But When Will I Have Time To Do Anything? As your baby's needs interrupt you for the thousandth time while you're just on the way to do something, you may wonder whether you will ever have time for anything but your newborn's demands. And if, like many moms, you reach the point where it's a thrill just to go to the bathroom without interruption, you may feel ready to go off the deep end. But don't despair. Yes, life has really changed, and it certainly takes a lot more energy to get a normal event, like a trip to the grocery store, underway, let alone accomplished. But you're going to find a rhythm that works for both of you. Even then, of course, you won't be able to do whatever the job at hand is with the speed and solitary focus you could before the baby came. And it takes some really special effort and ingenuity, of a kind that's largely invisible to other people around you, to come up with ways of doing things effectively while also giving your little one the quality of attention she or he deserves. But you'll do it, and the hidden reserves you discover in yourself will help you feel more complete. (You may find it a lot easier, for instance, to connect with your own mother, realizing more of what she went through with you). As your baby's needs interrupt you for the thousandth time while you're just on the way to do something, you may wonder whether you will ever have time for anything but your newborn's demands. And if, like many moms, you reach the point where it's a thrill just to go to the bathroom without interruption, you may feel ready to go off the deep end. But don't despair. Yes, life has really changed, and it certainly takes a lot more energy to get a normal event, like a trip to the grocery store, underway, let alone accomplished. But you're going to find a rhythm that works for both of you. It is all right, by the way, to "lose it" once in a while (or even twice in a while), or just have a good cry. Your baby won't be harmed. (See Our Children, Our Friends, this month.) Clothing And Your Baby's Beauty The more aware you are of your baby's beauty, the more second-thoughts you may have about the clothes you want to see him or her in. Most baby clothing is designed to be cute rather than beautiful. It's meant to gain attention in and of itself in the marketplace — to be in the foreground rather than serve as a becoming background. And the cuteness it advances is one of the leftovers from an earlier era's use of imagery that can get in the way (more powerfully than we usually realize) of our ability to see our children truly and fully. As your baby's needs interrupt you for the thousandth time while you're just on the way to do something, you may wonder whether you will ever have time for anything but your newborn's demands. And if, like many moms, you reach the point where it's a thrill just to go to the bathroom without interruption, you may feel ready to go off the deep end. But don't despair. Yes, life has really changed, and it certainly takes a lot more energy to get a normal event, like a trip to the grocery store, underway, let alone accomplished. But you're going to find a rhythm that works for both of you. You may find it worthwhile to go out of your way to look for some softer colors and simpler designs that draw your attention to the baby rather than to the clothing — designs that become a nice outer frame for your baby's inner beauty. "Don't be so hard on yourself. If you need help go and get it wherever and whenever it's needed. Trust your baby's lead in what your baby needs. If your child is happier alone then give some more space. If your baby needs to be in contact with you constantly then do that. We found parenting groups to be great fun and a wonderful source of support for us." Getting Your Body Back While you almost certainly didn't expect your body to spring back into its pre-pregnant shape immediately after giving birth, you — like many other women — may be dismayed to find that three months afterwards your body still looks at least a little pregnant and doesn't slip easily into your former clothes. Patience. Give yourself some more time and your body some attention. Many of the same stretches you did during pregnancy will help now, and you can add some simple stomach tightening exercises. While lying on your back with your knees up, breathe deeply inward and then tense your stomach muscles as you let a long breath out. From this same position with your knees bent, you can do "curl-ups", which are like sit-ups but only require you to lift your head high enough to stare straight ahead at your knees. Also, to tighten your stomach muscles you can, from this same "on-your-back-with-your-knees-bent" position, simply raise your back and bottom while keeping your feet flat on the floor. If someone will help you get a little time off now from the baby, getting back into regular movement can really help, particularly since a young baby may be keeping you sitting more than you ever did before, and restricting your activity to a pretty narrow range. Taking a vigorous walk or a bike ride or going swimming can improve your health and figure and bring up your general feeling of vitality. When your baby's asleep, you might want to put on some music and do some aerobic dancing. And you can always take slower but enjoyable walks with your baby and partner. Don't forget the Kegel exercises we recommended during your pregnancy. Tightening the perineal muscles is very important now for strengthening and reestablishing good tone of your "pelvic floor" that was so taxed in giving birth. One easy time to remember to do your Kegels is when you're breastfeeding. "Physically, the first year is the toughest. Be patient and try to pamper yourselves (parents) the first year." "Goo . . . ." "One of the many things nobody ever told me about babies is how thrilling — I mean really thrilling — a baby's first utterance can be. "The first time with Carrie, she was lying in my arms and looking up at me as I smiled at her. When, in her enjoyment of the moment, she pumped her little arms and legs, put everything she had into summing up her feelings and her desire to express them, and, from someplace very deep within her, came out with "Goooooo," it was just incredible. "Nobody ever talked that sweetly to me before." Wordless Connection The wordless communication you have now with your baby — the ability the two of you have to connect without language — is the foundation of your lifelong connection. So it's worth appreciating and cherishing this unspoken communication now while it's so strong, and recognizing it as the real heart of your relationship. This core understanding is valuable to preserve and keep with you as you grow together, even after words have become the big medium of exchange between you. "The single most important piece of advice I would give about experiencing life with a new baby would be: PATIENCE. My 8 month old daughter had colic for the first 6 months of her life. I can't ever begin to count the endless nights and days we paced the floors, drove around and tried millions of other little tricks to calm her down. Every day, for 12 - 18 hours a day the screaming occurred. I slowly learned that I couldn't be 'super-mom', that things didn't get done when I wanted them done and that everything would still be there the next day. We learned that the more patient my husband and I became, the more we learned to appreciate the little things that occurred. I think if parents can learn to be patient with the infant(s) the more they will enjoy them" "Enjoy every minute — They grow up so fast. Remember for yourself and husband to get out once in a while. Happy parents make better parents.' Sharing With Other Families Now that your baby is so obviously a part of your family, you