Category Archives: Motherhood

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Cheers to a guilt-free 2016! (LOL, J/K!)

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It’s 2016 and I have a 10-month-old! He is freakin adorable and generally incredibly happy and healthy. He crawls, he eats an amazing amount of solids (yay baby led weaning) and he’s quite the social butterfly. But holy crap, the issues/concerns/guilt/worry just never stops, does it? This is going to be going on until he’s 40, right?

In between the smiles, cuddles and giggles, here’s a rundown of our last month or so, in rough chronological order –

November

  • Extreme drop in my milk supply, which means an extra pumping session for me (3-4 times per day at work plus at night before I go to bed – In addition to me going to nurse him at daycare every day on my lunch break).
  • Constant battle of distraction/fussiness during lunch nursing sessions.
  • Double ear infection right before Thanksgiving.

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The One Thing You Should Say To A New Mom

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Wherever we stand as mothers and our working/child raising situation, we all have haters. People who assume things about what we do and why we do it, and who judge our situations even if they don’t intend to do so. These viewpoints are so outdated and divisive that I can’t even believe there are people who really think these things, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised anymore when it comes to people still believing ridiculous and archaic things.

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Just because I work full time, doesn’t mean I’m not a full-time mom.

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I wrote this post about a month ago and was a little conflicted about sharing it. But here goes. It’s kind of ranty, but that’s how I was feeling at the time.

A good friend (single, no-children, male) recently asked me if I was “still doing the full-time mom thing” or if I’d gone back to work. My immediate response was, “Yes.” Yes, I’ve been back at the office for several months now. And, yes, I’m also a full-time mom. Then I started thinking about the language that is used to describe moms and motherhood. Stay At Home Mom. Work At Home Mom. Working Mom. Part Time Working Mom. Full Time Working Mom. There are probably other labels that I don’t even know about. What do you call a mom who owns her own business that has always been run out of her home, and still does that now, with a baby to care for? What about an artist who creates in an in-home studio, and also has two kids at home most days? There are so many different situations and scenarios for families and mothers and childcare, it’s kind of ridiculous to have labels for everything. And what do all of these women have in common? They are ALL full-time moms!!!! However, this label seems to be reserved for moms who stay at home (working or not) and have their children at home (not in daycare).

Now, I know he meant to distinguish between staying at home vs. working outside of the office, but as someone who pays attention to language and words and semantics a lot, that kind of hit home for me, and got me thinking about the words we use to talk about motherhood.

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Breastfeeding won’t make you skinny (and other postpartum pains)

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One of the many, many things women are told when they’re pregnant is that breastfeeding will make you skinny. “It literally melts your fat away!” “Your baby will suck you right back down to your pre-pregnancy weight!” Sounds great! Sign me up! What they don’t tell you is that for as long as you breastfeed, your body will basically stay “soft,” no matter how much you work out. Something to do with the hormones and oxytocin or something. Which is fine, as even at my smallest, I never had 6-pack abs anyway, so whatevs.

I also was constantly told that being in good shape before pregnancy, and keeping up working out as long as I did would help me soo much during childbirth and recovery, and would make me “bounce back” super fast after having the baby. That was so encouraging, and I totally believed it!

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Do I have to feel guilty to be a good mom?

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So apparently this whole guilt thing doesn’t get any better as kids get older. When I went out Saturday night, I was talking about mom guilt with a friend, one of the other band wives, who is a parent of three daughters ranging in age from college to 6th grade. She touched on some of the things she felt guilty about when her kids were younger, and things she still feels guilty about today… even though her oldest is away at college and is doing her own very adult thing. THERE’S STILL MOM GUILT WHEN THEY GO TO COLLEGE! While that may not be comforting at all, at least I know that I’m not alone. Mamas, you are NOT alone in your guilt!

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Guilty mom goes out on the town…

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Oh, man. What a weekend! We had a babysitter lined up for both Friday and Saturday nights – two nights out in a row, y’all! It was also the first time we’ve had a paid babysitter, someone other than our parents or good friends. After last weekend’s guilt- and anxiety-inducing trip ended up being totally fine (Baby J was asleep before 7 and didn’t wake until well after we returned), I thought leaving him for a few hours after bedtime to go less than 10 minutes away would be a breeze. And on Friday night, it was. He was asleep about half an hour before the sitter got there, we were out until midnight, and he didn’t wake up until nearly 6 a.m. We had an awesome time at a show at one of our favorite places in town to see live music, and we saw some friends we hadn’t seen in ages, and it was revitalizing for both of us.

