2nd Time Mom

There are a lot of lessons I learned the past 17 months with Claire that I’ll be able to apply as a second time Mom, including…

· Teach them to take a bottle sooner rather than later, so you don’t have to return to work with a baby who refuses to drink from a bottle, making the transition that much harder.

· The sooner you can lay them down for bed drowsy but awake and have them fall asleep on their own, the better! While it’s lovely to rock your baby to sleep, the truth is that they go through many sleep cycles throughout the night that cause them to wake up. If they are reliant on you putting them back to sleep then you’ll be at their mercy! The best situation is when they can fall back asleep on their own.

· The 5 S’s really do work.

But the #1 lesson I learned that will benefit me as a 2nd time mom is….. (Almost) Everything is a phase!!!

This lesson can be applied over and over again. Worried that you’ll never have uninterrupted sleep again because your baby is up every 2 hours? Don’t worry, they may start STTN (for all you non-new parents out there.. that’s sleeping-through-the-night…. The most desired yet elusive quest for parents of young children) next week. On the flip side, are you mentally patting yourself on the back all day long because your two month old sleeps like a champ for 7 hours straight each night? Well hold onto your horses because tonight you may find yourself beginning a long rotation of sleepless nights.


It’s like the MN weather phrase… “If you don’t like the weather in MN, just wait for tomorrow”. Or something like that.

When Claire was in her first few weeks of life, I clearly remember desperately exclaiming to Josh, “I just want her to be AWAKE and NOT CRYING for two minutes!! Is that too much to ask?!”. I thought the day would never come, although he assured me it would. Sure enough, it wasn’t (relatively) too long before she was awake and content for periods of time.


She started sleeping through the night at 5 weeks. Yes, I was the most envied woman in my mom group. She slept like that every.single.night until she was 13 weeks. Then, magically, the week I returned to work, she started waking up two times per night, which continued for months. I told myself that she just missed me during the day and wanted more mommy time at night. Whatever you have to tell yourself, people!


She’s had a love/hate relationship with car rides. More so hate, than love, but you really never know.


I could go on and on. I’m excited to be a second time Mom. While I think I was fairly laidback (maybe too laidback at times…like when my Pediatrician’s office said, “No! Bring her to the Children’s Hospital!” when I asked if I should bring her in to their office when she was sick in February) Mom with Claire, I think I will be even more so this time around. When it comes to parenthood, I believe the phrase “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. So, bring it on baby boy! We’re ready for you!!