: You will eventually tire looking at them while they sleep/eat. Make a list of podcasts and shows you want to binge and audiobooks you want to listen to. Consider asking for gift cards to your nearest movie theater when people ask if they can get you anything. Once you get the hang of feeding your baby and figure out their nap schedule, you very well could sneak in lots of new releases while your newborn naps and nurses or bottle-feeds through them. (Of course, sit near an exit so you can step out if they start crying.)


5. Stock up on transition clothes
Promise me you won’t let yourself believe you’ll be back into your pre-pregnancy clothes anytime soon. If that happens, great, but it’s not that norm and you should plan for it to take a while. Hopefully some of your maternity clothes will serve you well as you shrink back down. Here are a few more items to see if you can buy or borrow from friends:

  • Inexpensive sports bras make great sleep-bras and nursing bras while your breasts are still engorged and leveling out. I like the V-neck ones. They wouldn’t support me in any kind of athletic activity, but they are great for nursing.
  • Black yoga pants or leggings are so multipurpose. You could get some really cheap ones sizes bigger than you usually wear, or you could invest in some awesome postpartum leggings, like these from BLANQI, that will stretch and shrink down with you, taking you all the way through that postpartum period and beyond.
  • Kimonos and cardigans are awesome to have on hand. You can easily throw them on over a clean nursing tank or regular tank top, pair them with your leggings, and you’re ready to look presentable!

6. Set realistic expectations
I’m not saying that everyone’s postpartum recovery experience is awful and hard, and I’m not trying to be alarmist about this. I just think it’s better to go into it with realistic expectations than to experience these real and valid feelings of being overwhelmed and exhausted and like you have no idea what you’re doing, and then wondering if something’s wrong with you.

Photo Credit Kelly White Photography

Yes, your baby is amazing, and yes, you are so blessed and lucky. But also, it might not feel magical, and that’s okay.  It doesn’t have to be. Feeling like the 4th trimester is in some ways worse than any other part of pregnancy doesn’t make you a bad mom. Hopefully you can spend a little time before you have the baby, communicating with your partner and support team, laying out clear expectations, and then prepare to take good care of yourself in those weeks and months after baby is here.

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My Biggest Parenting Mistake Ever
Baby Rabies on YouTubeParenthoodPostpartum Anxiety & DepressionVideos

My Biggest Parenting Mistake Ever

by Jill
written by Jill

Today is the day I re-launch the Baby Rabies Blog YouTube channel! Note: it’s not the “Baby Rabies” channel because someone else has that one, so if you search for it, be sure to search for Baby Rabies BLOG. Also, when I say “re-launch” I think that’s a little generous. I never really had much of a steady  YouTube channel before. It was more like a library where I stored videos that I intended to mostly promote on Facebook, but now that I’ve been doing YouTube for over 9 months for Happy Loud Life, I feel like I can handle a for-real YT channel for Baby Rabies, too.

Related: Your Baby Registry Doesn’t Have To Be So Stressful

I hesitated to start off with this video in particular because it makes me feel really vulnerable. My mind immediately jumped to all the awful things people would say about me in the comments, and I wanted to push it off and kick things off with something more… fluffy. But, the best moments with Baby Rabies readers have always come from raw and vulnerable moments when I’ve said what I needed to say, knowing some people would judge me for it, and doing my best to focus on the positive connections of shared experiences with readers who need to hear their own experiences mirrored in what I’m saying, or who genuinely learn from what I’ve shared.

So let’s talk mistakes.  What’s your biggest parenting mistake so far?

I think it’s important we talk about these things! Not to feel ashamed. And not to get into that weird thing where people try to one-up each other with how, no really, they are the worst parent.  Do you know what I speak of? Such a bizarre spiral some conversations get into.

But to just be honest with each other, and to talk about what we’ve learned from our mistakes.

I’ll go first. My biggest parenting mistake ever… so far, like 10 years into this, is over-parenting and over-disciplining my first child.

Oh how I miss that baby face!

When I say I over-disciplined, I don’t want you to think I mean, like, I abused him. What I mean is I didn’t give him space to learn the natural consequences of his bad behavior, and I treated all levels of “bad” behavior with the same seriousness.

I am certain that I experienced postpartum anxiety and OCD to a degree after he was born (something I’ve had after the birth of each of my 4 babies, but was first diagnosed with after my 2nd baby was 9 months old). The way my anxiety played out a lot of times was my paranoia about my toddler/young child misbehaving in public and other people’s perception of that.

In the video, I give the example of taking him out to eat, and then spending the whole time at dinner shushing him, correcting him, and generally feeling very tense and on edge. I would even shush his happy noises. And here’s the thing, I’m certain there will be people who read this and maybe comment or at least say to others, “Well you SHOULD do that when you take a toddler to a restaurant!” And those were the voices I was very, very concerned about when my son was younger. Not just in the restaurant, but in the grocery store, at the playground, literally everywhere.