Last night, Saturday, was a bit more difficult. Will was playing a show in the neighborhood, so he left earlier. Our bedtime feeding, which normally is peaceful and drowsy, was not so. Baby J was fussy and didn’t get a full feeding on both sides. I eventually put him down, and he was awake in his crib without crying for about 20 minutes, then the crying started. Now, for the last month or so, 95% of the time he is able to put himself to sleep without crying. Every now and then, he’ll have a random night where he cries for a bit, but I’ve always been there. Last night, he didn’t put himself to sleep in 10 minutes. The sitter came about 15 minutes into the crying, and I decided to try feeding him again. He nursed for about 20 minutes on one side (definitely a full feeding) and I put him back down. He was still crying. I was so torn.

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Stop skinny-shaming my baby!

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Everybody LOVES fat babies.

“Fat rolls for days!” 

“95th percentile at 2 weeks!”

“Wearing 9 mo. clothes at 2 months!”

“That kid loves his mama’s milk!”

And so on. These are things that parents of chunky babies brag about online, and I don’t disagree that pudgy babies are pretty dang adorable. I mean, those cheeks! Those thighs! Those bellies! You really do get why people “just want to eat them up!” I haven’t really noticed moms of skinny babies bragging about percentile stats and clothing sizes, but in my experience parents of skinny babies do hear a lot from other people; from strangers to lactation consultants to pediatricians. (We are very lucky that our pediatrician has never said these things to us. She has been totally supportive and amazing and does not at all make me feel like a failure!) As the mom of a skinny baby with some minor to moderate breastfeeding challenges, here’s what I’ve heard:

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Time for a road trip (and a guilt trip)…

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This weekend is going to be a challenge for the Guilty Mom… Will and I got tickets to see Phish in Raleigh on Friday. Way back when we put in for the ticket lottery, it seemed sooo far away on the calendar, and I thought, “we’ll have a 5-month-old then, surely we’ll be just fine leaving him for a few hours.” And then we got our tickets! It’s exciting because it’s been a few years since we’ve seen Phish, and it’s something that’s been a pretty big part of our lives as a couple, and for us as individuals for many years before we ever met.

So we made plans to drive to Will’s parents house in Burlington. They’re out of town, but my mom will drive down from Va. to watch baby J while we make the trip to Raleigh, see the show, and drive back to B-town afterward.  I didn’t really do the math on the drive time, show time, etc. until a couple of days ago and that’s when the anxiety and guilt started to set in…

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Advice for new parents… with disclaimers

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I always thought some of the things people say to expecting or new parents are pretty hilarious. “Your life is about to change!” (No shit.) “You’ll never love anyone as much as you’ll love your baby!” (Well, duh.) And one of my favorites: “Oh man, you have NO idea.” (Um, obviously, since I haven’t done this before.) And is that even advice, really? Or is that just your passive-aggressive way of making me feel even more clueless and inferior?

But really, I get that *most* of what people say comes from a good, well-meaning place from parents who have been there, done that. And I did seek and receive some very valuable advice, mostly from friends with babies and younger kids who actually remember what it’s like to bring home a brand new person. If your kid is older than 5, then you might want to skip out on giving advice to people about pregnancy, childbirth and the early days of child rearing. Instead, take some notes on how to cope with the toddler years (3 is the new 2!) and how exciting/awful the first day of kindergarten is, and send it to your friends along with a bottle of wine once their kid approaches those stages.

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6 things I do now that I have a baby

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Okay new parents. Do y’all ever find yourselves doing things that you would never in a million years do if it weren’t for spending so much time with the little tiny human that depends on you for its every need? I’m not talking about giving up sleep, or showering or your social life. Those are a given. I mean, little weird behaviors that become second nature and you don’t even realize how often you do them, until you do them when the baby’s not even there. Like…

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