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Everything is a phase. By the lovely Grace Farris.
P.S. Kid love languages and reasons my kids might be cranky.
Parenting Advice
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Lol, “everything’s a phase” is my go-to “advice” for new parents. That and “babies are weird.”
I have an 8 month old, and by far the most frequent advice given to us as new parents is, “Soak it up, it goes by so fast!” I always hear other new parents shunning that advice and complaining about how it’s too difficult to do that, even though the advice-givers are well-intentioned. Honestly I would say it’s the best advice I’ve been given though. Since EVERYONE says it, it must be true. It’s helped me to have loooow expectations from the beginning of what each day looks like and how much I can accomplish and what the postpartum period looks like for me. I’m already seeing how the months are flying by, and my biggest goal for each day is to just soak it up. Slow down, appreciate the little things, see it all as a gift. Having a baby is the biggest blessing, and babies don’t keep.
I like what you’re saying! “Enjoy it, it goes by sooo fast” is less vague as advice if you realize that it’s basically saying that whatever isn’t love, connection, joy, people, memories–a lot of that stuff can be slapdash and good-enough. I SO don’t care what any of the birthday cakes look like in my childhood photos, it’s my mother’s face I want to see!
When we had our first baby, everyone and anyone gave us advice: about how to get a baby to sleep, what to do, what not to do, what to be careful or weary of.
Everyone seemed to have the answer and my
husband and I would feel inadequate if we struggled with baby sleep because we always felt like we were doing something wrong.
Now, we have baby number two and I realize how much of that advice was well-intended but misguided.
Our second baby is different in every way to our first and what might have worked with the first doesn’t with the second.
Advice can be helpful, but often it’s also not, especially for first time parents. I guess this is still advice, but mine really is to follow your instinct because no one knows your baby better than you. Any one who isn’t an expert on the topic of parenting is basically just sharing their own personal experience and what worked for them might very well not be the right answer for you.
Bottom line is, don’t get boggled down by all the « you should absolutely do this » or « never do this ». It can be crippling.
Follow your instincts and you’ll find your way. Even if it requires patience. Babies are ever evolving. They go through phases. They change. And most often, as long as you’re loving them and doing what feels right you are not making any mistakes.
Thank you for your kind guidance ❤️ I read this aloud to my husband and he said this was very comforting ☺️
hi guys! im not a parent and im a teenager with two very controlling and abusive parents. i just wanted to say that it’s really nice to see parents who accept and love their kids no matter what personality or friends they have. if i do become a parent, ill love my child with all my heart just like you do.
You are loved, Katie! <3
dang. hang in there katie, some of us have been there. hope you and your own parents reach a better place soon. if not, friends sometimes make the best family, or extended family members can lend an ear. good luck. xoxoxoxo ps the best pickmeups can be found at this website! reading it means you’re already doing yourself a favor.
Sending you so much love
oh Katie! Hang in there. Sending you love.
Hi Katie. I’m wondering if you need any resources or help because you used the word “abusive.” I’m just going to leave theyouthalliance.com here. No judgement if you meant it more casually, but I’m a teacher and would feel terrible if I saw this and just let it pass without providing some support if I could. Whatever your situation, I wish you the best.
Oh I too have been on both sides. The best parenting advice I ever received though was from my late uncle. I didn’t know him well, but visited him when he was in late stages of Parkinson. He told me, “Just follow your heart.” It felt so liberating to hear that after all the books, mom blogs, insta accounts, and unsolicited advice from strangers.
For the simpler things in life – my advice to myself is – “Girl- go with your gut and don’t Google it.” Breathe and love and carry on.
Just love. My kids are older now and I was so concerned with doing every single thing right. But the answer is just love your kids. They will be okay. You will be okay. Step into every situation with love. Sometimes that means tough love like setting boundaries to keep them safe. But mostly it means gentleness and kindness. Just love.
❤️ Thank you, I agree ❤️
I want to thank all of you for all of your wonderful thoughts and guidance- I feel so much less alone and hopeful! Looking forward to read through these all weekend. My heart is full!
Side note- I love Grace Farris’ comics and can’t wait for her new book!
THIS TOO SHALL PASS, the mantra that got me through so much of the difficult hours, days and weeks of parenting. It was the hope I clung too, but even now, with a 19 month old, the thought of “this” passing is both hopeful and sad, the eternal bittersweet that is parenting.
I’m always hesitant to give any advice when it comes to getting babies to sleep since all babies are very different, but one thing that has at least improved the sleep of my kids is cutting caffeine from my diet. Someone suggested it to me with my first and I thought it was crazy to do that considering I needed it to function but I tried and it improved his napping so much. I completely removed it-no decaf coffee, no dark chocolate, nothing. My fourth is now 2 months old and with each child since I notice anytime I have had caffeine their sleep is disturbed in some way. I am pretty sensitive to caffeine so that may be the reason, but it’s a pretty low stakes way to try and improve sleep.
