From birth to three months, they call this stage the fourth trimester. And today marks 3 months with our precious little angel baby. The fact she is no longer labeled as a “newborn” makes me so sad! We now have a beautiful gummy smiling infant.
Now this is a long read so if you want the spark notes version:
Being a mom is physically, mentally, and emotionally taxing. These 13 weeks have been a roller coaster of emotions - so much joy, but also late nights sobbing in bed. This has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done (and I use to be a teacher!). Raising a newborn is no joke. She’s learning how to be a human and I’m learning how to take care of a human who has been accustom to life in a dark, warm, cozy womb. There have been times where I’ve hated this stage in life, but I love this child so much it makes all the difficult times so worth it. I’ve learned to cherish every moment because I know I’ll look back and miss this stage. Here is a quote from Briar’s honorary grandpa on what he says about having kids: “It’s more work than you could imagine, but also more love and joy than you possibly could have imagined.” I would have to say I totally agree!
Now for the long version:
The 4th trimester is a period of significant physical, mental and emotional development for babies. I would say the same for mothers too. Physically, your body is recovering from birth + all the challenges of nursing + your uterus returning to normal and more.
Mentally, I was destroyed. You can prepare all you want, but newborns are unpredictable and no book will prepare you for your specific and wonderful child. I question myself on the daily. There are so many “answers” on the internet that sometimes are contradictory so then you feel even more lost. It’s hard to tell yourself that “you are the best mom for your child”. But it’s true. And this took me 13 weeks to finally believe that. I have amazing moms in my life who I am able to vent to, get advice from, and hear words of encouragement. They helped me get back to a better mental state.
Emotionally, I’ve never loved so hard and cried so much. You just made something for practically 10 months and now you have to keep them alive. I’ve encountered sleepless nights where I’m sobbing and frustrated after an hour of trying everything you can to get your baby to sleep. But then she smiles and I forget about all those tears and frustration and am overwhelmed with love. Emotional roller coaster.
Everything I’ve faced so far in my 13 weeks as a mother I expected (and then some!), but you never truly understand until you actually experience motherhood. I love the quote form above because it is so true. I have had so many trial and errors that have grown me to be a better mom and that was through experiences. Granted some research and advice from other moms have been so beneficial, but you have to figure out what works for your baby.
Let’s walk through these 13 weeks shall we? The first two nights home were the hardest. I was up all night long with no rest. She was constantly wanting to nurse and would not sleep. Come to find out I struggled with my milk supply; she certainly wasn’t getting enough. She had lost a bunch of weight and I had to supplement. That was extremely hard for me to hear; I felt like I was failing her. Nonetheless, we feed her formula and I pumped each time in order to boost my supply. Even though that did bring her back to her birth weight *sigh of relief*, I still struggled mentally that I wasn’t providing enough for my daughter. I continued to pump the next few days to work on my supply. That fear stuck in my head and I never could admit that my milk was coming in. I finally had the opportunity to meet with someone to come to my house and check that Briar was doing what she needed to do and that I was doing what I needed to do plus that my supply was good. Meeting with her was a blessing. She helped ease my mind and encouraged me during that process.
If you know me, you know I love structure and a routine. Well, I’ve had to learn to go with the flow since Briar entered this world; newborns schedules are so unpredictable. In a sense, she’s taught me to relax and just enjoy our days snuggling on the couch. I gave myself grace and did not stress about getting stuff done around the house. I decided though (here is me trying to have a little bit of a routine) to give myself one task a day, such as laundry or cleaning.
Around 6 or 7 weeks, I aimed to put her in the bassinet for one nap in order to get my daily task done. Once I do that, the rest of the naps have been contact naps guilt free! She’s only little for such a short period I want to cherish those snuggles that I know won’t last forever.
By 8 weeks, she’s started to sleep longer stretches at night (4-7 hours!) and I felt like a new woman. Her schedule has become a bit more predictable, but still a bit all over the place. She tends to wake up between 6:15am-7:30am and then shortly goes down for her morning nap. The naps the rest of the day are never the same. As for bed time, we wind down by doing a bath, diaper, feed, pjs, a book (even if it’s just one page), sleep sack, bed.
Around 10 weeks those long stretches vanished *cue sobbing* I am not sure what the change has been, but I’m missing those long stretches. She’s started to wake every 1-2 hours and will nurse for ages and due to her reflux I hold her up for 20 minutes then when I lay her down I get to sleep another 20-30 minutes before I do it all over again. Those nights have been the most draining. Even though the nights are long and the sleep is little, the snuggles before putting her back down is something I’ll cherish because I know that doesn’t last forever. We knew this wasn't normal. Her gas was waking her up and the sucking from nursing comforted her as well as released the gas. Unfortunately this became a bad cycle because even though she was just comfort nursing, she still got milk and that milk is what was bothering her. This is when I learned that Briar has a dairy/soy allergy. Meaning her digestive system cannot process the dairy protein which is similar to soy. Luckily her symptoms are minor: gas and reflux. Since eliminating them, she’s been a much happier and less gassy baby!
We hit 11 weeks and 1 day and she finally slept another long stretch. Taylor and I felt the affects of that at 4 in the morning when we weren’t dead tired from being woken up so often. Now I wasn’t sure if it was because she went to bed at a later time or if it was because we switched her to a sleep sack (she would always cry when getting swaddled and she moved around so much she kept hitting her head on a hard part of the bassinet). However, we learned that every night is different; we get long stretches of sleep one night and multiple wake ups another night.
At 12 weeks I believe she went/is going through a growth spurt. She’s become more fussy and wanting to nurse more often. I’ve learned that just when you get into the flow of things, babies like to mix it up on you again. Apparently there is a growth spurt around 3 months, so she just got started a bit early. Makes sense though, she’s grown so much in the past couple weeks: holding her head up, cooing, kicking her feet, baring her weight when she “stands”, and of course all the other developments we don’t see happening in her cute little noggin. Being a baby is truly hard work, but she’s killing it!
I think the most shocking thing we’ve learned about babies is their poop. I never thought I would talk about poop so much. My precious little angel is an infrequent stooler. Turns out that breastfed babies can either go daily, every other day, or once every 7 days! Why don’t they tell you this at the hospital? I’m over here on day 3, day 5, then day 7, panicking that she hasn’t pooped. She is a very gassy baby so any time she’d pass gas, Taylor and I would be excited for a poo and be disappointed that it was just gas… We’ve come to learn that she will pass a stool every 4 to 9 days. Good news for us: less poopy diapers to change!
Other than the occasional gas pain cries or hunger cries, she has been a chill baby! Trying to figure out how to help someone who can’t tell you what they need is stressful especially when you’ve tried every option you can. Even through the hard times, I love her with every fiber of my being and would face all these challenges again just for her.
Lastly, watching my husband become a father is one of the best things about our daughter. The little kisses he gives her, when he says “hi beebe”, the way he looks at her… all just make me love him more. Parenting isn’t for the weak. You definitely need a strong marriage if you’re going to have a child together. The challenges you face are together and yes we’ve snapped at each other at 3am, but we start the next day fresh and as one. We love our daughter and we love each other and we know we are in this together. I’m sure I’ll long for the days when it was just the two of us, but I can’t imagine life without it being the three of us. 🤍
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