09-02-2013
As a first time parent I have come to the conclusion that raising a child will be the most unpredictable thing that I will endure. There is only controlled chaos, at best, based off of my current experience – that has spanned 7.5 months.
I mean, during my pregnancy I planned ahead of time that at exactly 30 days post-partum my little ones would be sleeping in their own nursery and would not come close to sleeping in bed with us. Within 30 days, in real life, they were still sleeping in our room and at least half the night in our bed. I realized, after my girls were born, that they were tiny, helpless, babies and that being in the next room over – 10 feet away, was entirely too far for their safety. How they ended up in bed with us ended up being a matter of maternal survival. You see, I could gently rock these babies into a deep sleep – like all the experts suggest – place them gingerly in the crib and within 2 seconds she would be awake! I would have to do this 2 or 3 or more times in a row before I could lie back down, then I would be lucky to get 2 hours of sleep – repeat times two. Ah, the joys of having multiples. Because I was so tired and exhausted in the very beginning, occasionally I would fall asleep while nursing, when I would look down, baby girl(s) would be completely unlatched and sleeping as well. It did not take long for me to start doing it more often. I felt like a hotdog on a rotisserie, nursing one, rolling over and nursing the other. All. 
Night. Long. Co-sleeping worked well for a few weeks, but my husband hated it for safety reasons. Eventually, baby girl(s) stopped benefitting from it as well. When one or the other, or both, would wake up babbling, or wake up crying for attention, I decided it would be best to transfer to the nursery. We made the move at 4 months of age. It dawned on me that all the noises in our room at night kept our light sleepers up. It wasn’t as huge a deal as I anticipated, the girls transitioned well and they got way more sleep than I did that first night.
Another example of how things I planned did not quite happen the way they were supposed to was our introduction to food. I planned on doing baby-led-weaning or BLW for short. It is a wonderful philosophy of having your infant decide when they are ready for people food by feeding themselves highly steamed/softened fruits and vegetables. It just so happens that my kids LOVE food, however they DO NOT love feeding themselves. If I cut up a banana and placed it on their tray, both of them would stare at me and they wouldn’t even touch the banana on the plate. Ugh, I can’t waste food so I just started mashing it up for them. If I tried to go back to BLW they would scream at me because they want food NOW! I couldn’t believe it. At least we are at least making our own purees, which has turned out to be really fun. It saves money and you know what is going into your kid. The money part was a huge incentive, the girls could eat one cup of sweet potatoes a day, which would be equal to at least 5 or 6 of those little jars. I do wish I bought a couple jars to test their palette though, the babies hated my green beans, but I tasted them and they were pretty awful. I will probably use them to blend with some other fruits and vegetables later.
Even though there have been a few things that have not occurred quite the way I have planned, there are several that have and they are going great. Breastfeeding being the primary one, I have been so lucky that I have not had any major difficulties with exclusively breast-feeding. We have also stuck to our cloth diaper plan which is going great and I have no complaints about, I think this has been a great lifesaver for me because I do not have to run out and buy diapers. When the girls were very young, we were forecasted to have a huge blizzard, I had only a day or two worth of diapers left because they were still too small to use our cloth ones, I had to drag them both out – by myself – for diapers. Not fun. The kicker? It didn’t even snow a single snowflake, the whole forecast was a bust. Now when I need diapers, I just throw them in the washing machine.
Overall, I am happy, and surprised at the way some of these early plans have played out. I am sure there will be many more to come as parenting gets more difficult. All I can think of is terrible twos, or the teenage years. I will just sit back and enjoy this while I still can!
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