Face motherhood with a full night of sleep behind you.
When I outlined this post in my head, it was intended to be a positive follow through on last night’s post. However, my one year old is recovering from shots and grappling with her second (and apparently final) round of teething. She goes down to bed easy as pie, but her sleep is choppy at best, and so is mine.
So above all, I have to say that the key to overcoming the general overwhelm of early motherhood and the mild to moderate baby blues is to get your kid to sleep as much as possible, as early as possible. It was so easy for me to become trapped in my own confusion when I wasn’t sleeping enough to really recharge at night.
I can say this with clarity because for about three weeks, Samantha was sleeping for 6-8 hour chunks in her crib, in her own room. The time before the season of sleeping is nearly a year-long blur, and now that I am in a period of upset sleep, I can identify just how valuable it was.
Beyond just a laundry list of the last several months and all the problems that cropped up, there is a point. Becoming a mother is a difficult transition, harder for some than others. It’s okay to admit when it’s hard and ask for help, whether that’s extra hands to get the dishes done, a sympathetic ear over coffee, or a regular monthly therapy session.
I think it can be really difficult to identify what the problem is and how to solve it. It took me nearly a whole year, because the very idea that something was wrong clashed so loudly with the mental picture I had painted of How It Was.
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