During my first pregnancy I attended lots of birthing classes, read lots of books and watched lots of videos on birth and parenting. Yet none of them actually prepared me. Having gone through labour three times I can safely say each one was very different and having raised three children, I can also say that each one of them are very different indeed. In fact, there simply is not a one size fits all.
I wish I had trusted my instincts a lot more. With my third I have, with my third I have listened more to what my instincts told me and other than looking into colic, as this wasn’t something either of my older children had, I didn’t pick up a book to query something. I think this is so important that as a new Mum we do trust our instincts a lot more. After all, we grew those babies inside us, we felt their kicks, learnt their movements and they used our bladders as trampolines. Of course, ask for help if you need to but also listen to that gut instinct.
I wish I hadn’t tried to go to every single baby group. At one point my 3-month-old child had such a busy schedule with something on every day that I honestly don’t know how I managed to function and perhaps that attributes to why she is such a bad sleeper even to this day. Not surprising as I was constantly waking her up to go to the next group or play with the next baby. In reality, staying at home and just playing with her, taking my time would have been just as well spent. I didn’t do half as many groups with my second and I certainly couldn’t fit them in with my third and to be honest it hasn’t made any difference to them. Well my third does sleep a lot better.
I wish I hadn’t been so quiet at the beginning. My third child had to go with the flow and fit in with the older children's schedules. The vacuum was run whilst they were sleeping, something I never did with my older two. Life continued as normal as it could around him. He is bar far the best sleeper out of any of my children. I wish I had been brave enough to do that with the older two.
I wish I hadn’t worried about what other people thought of the house when they came to visit. Let’s face it the dust will still be there tomorrow, the dust will come back, the spider will rebuild that web but your child grows up every day and every day they are one day older. I am not saying let things go beyond control but perhaps put less pressure to keep things spotless and tidy.
I wish I had slept more when the baby slept rather than doing housework or other things. I did sleep a lot more with my third child as his elder siblings were at school. I used to love lying next to him and us having a nap together.
In fact, I wish I could go back and cuddle them as newborns just one more time.
