Oh man- those of you who know me know that I'm not the best at planning anything, and the same goes for my life as a whole. Before I had my daughter I was freaked to say the least, and a lot of that stemmed from my history of piss poor planning and horrible time management (ask my hubby about this one.)
As a labor and delivery nurse I have seen my fair share of mom breakdowns - lack of sleep, confidence, support, and control are just the start of the triggers that put us in the puddle of tears in those early hours and days.
My daughter was monitored for size my whole pregnancy and was born two weeks early weighing in at a whopping 6 pounds 3 ounces. We left the hospital and she weighed 5 pounds 10 ounces. This girl ate every 2-3 hours for the first few months of her life, and this exclusively breastfeeding mama was tired. I won't even tell you the things I was googling at midnight, 2am, 5am, and 7am.
One of those things was how babies sleep better if they're on a schedule. These time charts and schedules looked so easy to follow, I mean all this girl is doing is eating, pooping/peeing, sleeping - it will be easy to follow this. Man was I wrong - I'd change a diaper and it was followed by a blow out requiring a tub and the next thing I knew we were 30 minutes off schedule already! It was only 10 am. This was only adding to the stress of ya know - keeping a tiny human alive. Not to mention - my husband is a restless Portuguese guy and I've been told by many that I have undiagnosed ADHD. We're always somewhere that isn't home.
Thank goodness for grandmothers - if you're lucky enough to have one (or both) you know what I mean! She came over one day and reminded me schedules, mom blogs, and instagram weren't a thing in the late 1950s when she started having children... at seventeen. Her kids slept in dresser drawers (not pediatrician recommended in 2020.) What a relief! She had to talk me through what I already knew but got clouded by the interwebs - trust your gut.
From that day forward I put the phone down - and started living in the present to enjoy all the things that go to fast - the things that already feel so distant because lets be honest - time stops for no one. Guess what happened - later that week my daughter slept from 11pm-6 am and woke up with one big ol' smile on her face!
Now we do what works for the three of us - trust our gut - and sleep when we feel like it for however long we feel like! Cause life is short. xoxo, gansett gal
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