Survival Tips for Your Baby’s First 3 Months
My second baby is 6 weeks old and I am in Survival Mode until he can sleep longer than 4 hours at a time. It is tiring managing two kids schedules, breastfeeding, diagnosing illnesses, dispensing medications around the clock, not to mention any regular household chores, and just getting to say hello to the husband. I really never expected it to be this difficult adjusting to 2 children.
Some wonderful women have shared with me some great advice on how to survive this phase. Here is some of what they said and what I am living by at this moment.
- Don’t look down! Don’t look at your floors or even the sticky breakfast table.
- Cartoons to entertain siblings are perfectly okay!
- Don’t be too proud to accept any and all help.
- Keep an eye on the light at the end of the tunnel. Remember that this phase doesn’t last forever!
- Don’t beat yourself up with what you haven’t done. If your kids are good, then you have done a great job that day!
- Put off the diet, until you can get sleep and function!
- Sleep whenever you can.
- Get out of the house once in a while on a play date or by yourself after bedtimes.
- It is okay, if you never get out of your pajamas that day.
- Don’t stress so much about the quality of food the siblings are getting, just as long as they eat.
- It is okay to say no.
- Enjoy this time, because they grow so fast.
- Remember you are a GREAT mom! Don’t be so hard on yourself!
What helped you get through your baby’s first weeks?
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All great tips – the general theme beneath most of them is “do what you need to do and don’t be hard on yourself” – and I agree. Having mine so close together created this emotional “vortex” (that’s what my friend Leigh Ann and I have dubbed it, like, “I was in my vortex for those six months and I don’t remember a thing!”) that I simply had to endure. It wasn’t all bad, but it was indeed a hard time. (Throw in a move to another state in the middle of month one and you have an idea of what I’ve been through.)
Good tips! I would add that doing some prep before the baby comes and get some quick meals in the freezer helps a TON too! Rallying friends to bring you a meal after the baby comes is also a great help. Having easy meals to unthaw/cook in the freezer and having meals from friends and church relieved a ton of stress.
Getting out of the house was great for me. Having something to look forward to during the week made the time go by a little better and broke up the monotony of holding kids, feeding them, laying them down for naps, cooking…….
Definitely don’t look down. Good ideas all though.
I wallowed in daytime TV too. It’s such an ilicit pleasure, normally, and you’ve got to find some me time wherever you can. Still, I’m not sure how practical that is with a sibling around too.
I found getting outside and going for a walk everyday helped keep me sane and balanced, but I only have one! We’re planning on having another one relatively soon, and I’m not looking forward to sleep deprivation along with a toddler running around!
@Dawn – I couldn’t imagine moving right now!! My hat goes off to you.
@Amelia – Meals always help a ton! Before I had kids I never understood why new parents needed meals. Couldn’t they just run out and get something? Boy was I wrong!
@Solnushka – I try to recognize any Me Time I can get, even if it is only for 5 minutes while I can eat dinner in peace when the 2 little ones are surprisingly quiet.
@Katie – Walks are a GREAT idea!
This is a great list, my best friend is in her first 3 months of her first baby so I will forward it along. What helped me a lot in my first three months was to have blogs like this! Also, instead of tuning out to the TiVo when I had a chance (which I noticed just made me feel left out of the world at large), I would read books about motherhood, or watch movies about motherhood. One great documentary I found was about the Dalai Lama’s mother, and about motherhood in general, both physical and spritual. I saw it on PBS, but you can get copies here: The Great Mother