Is your baby sleeping through the night yet? This is the single most common question new parents get. (Not to be confused with the “treasure every moment, it goes by so fast” unsolicited advice that, while true, makes a sleep-deprived parent want to punch that well-rested parent in the face.)

There’s a few dirty little secrets about sleep that these more experienced parents aren’t telling you…

1. The “Sleeping Through the Night” milestone isn’t a permanent one.

My baby girl started sleeping through the night at just seven weeks old. She had colic and screamed for three hours every evening, and I really think she simply wore herself out, making her a great sleeper from the very beginning. On that seventh week, my sleep-deprived husband and I high-fived each other and celebrated that we had MADE IT. Whew. No more sleepless nights for us.

Yeah, that’s a joke. Turns out, my precious little girl slept through the night at seven weeks. And then a few weeks later, she got sick for the first time, and woke up every hour for a few nights. Once she was better, it took her another week or two to get back to sleeping through the night. And then we went on vacation, and threw her schedule off again, taking another week or two to get back on track. And then she started teething. And then something else came up, and then something else came up… and now at 11 months, she always sleeps through the night, unless we’re traveling, or she’s sick, or teething (kind of the same as me, come to think of it). So instead of asking each other, “When did your baby start sleeping through the night?” I think we should instead ask, “When did your baby kind of/sort of/most of the time start sleeping through the night?”

2. Those grand p­lans you had for how you would – or would not – get your baby to sleep may get replaced with something we like to call… SURVIVAL.

My husband and I read a few baby books, and because we’re (a) one of the last in our friend group to have a baby, so we’ve had plenty of time to judge everybody else’s parenting skills, and (b) huge planners and schedules make sense to us, we were determined to adopt one of those rigid parenting theories for how we would get our child to sleep… on a schedule. You know, the sleep/eat/play/sleep schedule.

And then we met our baby and realized that she’s not much of a schedule girl. And, we were very tired new parents. The book told us things like letting your child fall asleep after she nurses will basically ruin her for life. But our baby was a wonderful sleeper and preferred to sleep right after eating, no matter how hard we tried to make her change. And so, we finally gave up and decided to do what worked best with our baby girl, and she turned out to be a champion napper and sleeper. (Did I mention she slept through the night at seven weeks?)

And so we burned the book. Whatever.

3. As a new mom, you will sleep in things you never dreamed would be acceptable.

I think you just make weird decisions when you’re really tired. The other night, I went to bed in my birthday suit. Not because I was feeling frisky, but because my sick baby vomited all over me while I was up rocking her for the second time that night. And I was just too tired to find new pajamas.

Whatever.

Despite all those dirty little secrets that experienced moms may not be telling you, the one thing I will tell you is that those precious babies are worth every sleepless night, every vomit-covered pair of pajamas, and every cup of coffee you have to drink to fool your body into thinking you got enough sleep.

Sweet dreams, my friends.

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I’ve lost 10 pounds. Can I say that again? I HAVE LOST 10 POUNDS.

Man, those are sweet words to say!

In my last post, I talked about how (1) I stopped nursing, (2) went on a diet, and (3) was really hungry. After talking to a friend who happens to be a personal trainer, I found out that 1200 calories (the recommendation by My Fitness Pal, the iPhone app I’m using), is too few. That’s why I felt so hungry and run-down. She tweaked my goal to 1400-1500 calories a day, and you know what, turns out that is PLENTY of food. It’s totally sustainable, y’all.

I’m averaging somewhere around 1350 calories a day if you look at a weekly average (I love My Fitness Pal because it lets you look at charts and graphs… which motivates me to trade that donut for a banana). Before this diet, I used to have, oh, about two cheat meals a day. Now I have about two cheat meals a week, and even when I have those cheat meals, I try to watch my portion sizes. And you know what? I feel so much better.

Crazy how that works. Not stuffing yourself until it hurts = feeling kind of good. Not eating a bunch of junk = having more energy. I’m exercising some, but not as my primary way to lose weight. I’m losing weight because of nutrition.

I write down every single thing I eat, every single day, in my app. I have a couple of friends (two fellow moms losing baby weight with me, and one girl who’s getting married), and every day they can see if I was under my calorie goal for the day. I told them it’s like a walk of shame if they see that I missed my goal. It’s the motivation I need.

I’ll post more on what I’m eating later – mostly I’m focusing on a super healthy breakfast of eggs + fruit, and substituting snacks and junk for fruit and yogurt, and following recommended portion sizes. But let me say it one more time… I HAVE LOST 10 POUNDS.

{this is me doing a happy dance}

 

Y’all, two big things happened this week.

1. I weaned Wrenn. Completely. No more nursing.

2. I went on a diet. A good, old-fashioned, count your calories and work out diet. Nothing fancy.

And boy am I hungry.

But first, the weaning.

After Christmas I went down to just three feedings a day. Then dropped to two a few weeks ago. Then one… just a nighttime feeding. I knew the full weaning would come sooner than later. My goal had been to hit nine months (which is today), and to get Baby Girl through flu season. Part of me has been scared that the minute I wean her, she’d get sick.

