There are certain things for sure that you do better the fifth time then you did the first four times, and there are other things that are universal. I don’t think it would matter if you’re on your 12th baby, they’d still be the way you feel and what happens.
Here are some of my motherhood truths from my fifth time around the new baby block:
- Babies are just so… ugh! Scrumptious! I mean, this is quite possibly why I have so many of them. This latest one in particularly… he smiles all the time, and it has a very serious effect on my ovaries…
- We all doubt ourselves. Everyone! If you too periodically doubt yourself, don’t worry. We’re all in this together.
- Speaking of being all in this together, mum friends are a game changer. When I had my second and third babies I had a really close group of friends I saw very, very, very regularly. This was amazing, and it soothed my weary sleep deprived mind, soul and body. This time I also have a wonderful group of mum friends (though none of them are having babies. But they are still wonderfully supportive friends, and we match kids at other ages!), and it’s so nice to just have other people to sit and have tea with while kids play, and have a little complain to, and most importantly to see other people really care and love on your kids is just so amazing.
- It really is amazing what you can do with no sleep. Like seriously. I’m 37 years old. The thing I was most worried about when having this fifth baby wasn’t how to cope with five kids or something like that, it was how to survive (and thrive! and parent!) on very little sleep. Number of my kids that could sleep for more than an hour and half stretch at night from birth to 1 year…. *drumroll*…. one. And that’s a sad little story about starving and conserving energy by sleeping. So no, I did not have high expectations that this baby would be a good sleeper (I’ll admit, I did have a very small hope that this would be some sort of miracle sleeping baby, but alas…), but I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how functional, and quite honestly, how supernaturally patient I have been on jack all sleep for the last 6 months.
- It’s never too late to say sorry, and make amends. This one isn’t so much about the baby, but just something I really believe passionately the older I get as a parent. Kids need to be apologised to when you overstep or make a mistake that affects them. It really makes a huge difference. I don’t like to give excuses for my bad behaviour, but I do sometimes offer an explanation as to why Mummy just lost her shit, and hope that this calm and reasonable approach helps them to forgive me, and maybe even help play their part in insuring it doesn’t happen again!
- Everyone loves babies. Other kids love babies, other adults love babies. Almost everyone will say yes if you hold them a non-crying baby and say “Could you hold him for a sec while I do ___________”. It’s just your job as a parent to work out if this person is someone you need to protect your baby from (I’m looking at you toddlers with sticky fingers, or sisters with not great upper body strength), or someone you can palm them off to while you go pee.