Count the Bad Mommies

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Homework!

Hello again, Bad Mommies.

Being a less than model Bad Mommy, I'm going to take it easy on you with this week's homework, which is:

Tell us what you worried about most while you were pregnant or just after the birth of your baby. Then tell us what the best advice was that you recieved with regard to that particular issue, and who gave it.

Now, as a veteran, what parenting advice would you give to other new or expectant parents?

2 comments:

SWC said...

This is a great question. I was worried about so many things and continue to worry, so it's hard to say. Of course, my boy is only 9.5 mos old....so... That said, there are two pieces of advice that were gems for me. 1) When I was preparing to go back to work, my mentor and friend told me it would take me (at minimum) one month before I started to feel semi-normal being away from my baby...and a second friend told me even though I would feel semi-normal after that amount of time that I would never be 100% ok with being away from him all the time. They were both right. In fact I was just yesterday comforting a friend of mine with twins who is going back to work on Monday and she was a basket case. I hope the advice serves her well.

2) The second piece of advice was from one of my male co-workers about my sons sleeping patterns. My son was one of these amazing babies who slept through the night from the day he was born. (Or relatively speaking...he'd sleep 5 to 6 hrs straight as a newborn.) By about 10 weeks old he would sleep straight through. Then when he was 4 and 5 months old he started getting sick a lot and we would wake up with him a few times a night while he was feeling yucky. This continued after he got better. This guy at work told me that the best advice he ever got on the topic was from a child psychologist who said not to ever go in the room, put the child down awake, let them cry for a few nights, go in the room only if you have to and never pick him up. Well, we did this. It was brutal the first night. He cried for 45 minutes. It was a little better the second night. He cried for half an hour. By the fourth night, he was totally fine. Since then he has slept 10 hours straight every single night. Occasionally he wakes up but he is able to soothe himself back to sleep. So, if anyone ever asks me for sleep advice...I will repeat this advice verbatim!

Phew...sorry so long winded! There's my answer. Great question. For the record, I worry about him getting hurt, sick, becoming Autistic, etc, etc, etc. Probably too much.

Unknown said...

I'm not going to talk about my second pregnancy because I worried about everything. I had been exposed to radiation and everything set me on edge.

With my first pregnancy for the first few months I thought I was this delicate little flower who was sickly because she was pregnancy. SO. NOT. THE. CASE. My mom and my husband set me back right and told me that if I didn't go about my life and live it the same way- with some exceptions- I was going to miss everything wonderful that was happening!!