It was so much more emotional than I could have ever anticipated. Like, I cried, y’all… several times last week as I nursed her to sleep, wondering if it would be the last time. I kept praying that God would show me when it’s time to stop. I worried that I was stopping for selfish reasons. I’m ready to have my body back. I’m ready to never pump again. I’m ready… but the readiness all seemed to be about me.

Over the past few weeks, I realized Wrenn was ready too. The reason I dropped my morning feeding was because she just wasn’t interested. Some mornings she would completely snub nursing, or nurse for less than five minutes and then lose interest. So I followed her cues and stopped.

In the last few weeks, after nursing her at night, she was waking up starving around 5:00 a.m. Mr. Right would get up and make a bottle, drop it in her crib (yes, I realize this goes against all the baby books and makes us horrible parents, but guys… we are TIRED) and she would go back to sleep. On the nights we gave her a bottle before bed, she slept better. I don’t think I was making enough to keep her full.

Then she started biting me. She would look me in the eye, smile the most mischievous smile ever, then slowly lean in and BITE ME while maintaining eye contact. She thought it was the most fun game ever. I tried sternly saying no – it made her cry, but it didn’t make her stop. I tried pulling her in close (a trick that makes it impossible to bite), but again, it made her cry without changing her behavior.

And that’s when I realized… nursing her was causing BOTH of us stress. Unnecessary stress. It had gone from a sweet bonding experience to something that was causing friction, something that could easily be solved with a bottle. SHE was ready. I was ready.

And so I stopped. Just like that, I stopped.

I’m trying not to think about how much I will miss it… because I will. With our plans to adopt, this may be my only baby to ever nurse. And it was such a beautiful experience. I LOVED it more than I ever thought I would. I will miss it. It means the end of a chapter in my life, the one where I became a mother for the first time.

Instead I’m trying to focus on all the good parts of weaning. For the first time in two years if I get sick, I can take medicine. If I am tired, I can drink that extra cup of coffee. I can burn my nursing bra, put away the nursing tanks and go back to regular clothes. I may go wild and wear something STRAPLESS.

I am focusing on the good things, the fun things this new chapter of Wrenn’s life is bringing. The crawling, the (almost) talking, the new foods she gets to try. I am focusing on the good. This is the most fun stage YET.

I am also focusing on the last few pounds I have left to lose from this pregnancy, now that I can truly diet again. I’ve dropped several in the past 10 days, thanks to my new spin bike and counting calories through My Fitness Pal. I don’t love it. I’m hungry ALL THE TIME. But I do love watching the scale tick down, closer to my goal. Ten more pounds to go before I hit my pre-pregnancy weight, and then another five or so before I hit my ultimate goal. I can do this. I can do this. SOMEONE GIVE ME A CUPCAKE. No, I can do this.

So, dear friends, I need two things from you: please leave me either (1) encouragement about life post-weaning, or (2) a link to your favorite low-calorie recipe on Pinterest. Something that will fool me into thinking I’m eating a bacon cheeseburger but will only cost me 300 calories on My Fitness Pal. Those things exist, right?

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You know those things that sound really good in your head, but in reality are a terrible idea? Yeah, that would include things like taking bluebonnet pictures. Because it’s ALWAYS a good idea to put a helpless baby into a field of tall grass and weeds and cross your fingers that a rattle snake doesn’t eat her.

But we’re new parents, so of course, we just HAD to get bluebonnet pictures. Well, confession… I’m the genius who just HAD to get the pictures, because that’s what good Texas mamas do, right?

While we were in Round Top, we stayed in an amazing farmhouse on 90 acres, and everything around us was covered in gorgeous bluebonnets. It was like heaven. So after a long day of shopping for junk antiques, we decided to take the grandparents and our nephew out for some photos.

New parents, I’m going to save you some heartache. Here’s a list of how NOT to take bluebonnet pictures with your baby:

1. Pick a really cold day. Cold, windy, rainy… and then dress your baby in summer clothes because the outfit “matches the bluebonnets.”

2. Take the pictures during naptime. Because babies are always extra smiley when they’re tired.

3. Choose to take them during naptime on a day when they’ve been shopping for SEVENTY BAJILLION HOURS. You know, because they’ll definitely be in a good mood.

4. Decide that the baby doesn’t need to sit on a quilt, because that distracts from the bluebonnets. Bluebonnet pictures have very particular requirements – the child must sit directly on the ground, surrounded by bluebonnets.

5. Go a little crazy and just LAY the baby down in the middle of the bluebonnets.

6. When the baby starts screaming hysterically, pick her up, brush off the dirt… and then realize that it’s not dirt on the baby’s head… no, her head is COVERED IN ANTS!!!!!!!

7. If you’re a mother, this is where you should start freaking out. Which will make the baby cry even more.

8. Forget the bluebonnet pictures, run the baby inside, and start GOOGLING THE HECK OUT OF YOUR PHONE trying to figure out how to treat ant bites on a baby.

9. Freak out just a little more. You know you want to.

10. Call your friend who is a doctor, seek medical advice on multiple “Mom Pages” on Facebook, pray like crazy your baby isn’t allergic, and then call it a day. You have officially completed your first annual bluebonnet pictures.

Repeat next year…

(PS – It turns out that Wrenn is not allergic to ants… the bites didn’t even bother her… praise the Lord.)

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