Hellobee

As a soon to be new parent, you get a lot of unwanted advice and most of it is pretty much the same. There’s a lot of “sleep while the baby sleeps” and “enjoy this time while they are little” or “you will fall in love immediately.” But there are a few thousand things that pop up as you really delve into being a parent, and some of them would have been so helpful to hear before your baby got here. Here are a few that I would have loved to hear.

1) It is terrifying being a parent. When they are really little, like brand new, the worrying is crazy. They are so helpless and you (and your partner) are the only way they will survive. That is insane if you really think about it. Another human is completely dependent on you and it is so scary. As a new mom especially, there are a million hormones going crazy and you are sleep deprived and you are probably just trying to figure out how the heck to do everything. It’s a lot to take in and deal with.

2) You will willingly change things you thought you wouldn’t. I’ve written before about how against bed-sharing I was until I had children. I thought it was irresponsible and not worth the risk, but when I made the decision to save our sanity and try it, it changed my life. I could not be happier that I made that change. Another thing I always said was that I would only breastfeed for 6 months and then wean. I really have no idea what I was thinking with this, but once I had children, I changed my tune quickly.

3) Worrying is the new normal. The worst thing for me was the constant worry about SIDs. I found myself barely sleeping not only because the baby wanted to eat all.the.time, but also because I constantly needed to feel her chest to see if she was still breathing. It nearly consumed me and when Little Bug was born, it was a repeat of the same worrying. Once they got older and sturdier, my worrying shifted to other things, like accidentally forgetting them somewhere, or feeding them something they were allergic to, or forgetting to close the gate on the stairs. It honestly never ends; I just find new things to worry about.

4) You will fear things you never did before. The number one thing for me here is worrying that something will happen to me or Mr. Cereal. The possibilities are endless and I have days where I will rearrange my schedule to avoid driving or going on a walk because I am scared of what could happen. I never really worried about these things before I had kids, but I think about it a lot now. It is surprising that before kids, I was not scared of dying, but now it is a fear I can’t shake. The thought of the kids growing up without one of us is awful.

5) Your kids are going to be amazing. This was honestly a real surprise to me. I thought a lot about what my kids would be like as babies, but I was never really able to picture what it would be like as they got older. I am surprised daily at how interesting my kids are. I mean, they are weird, and they have these big personalities that are hard to keep up with. They are funny and kind and charming and all the other things that are unexpected. I think new parents prepare themselves for having a newborn and an infant, but the real life that comes after is a whole new unexpected territory.

6) When your kids hurt, you hurt. This a phenomenon I can only describe as painful in the absolute worst way. LeLe has never had a really serious injury (knock on wood), but she’s had plenty of falls and bumps and bruises. She shut the tip of her finger in a cupboard when she was about 10 months old and I cried right along with her. I felt like crap for not preventing the hurt in the first place and that was one of those life moments where I really thought about what I had signed up for as a parent. You literally live with a piece of you outside your body and you can’t control what happens to it. It’s like willingly asking someone to gut punch you multiple times per day. I am getting better with the physical hurts, but the emotional hurts still really get to me. I can see a future struggle for me to deal with seeing either of them hurt from broken friendships, loss, or general sadness. They will both go through millions of things that will upset them and that is a weird thing to accept.

7) Life will get more complicated than you think. I miss free time and I miss being able to just go and do things without planning the time out. I remember the days when going to three grocery stores sounded reasonable, but now I dread going to one store with the kids in tow. These tiny tasks that you were able to do before kids are still achievable, but they take a lot more time to complete. It’s hard to juggle kids, car seats, groceries, etc. It is especially hard when you throw in nap time schedules, meal times, and early bedtimes. For me, the hardest adjustment has been bedtime. We all go to bed at the same time now and while I love the snuggling and the extra time together, I sometimes miss being able to sit downstairs and watch a tv show with Mr. Cereal. I know eventually we won’t be bed sharing anymore and these things will be possible again, but for now, it’s a little hard to take at times.

8) You will appreciate the people in your lives who make it easier for you. And you will especially appreciate the people who love your kids and make them feel special. For me, these people were not the people I thought they would be. I am surprised every day and how much I appreciate my mother in law. We are awkward with each other a lot, but when it comes to the kids, we are 100% on the same page. She loves them so much and it’s nice seeing that. LeLe is a very social kid and I love that there are people in my town who I have never met that will chat with her in a check out line. I especially love the UPS man for never knocking on my door and waking up the kids during naps, or the garbage man who let LeLe climb into the truck to see how it works, or the sweet baker at the grocery store that offers cookies while we shop. These little things have big impacts in the kids lives and I never thought about it before, but it really makes a difference.

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Making the decision to become a parent is literally like deciding that you are ok with the unknown and rolling with it. It truly is like wearing your heart on your sleeve.