10 days old

Nine months ago today I gave birth to Natey. He completely changed my life in a matter of seconds. I can’t completely explain what it’s like to be a mother but this I will say, it opens your eyes to a world you knew existed but never truly understood. Imagine living your life with an eye patch on your right eye and one day it is lifted. Its removal would give you clarity that you could’ve lived without but are now much happier to have. If you can grasp the idea, you can now imagine what parenthood does to you.

In the past 9 months I have learned many things and given that Natey is turning 9, I will share with you 9 lessons learned.

1. Marriage should come before anything, including your children. It’s simple, if your relationship is not doing well, the children will sense that. 

2. Coconut water will not help in the production of breast milk but it will help the quality of the milk produced.

3. Join some kind of mommy group with your baby, it will help you get out of the house the first couple months of motherhood and answer questions when facing baby issues (the instructors seem to have answers to everything!).

4. Your attitude will affect the baby’s attitude so keep it positive.

5. Check the back of your baby’s head every so often (should they have lots of hair) since a knot may form and you’ll have a very difficult time taking it out if you let too many days go by (screaming baby ).

6. Do not cut your baby’s hair yourself. Period.

7. Do expose your baby to different environments early on if you want them to be comfortable around others.

8. Do not put your baby on a rigid schedule. You’ll be hurting yourself and the baby, not to mention you’ll have little to no flexibility.

9. Have your baby sleep in different places ( crib, your bed, playpen, etc.). It will make your life easier when you’re away from home. The baby will be able to adjust to a new bed fairly quickly and if you can travel with the playpen, even better!

I hope my nine findings come useful to you at some point, be it babysitting or chatting with a parent. They may or may not work for every baby but they definitely worked for our family.

Happy birthday Nathan and thank you for teaching mommy valuable lessons! 🙂