Making the transition from working full time to staying home with Scotty and working freelance/on contract was surprisingly easy. Initially, I obsessively read depressingly titled articles like, "how not to lose your mind as a stay at home mom," and worried I would be bored or lonely since I only have one baby right now.

I was talking to a brand new dad and he was saying that he couldn't believe all the things nobody told them before having their baby. It brought back a wave of memories of surprising things about newborns to me as well.

Memory is so tricky and I've already forgotten lots of details of those first days and 3 months of Scottlyn's life. But since we're planning on adding to our family in the future I wanted to write down a few things so I can go back and be reminded before the next time I sign up for a bundle of squish and sleep deprivation.

1. She Forgot How To Nurse


Oh, those magical, mythical first three months we call the newborn stage. Pure bliss and pure hell. Let's talk about the latter. Unbeknownst to me, it's pretty common in the evenings for new babies to get really fussy for no apparent reason at all. For hours. With Scotty it was from around 5 pm or 6 pm to 9 pm. Like clockwork, she'd go down at 9 and be fine. I started to really dislike evenings after having a perfectly content baby all day.


Here's a picture of me one desperate night. I used Dr. Harvey Karp's 5 S's for soothing a colic-y baby for these hours (from this book). So this is Scotty "swaddled" in her wrap, with her white noise machine tucked in the wrap going, while I would walk around and sway and bounce. I think I was folding laundry as well here, ha. I took a picture because in that moment I knew "this too shall pass" and my desperation would later be humorous.

Even with the 5 S's, it was still rough. I should have traded off more with David. He did help but I remember him doing a lot of projects and things while I slowly lost my mind for those hours. I didn't communicate my needs on that one. He'll have that to look forward to with the next one ;)

3. Sleep Regression is Real

I'm pretty sure I still don't have this completely figured out yet. I think she's had 3 sleep regressions and I'm 10 months in so... But basically I want to tell my future self that it happens and don't wait so long to start training again.



But honestly, we've done a lot of things right. We have a bedtime routine. She falls asleep on her own and she's a on good schedule. She goes to bed at 7pm and gets up around 6am. She consolidated her naps like the pediatrician said she would.

She just occasionally will start waking up more frequently at night and I always fall into the "she must be hungry" trap and the regression starts. Then I realize she barely ate anything and I need to be a tough love mama so she can re-figure out how to self-soothe and go back to bed on her own. At this point she sleeps at least 8 hours and she'll get up to feed one time. It's not perfect but it's better then every two hours.


It's crazy how much memory softens how tough having a new baby is and all you're left with is fuzzy feelings when you look at newborn pictures. I'm glad I'll get to do it again at some point with a little more experience!