Ohhhh I eat so much dark chocolate! Good tip!
seeing lots of parents use this thread as an opportunity to…give advice on sleep training? lololol so here is just a note and a shoulder squeeze for parents who don’t choose to sleep train for whatever reason. it’s ok to
follow your baby’s lead! or to sleep train if you need to/want to! there isn’t an answer to baby sleep, or we’d all be doing it :)
my pediatrician frames so much of her guidance through the lens of what works for the parents/the whole family. i appreciate this holistic approach more than i will ever be able to say to her. and i love that it means that the advice she gives to me isn’t necessarily the advice she gives to the next mom who walks through her door. that, to me, is the root of the root of parenting :)
Yesssss. To all the above. I wish this was shouted from the mountaintops and rooftops to new parents!
My doctor is great like this, too ♥️ she told us that with most things baby, there are tons of ways to do it right.
I loved reading Emily Oster’s book Cribsheet because everything she says is couched in, “Here is the data. Now- what works for your family?” Just because sleep training isn’t found to be harmful in the research, doesn’t mean everyone feels comfortable or wants to do it. Some of us would rather sacrifice sleep for whatever reason, or we have a baby who cries so much they vomit, or whatever the case may be. I remind myself all the time – “Good for her. Not for me!” We can do things differently as parents, and that’s not an indictment on any one style!
Both my kids (5 and 2) have been wanting to sleep with us these last couple weeks on and off and at nap, at bedtime, in the middle of the night. And I was worried about sleep training and habits and my sanity.
But it occurred to me I’ve been calling my mom more and baking carrot bread and reading James Herriot. Just trying to keep hope in my chest. I can be the hope in their chests. They’re still babies.
Oh Savannah, same here. Our son is eight and on top of world events, we are moving from Switzerland, where he was born and raised, to the US this summer. He’s been having a hard time sleeping and waking up in the middle of the night and I’m completely sympathetic because we aren’t sleeping the greatest either. So we just schooch over and have a family cuddle. Your comment touched my heart, my son is just a little boy and I hope someday he’ll give cuddles to someone who needs them without judgement of circumstances or age or whatever society judges.
This is so beautiful. I love, “I can be the hope in their chests.” And as I am eating carrot muffins today and just watched All Creatures last night, I think we have some of the same coping/hoping mechanisms!
I have three children, trying for a fourth. Every parent and every child is different but this quote from Alison Gopnick sums up what I try to say to anyone who asks…
“Let’s recall that “parent” is not actually a verb, nor is it a form of work. What we need to talk about instead is “being a parent”—that is, caring for a child. To be a parent is to be part of a profound and unique human relationship, to engage in a particular kind of love, not to make a certain sort of thing.”
I can’t echo the art of the pause enough! Both of my girls slept through the night at 8 weeks old and they NEVER “cried it out”. The absolute longest that they ever cried was 3 minutes and that was just once. Giving babies a chance to self soothe gently and over time will make every one more peaceful. The other thing that I was VERY diligent about was waking my babies up every 3 hours during the day and letting them wake me up at night. I would wake them, feed them, and then try to keep them awake for a while. I didn’t feed them to sleep. Hope this helps and always remember that YOU are the expert of your kids, nobody else.
Exactly! Helping a baby develop good sleeping habits doesn’t have to be harsh and involve lots of crying. Things keeping the baby more or less on a schedule, making sure you are home at nap time so the baby can get proper, quiet rest in his or her own bed. I also had blackout roller shades in my kids rooms so the rooms were pitch-dark at nap time and at bedtime in the summer.
Other things: keeping the lights in the home dim within an hour of baby’s bedtime, no screens on around baby near bedtime. Also, I didn’t bottle feed or nurse my children to sleep, I finished the final feed about 30 minutes before bedtime, then I would rock and sing quietly to the baby in his/her very dark bedroom till baby was drowsy but not asleep.
My last trick was when my newborns started sleeping several hours at a stretch but not all night, I’d put the baby down about 7:30 or 8 and then wake the baby for a feed about 11 p.m. or midnight and then go to bed myself. My babies would go right back to sleep and I’d get some heavenly sleep until 5 or 6 in the morning instead of being woken up at 1 AM.
I didn’t finish the book (but that’s more about me than the book, haha) but in general Playful Parenting was so helpful. I loved
–the reframe that “What’s that?” over and over is saying “I enjoyed our interaction the last time I asked” because it now feels more affectionate and less nagging interaction. I’ve now started responding either with some combination of reflection “What do *you* think it is?” and silly responses “Is it a ?”
–bringing toys into interactions with kids: my daughter loves when I make stuffies do things she’s supposed to do, like potty, eating, etc.)
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