Dear Tired New Momma...

Dear Tired New Momma,

It may very well be 2am when you read this, you might be up with your little peanut for the 4th time tonight. You wake, feed, maybe check your phone and by the time you get the baby back down your mind is racing and you have a hard time falling back to sleep. You finally fall asleep only to be woken up by teeny little cries 20 minutes later - it's time to do the whole routine over again. In the beginning it's novel and fun - this is what you have waited for and longed for - what you have prepared for 40 weeks for. In the beginning it's almost an adrenaline rush and then it becomes old…real fast. You don't know how you are going to possibly survive on such little sleep. 

Everyone tells you to sleep when the baby sleeps and that's great in theory - but honestly if someone tells you that one more time you literally may cut a bitch. Whether you breast or bottle feed the cycle of changing, feeding, and calming can be absolutely exhausting. You are just getting used to being a momma, you are learning one another, you are a little unsure of yourself and every little hiccup seems like the end of the world. You fumble around questioning every little sound and movement your little one makes - is that normal? Are they supposed to sound like that? Are they breathing ok? Is that little red bump normal? Are they getting too much to eat? Too little? Are they too hot? Too cold? 

You walk through your days in a daze. You can't remember the last time you ran a brush through your hair, let alone had a shower or ate a proper meal. At this point the parade of visitors wanting to see the new baby has come and gone, your hubby is likely back to work and you are home with your sweet little angel. For the first time in your life you are solely responsible for keeping someone else alive. And you have to do it on very very little sleep, often times an empty stomach, and possibly recovering from a very taxing birth experience. Wow…where is your cape?

But what I want to tell you is that these days that often times feel like they never end, the anxiety you feel when "bed time" rolls around - will the baby sleep more than 90 minutes at a time? How many times will I be awake tonight? - the nighttime diaper changes done as quickly as possible in a pitch black room - these days which blur together as one solid time period will soon pass and you will wonder where did the time go? Honestly - Ceej was a terrible sleeper - at our worst we were up every 90 minutes - so I would get max 60 minutes of sleep at a time - 24 hours a day - but now I don't remember how tired I was or how much I missed sleep - I remember how sweet he looked laying in his rock n play within arms reach of my bed. Now that he's in his own crib in his own room, there are nights where my heart literally aches to be near him and I would give anything to revisit those early days for a night. On nights like those, I tiptoe out of our bed and into his room and curl up in his glider and have the best sleep of my life - within arms reach of my sweet baby.

I remember literally nursing round the clock before we knew Casey wasn't getting enough to eat - our record was 6 straight hours through the night. I thought it was normal and I thought it was just this cluster feeding they speak of. Turns out he wasn't getting enough to eat - but that's besides the point. The point is I remember literally crying tears and telling Chris I just want to sleep on my belly for a few hours - because in the beginning days I slept sitting up holding Ceej. Now with a busy 9.5 month old who normally wants nothing to do with cuddling with momma and acts like he can't get comfy enough to take a nap on momma - I wish I could teleport back to that time and lay around for hours with him cuddled on my chest.

There were times when I wished that he would roll, or crawl, or pull up - and now that he thinks he's big enough to let go and try to take a few steps - I would love to be able to sit him in the floor long enough to run to the bathroom without being worried he's going to decide now is the time to try to take a few steps and in turn take a tumble while I'm not right there. My point in all this rambling - enjoy every single season of your sweet baby's life. Every single solitary second - soak it up. Take everyday as it comes and cherish every moment. Know that the hard days will get easier and the easy days will get harder. If there is one thing babies are it is unpredictable. Just when they start to get on a schedule or get in a routine - they change it up on you. And I promise you - you will look back on those days - the days that feel like they may never end, the days that truly have no end - and you will wish you could have a few of those moments back. Your baby will start to grow too big to fit perfectly on your chest, their little head will start to be too big to fit perfectly into the crook of your neck and you would literally give anything to go back to those days. So soak it up, give yourself a break - the dishes and laundry can wait - they are only little for a little while. Soak in their scent, their sound, the way they feel and memorize it all - because you can't get these days back no matter how desperately you would love to. Enjoy the ride momma - it's a pretty amazing one.

XOXO

K