As the mother of six, I usually get one of three comments – “you’ve got your hands full,” “Bless your heart,” (I think that is a cut down, but you just never know,” or “you don’t look like you have six kids,” (again not sure). But the one thing that I am sure about is that after having all of them with different personalities, genders, and level of smart-ass-ness, I might not have a degree in child-rearing (which no one has ever accused me of), but I do have some advice for new parents to share. It isn’t that I think I am an expert, or that my advice is meant to raise sane, healthy, well-adjusted humans. Of all the advice for new parents I have received, only a few things “stuck”.
Nope, my advice is purely to help you make it through the trenches unscathed. Having children is not for the faint of heart, nor the person who doesn’t have resilience. But take heart, in the end, the journey might be long, but well worth it and chalked full of great things to get your therapy money’s worth!
Advice for New Parents
It Won’t Last Forever
I say this with great certainty. When you have children whatever it is they are doing now, will not last forever. That is meant to be of great comfort, but also meant to make you appreciate the here and now. If you are having a wonderful day and seeing the fruits of your hard labor before you in how great your children are behaving – just know they are about to bite someone.
If they take off in the store and hide until you have to alert security, again, nothing lasts forever. Enjoy the moment; take a deep breath, sometimes all in the same day. But just know life is short, their childhood shorter and you have to soak it all up, the good, the bad, the smelly, and their ugly!
They Will not Break
A little secret that most people don’t want to talk about is that babies get dropped, fall off the bed, get their head caught in a ceiling fan being thrown in the air (yep, that really happened), roll off the changing table, and drink sour milk and still survive. God makes little beings to be super resilient and hardy. They have hard craniums to protect their growing brains and they are pretty malleable and don’t brace when they fall.
No One’s Even Close Half to Perfect
I say this not to test the limits of what they can handle, but to make you feel okay when you accidentally hit their head on the car door when putting them in their carseat, clip their fingernails too short and make them bleed, or take a bottle that is from the day before thinking it is fresh and feed it to them. And if it makes you feel any better – I am using all of those examples because I know first hand, and I had six kids, and still have six kids.
Don’t Ever Say “My Child Would Never”
Okay, remember the time you were in the grocery store and you saw a kid reach out and literally just slap their mom across the face and scream “I hate you”? What did you think… let me guess, “my child will never…”.
It Isn’t Always Your Fault!
The thing about thinking your child will be holy than though and that you are going to be such an amazing parent is that it will ALWAYS come back to bite you in the ass – mark my words – ALWAYS. As much as new parents want to believe that the actions of children can be guided and completely controlled and swayed by the goodness of the parenting, it can’t.
Children are given to you with their own little personalities and sometimes they are super easy, sometimes not, sometimes they change from day to day. But I warn you now, don’t ever take a sigh of relief or do a victory dance that your child is better than the one you just witnessed throwing a temper tantrum – they aren’t and they will prove it as soon as you utter those words.
Pick Your Battles
Pick Your Battles. I think that if I got stressed out about all the little things that my children do that irritates me, then I would be fighting the same battle every moment of my life. What I have learned is that you can’t sweat the small stuff. Having Custer’s Last Stand over whether they can wear footed pajamas to the grocery store at the age of three is going to end badly and in a major argument that will only make you end up feeling bad. If your son wants to wear a pick tutu around the house, let him.
Don’t ever worry about what other people will think or guide your parenting skills or what you should or should not let them do according to what others will think. The small things aren’t worth it. Save the standoffs for the things that really matter and when you do put your foot down, they will know that it isn’t budging.
Advice for New Parents – Show a United Front of Be Torn to Saunter
The best piece of advice for new parents is to always show a united front. Imagine that you are on a ship with a bunch of crew members. If you don’t have the same rules and stand behind one another, you are going to have mutiny on your hands.
If your husband says something, it is the word – no matter how you feel about it. And if you take a stand about something, make sure he has your back. You can discuss how you might have handled it differently when little ears aren’t around to hear, but when you are in front of them, show consistency and cohesion or they will exemplify the statement “united we stand – divided we fall”!
Never Negotiate With Terrorists
If there is one thing you take away from all of my wonderful advice is that you can’t ever negotiate with terrorists and that is what kids are – terrorists. Anytime you are in a store and you say “no, you can’t have that toy,” no matter how big of a fit they throw, no matter how much they cry, no matter how many swears they learn from Dad comes out their mouths, you have to hold fast!
If you show any signs of weakness their depravity will only get worse and their intensity louder and more disruptive. When you draw a line in the sand, you have to stick with it no matter the cost. The good news is that you will only have to do it a couple of times before they understand that no matter how embarrassing they make it for you- you aren’t going to back down. Stand your ground, I believe in you, you’ve got this!
Take Heart and no Judgment, Crying Never Killed Anyone
This is one piece of advice for new parents that I didn’t learn right out the gate. Nope, I suffered through five babies before I learned one tried and true fact, crying never killed a child, shaken baby did, but crying itself has not. I know it is super hard to let a baby cry themselves to sleep.
Let Them Cry
And I will tell you the most important piece, you can only do this if you feel good about it, but letting your baby cry themselves to sleep doesn’t make you insensitive and it isn’t harmful if you have done everything you can to try and soothe them. Human beings need to learn to self-soothe, which means calm themselves down. And those tendencies are formed very early on. I am a tender soul and I never wanted my children to cry or hurt.
So, I spent a whole lot of my nights putting them to bed for hours on end. I laid in their rooms to comfort them, I picked them up and rocked them, I drove around with them, I ordered sleep machines, tried different formulas, wore myself out trying to wear them out to sleep. The last one I let cry it out for two nights and guess what, she just went to sleep when I put her in her crib. That was it. I see no ill effects, in fact, she is still the one with the best impulse control.
Like I said do what you are comfortable with, but know if you are comfortable with them crying themselves to sleep for a night or two, you will both probably be better for it – and don’t let anyone judge you.
Catch Them Doing Something Right
It is super easy to catch your kids doing something wrong and to discipline them. And I totally believe in the word “no,” so I am not one of those touchy feely, we have to build their self esteem by rewarding them for breathing. But I will say that if you want a child to be the best version of themselves, then you have to reward them for the good that they do.
A comment about being proud is much more lasting and productivity than to point out their faults. So, try to make a special effort to tell them about a job well done, a response to empathy that makes your heart soar, and all of the greatness you know they have inside. Catch the times when they do everything right and they will hopefully override those times when they do not so right.
Trust Your Instincts – Like for Reals
When you think about how miraculous it is that you can cook a little human being in your belly for nine months and they can live for like nearly a century… pretty spectacular! The thing about the human species is that we have been around for a bit, well before Dr. Spock. God had a plan when he designed us and I believe that plan was to give parents an embedded instruction manual. Are some people more natural and better at it than others, duh.
But there is a reason why God gave you the gift of life that you are about to hold in your hands. So, trust your heart and your head and don’t second guess yourself. If you do what you know is right, take a breath before you make any major decisions and think before you act – you got this.
No one makes it through parenting or being raising without battle wounds
Am I an expert on parenting, not by any standard, but I am an expert on going through the process and trying to figure out what brings out the best and the worst of both parent and child. And I want you to trust yourself and follow you.
And those battle wounds make us who we are, and teach us what to do and what not to do on the road to being a productive member of society. Trust your love and your heart and you can’t ever go wrong.
