Lessons From A First-Year Parent

While I was pregnant so many people told me how fast time would fly. It was very hard to believe them when I was 36 weeks along and feeling as though I’d pop any second. But as many of you know, they were right.

It has now been an entire year of watching my little newborn baby boy grow into a one-year-old. Time flew so fast that I have to constantly refer back to the thousands of pictures and videos we took just to remind myself of how tiny he used to be. If this year flew by fast I can only imagine how much faster time is about to speed up from here on out.

This first year of being a parent has taught me more than I could have ever thought possible. I had known from a very young age that I wanted to be a mom. I had a natural way with children even from a young age as an older sister. (My siblings might have a different view on this though!) I loved babysitting in high school and would cuddle any baby that would let me. I couldn’t wait for the day when I would snuggle my own!

Even with my natural tendencies toward children, I was totally unprepared for how much it would take to raise a child of my own. Everyone warns you about the sleepless nights, tears, and inevitable feeling of failure. But you can’t fully understand til you’re in the trenches experiencing it for yourself.

The first thing I learned as a parent is that I can’t do it on my own. Ever since I was a very young child (ask my parents) I have been fiercely independent! I took pride in accomplishing so much on my own. But when you’re trying to recover from major surgery (c-section), feeding around the clock, and changing more diapers than you thought possible, you come to a point when you just can’t do it on your own anymore. I have learned how truly amazing my husband is this year! I knew he was pretty great the first day I met him (July 21, 2017), but when I saw him step into his role as a dad, I loved him even more than I thought was possible before. I have learned to rely on him when I just couldn’t go any further.

Another lesson that I learned is that babies are a lot more resilient and hardy than we give them credit for. I was terrified that anything I did would mess him up forever. The first veggies that he rejected sent me into a tailspin of wondering if he’d hate vegetables forever and be a super picky eater. When he went through multiple sleep regressions in a row, I truly thought that he’d never sleep through the night. But what perspective a whole year brings! He now eats about the equivalent of 4 children his age and he still only has one tooth. He’s also been sleeping through the night since about 8 months old and is now taking one solid nap a day. I’ve learned that you can’t just assume your child is messed up forever from one small speed bump along the way.

I learned the hard way that you won’t be able to survive if you constantly compare your journey as a mother to everything you see and read online. In the beginning I read every blog and Instagram posts in an effort to figure out what I should be doing. It helped in the beginning, but I finally just had to cut out all of the opinions and figure out what was best for my baby boy. Once I did that it was so much easier to be the parent I knew I was meant to be.

I could go on, but I wanted to close with the most important lesson I’ve learned in my first year of being a mom. This year has given me an entire new perspective on who my God is to me. I’ve written multiple blog posts about it, but I never get tired of reflecting on how much more He means to be now that I understand more of what it means to be a parent and love your child more than you’ve loved anything or anyone (besides my husband) else in the whole world. It gives me just the smallest vision of how great His love truly is for us, His children.

Happy 1st birthday my dear boy August! You are loved more than you could ever imagine!