Flow: letting go into joy

I'm about to go on vacation, so here's the last installment of the discussion. Hope you enjoyed our book group!
Thanks for participating,
Miriam

What's been the most difficult thing about adjusting to new parenthood? How did/might you overcome it?

I found that time changed once you become a mom, especially of a newborn. Before I was a mom, I felt more "in control" of my own time, but w. a newborn, I find that sometimes time went very slowly, while other times, it zipped by, and with a newborn you almost tune-out the rest of the world.

I found that for me, the most effective approach was just to accept the fact that once your a mom, time is not your own, but as someone who came from a very "controlled" mode before, this was tough!

Even though this definitely adjusts and gets better as the baby gets older, even now as a mom of kids who are not babies anymore, I find similar challenges - how much time it takes to get everyone out of the house - I always underestimate it!

New parenthood? Lack of sleep.

In college, I had this rule that I would never pull an all-nighter, I would always make sure to sleep between 4-6am, no matter what.

Turns out babies don't obey that rule.

Going to bed and knowing that you will not get a good night's sleep was very stressful.

As Chavi said, you have to resign yourself that this is what you need to do. It also helps to know that your body will adjust (4-6, 2-4, whatever, as long as you sleep sometime). And of course - co-sleeping is a big help as is nursing lying down. It's very different than sitting in some cursed rocking chair

But new parenthood is months or even weeks.

The hardest thing long-term - and also the most interesting - is always having to handle new stages of development, and to keep up with the changes in our kids, and in our relationship with them.

That's for years. A lifetime, and even beyond. "As long as I'm living, my mommy you'll be".

LFE, you're so right about this. Very, very true.

People assume once your children are a certain age you've got it all figured out, but I've often felt that once you figure out one stage, it's not long before the rug gets yanked out from under your feet and you're back to learning how to deal with the newest situations! Humbling but good.

So true!

I am so much calmer about the development of my second son, because it's not new to me. 2 year old tantrums? I expect them rather than being thrown for a loop. I've dealt with it once before, I can do it again...

There's a reason why our oldest get "pi shnayim" (double portion) according to the rules of torah - they have to put up with more parenting mistakes as we're learning through them!

But it's not just with the first kid. I find that every child at every stage is a new experience. Though part of that might be the large gaps I have between kids.

When I first read Miriam's question, I thought, "who can remember back that far?", .

But it turns out I do remember. When ds was a newborn, I kept questioning his latch and how he was breastfeeding. It turned out the he was doing everything right; *I* was getting in the way!!

So the LC explained this all to me as nicely as she could, and I learned to trust him. This lesson has served me very well ever since.

But tachlis, LfE is completely right. I have four kids, and thanks to their varying needs and personalities, I am a new mother a lot more often than I would have expected when I started on this journey.

For me, I think the hardest part of the newborn period with my first was the isolation - both physically (it was hard to get out of the house with a brand new baby in the winter) and emotionally (I didn't have a support network).
So, the steep learning curve was made harder by lack of support.
Whilst the exhaustion, bf difficulties, and logistics of juggling the older kids with a newborn were still challenges with the subsequent newborns, the isolation was less with the others as I had more of a support network of friends nearby, and I had to get out more for the big kids.