Should children be obnoxious and screaming in public? In theory, no. We, as parents, have an obligation to teach them how to behave in public, for sure. I’m not excusing that. But by giving so much weight to those voices and those perceived judgements IN THAT MOMENT, we lost sight of the long-term lesson. My son came to expect that I would always be at level 10, stressed out, and correcting his every move. Always.

So now, when I do need to convey the seriousness of a situation, I feel that I have to escalate things even higher. And that’s something he and I are both working on. I need him to HEAR me without me having to yell at him. And I also want him to experience a mom who is relaxed and happy when we are out. That was a rare thing for him when he was younger.

Instead of over-correcting him and over-disciplining him, I wish I would have let the small things slide more, and not let my fear of other’s perception of me as a mother cloud my rationality when he did act up.

On the over-parenting front, I wish I would have let him be bored more! Y’all know I say that all the time now to parents of babies. Let them be bored! I remember feeling actual guilt over reading a magazine while he was crawling around the living room.

I think some of this came from being a fresh stay-at-home-mom, and feeling like he was my JOB. So I filled his days with Gymboree (which, admittedly, was more for me anyway) and playdates, and story time, and walks, and the playground. I loved playing with my little boy so much. I don’t regret that, but I do wish I felt more comfortable back then letting him explore on his own. I wish I hadn’t felt pressured to manufacture magic for him.

Over-parenting- that’s my biggest mistake… so far. I would love to hear what you think yours is if you feel comfortable sharing, Feel free to either comment on this blog post, or head to the YouTube video and comment there.

And I would LOVE if you’d hit the “Subscribe” button while you’re there! I’m aiming for videos on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Let me know what you’d like to see me talk about or review of show off!

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Notes To The Babysitter- Video
BabiesParenthoodVideos

Notes To The Babysitter- Video

by Jill
written by Jill

NotesToTheBabysitterVideo

I made a magical discovery this week while excavating the wonder that is our home office.

Under piles of files, I found a notebook dating back to 2009, the year we hired our very first baby sitter for our first baby. Within it’s weathered and aged cover were 2 full pages of notes I left the babysitter that first night we parted from our baby, leaving him in the care of, essentially, a total stranger.

Oh, it was even more condescending and ludicrous than I remembered. I read it for you over on my Baby Rabies Blog YouTube channel.

Okay, spill it. Tell me what you left in your notes for the babysitter the first time you left your first baby with one. Bonus points for anyone who also left written instructions to turn out the light and LEAVE the room in order for the baby to fall asleep.

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ParenthoodThe Story

Letters From The Future I Wish I Sent

by Jill
written by Jill

Dear  first-time-mom-Jill,

Try not to be such a super mom. Try not to read every book and have all the milestones memorized the month before he should reach them. Try not to drop everything every time he makes a noise that sounds like he might be slightly discontented. Try not to judge that mom of 2 in Babies R Us who’s letting her infant cry while she chases her toddler down the aisle. Try not to keep everything so clean. Try not to learn all the words to so many lullabies and nursery rhymes. Try not to buy so many toys. Try not to work with him so much on reaching with purpose, rolling over, and crawling.

3 years from now, you will not have time to read. You won’t have any idea if your second baby is hitting any of her milestones. You, frankly, won’t really care because, well, she seems healthy and happy, so that has to count for something.

Your second baby will cry. She will cry often. There’s really not anything you can do about it because the toddler who just pooped in his laundry basket and possibly smeared a little on his wall needs to be dealt with more than the crying baby. Her cries in public will not bother you as much because you’re too busy FUH-REAKING out at the 3 year old running away from you in a parking lot.

She will spend her days playing in an exersaucer and jumperoo that have a healthy layer of dog hair and baby puke on them. Her immune system is going to be AWESOME. The jumperoo doesn’t even have batteries in it. She does not seem to care.

You will have forgotten all those lullabies by now, but you will know the words to every Katy Perry song because your 3 year old son is slightly obsessed with her. You lull her to sleep with a slow version of California Girls.

Daisy dukes… bikinis on top

She will have about 5 toys… that are age appropriate. Your 3 year old will also shove Hot Wheels in her chubby hands, and she will chew on your iPhone. You will not have time to wave mirrors in front of her to get her to roll over. You will, honestly, not be in a big hurry to get her to crawl because crawling leads to walking, and before you know it, you will be chasing her in a parking lot. She will probably be running the opposite direction of the other one running away from you. You will want her to remain immobile as long as possible.

First-time-mom-Jill, try not to be so awesome. You might have a little less guilt the second time around, and you might save yourself a bit of sanity. Turns out all that stuff you are so neurotic about now is really not that important.

Love,

Jill from the future

Kendall is 3 years old and Leyna is nearly 6 months old

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