have a sense — particularly if this is your first child — of how much life is going to change for you. To make that life as rich as you would like it to be, it's not too early now to think about making connections with other families like yours, with babies of roughly the same age as yours. Our experience has been that family life only begins with our own immediate family, that it doesn't give anything like the rewards of true family living unless shared with other families. It isn't just that being alone with a child or children can sometimes demand more than we have. Sharing with other families can give us an ease and expansiveness and a perspective on what's going on in our own immediate life — that we might never achieve or even suspect existed otherwise. And it's of great value both to our children and ourselves if our children grow comfortable with, and get the real benefits of exposure to, other loving adults. A hundred years, ago, it would have been easy and natural for families to share daily life with each other. There would be grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins around. Or there would be plenty of us on the same block or in the same small area. But life now is so diffused, and our activities in that life are so channeled and defined, that we may actively have to go after "normal" family living in order to find it. It's worth it. If pre-pregnancy friendships don't supply what's needed now, don't hesitate to try to connect with another mother or family you may see at the park or store or wherever. If some real affinities are there, you'll sense it very quickly. And if you were in a birth class, don't forget the folks who were in it with you. As your baby gets older, there are many advantages to having informal connections with different people rather than having to go toward "institutional" situations like day-care centers. But the biggest thing is that getting together with other mothers and fathers of children in the age range of yours can give you not only great personal support and a chance to see your own baby's development in a larger and more relaxing frame, but also the deep enjoyment — it's really indescribable — of seeing new lives unfold together and intertwine. "Surrender. Give in to the baby's needs as your first priority, and give up fixed ideas of what you were going to do. Once I really dropped any desires to pursue my personal interests while the baby was little, it made everything so much easier. It's hard to do at first, but not as hard as the false starts and frustration. Once I got it straight in my head, and decided to surrender to her needs, everything flowed out of that." "My advice to a brand-new parent is to use this opportunity to see how fresh and beautiful a new human being is, and understand what a wonderful, accepting friend you have in your baby. There's so much talk about the 'problems' of parenthood. But most of those problems have everything to do with the world you're trying to fit your baby and your life into — not with the baby. I think that the more we try to bend the world to the needs of the child instead of the other way around, the more we're meeting the real responsibility of being a parent right now." Our Children, Our Friends This is the point of transition from the year of birth into the many years of exploration of what it is to be a parent and what it is to be a child and what it is to be a person in this changing world. What we'd like to convey is our feeling that being a good guide to children goes with and depends on being a good companion — a friendly, open companion ready to appreciate, learn, and change. A good friend of ours, a prime mover in making Year of Birth happen, was talking to us and other members of her birth class a few years ago about parenting. "Of course, you can't be a perfect parent — there will be times when you really blow it with your kids and act mean or unfair to them. The thing that has really saved me when I do that is just being able to come to them afterwards and apologize. To say, 'I'm sorry I got so mad, you know this is my first time being a Mom.' It's amazing how ready they always are to be loving and let it go." As you look down at your three-month old, it may be hard to imagine how your baby is going to grow and change, and the kinds of experiences that will happen between you. But the attitude described by our birth teacher can already apply. Your baby can't talk or necessarily understand talk, but he or she can really understand you, and to be a good guide you don't have to pretend to be a more knowing guide than you really are. You can share your whole self. And however much you know about the way the world works, you can be ready sometimes to put that knowledge aside (or on the back burner) and see and learn with your new and trusting friend. The center of our function as parents seems to be to do what we can to enable our children — that is, to give them the kind of support and background that can help them progressively enlarge their spheres of action and discover and enjoy their real interests and potential. When our children are only three months old it can be very demanding, even draining, to fill their needs. But those needs involve nothing more complicated than the straightforward requirement to provide some loving attention, some good nourishment and a clean, safe space in which they can raise their heads, look around with unthreatened curiosity, and gradually discover their bodies and their ability to move. As our kids get older, the trick is to keep being guides and guardians to them rather than falling into the role of commander - particularly the commander who is so intent on the goal of the moment (or day, or year, or lifetime) that nothing on the way merits much notice. It is easy to forget and valuable to remember that as our babies become more capable (and particularly when they start to speak), young children are living in a world that is immensely larger to them than ours is to us, and in a time scale that is so slow and stretched-out in comparison to ours that they are truly in eternity, in which it's always now for them. It's also easy for us, when there is so much to do to "get the show on the road" or keep it there, to forget that children just don't feel the same urgency about things that we do. It's a common tendency for us to accept or even create situations in which our children are accessories — willing or unwilling — to our activities, rather than participants in and co-shapers of them. Though this can be necessary at times, the trick again is balance. As children grow into our world, we can go enough toward their sense of the world that we meet them in a world that has openness as well as boundaries — a world we can truly see and wonder at as well as act on. Babies are like representatives from the source from which we all came. They give us a chance to be our real selves, without the roles that we have taken on to fit into the world as we found it. If we can take advantage of this look they give us at our original self, we can introduce them to the present world in a patient and careful way that doesn't break their connection to the source. By respecting their freshness, we can help them broaden our understanding and become better, more effective people in a world we can help re-create. Twelfth Month Year Of Birth Contents | Eleventh Month From The Beginning Home Page All contents copyright © 1991 by Crystal Press. Used by permission of authors. Neither text nor illustrations may be reproduced in any form, in print or on the Intenet, without permission in writing from the authors, John Milder and Candie Snow, who may be e-mailed at taimilder@yahoo.com. You may also contact us at that address to purchase copies of Year of Birth.