But umm RACHEL!! Shiloh is 10 months! Yeah yeah I know. Not totally in denial (kinda but not totally). I wanted to recap these wild last 10 months, partly because Shiloh is my favorite topic ever, partly because there are other Mama’s out there that will be nodding their heads in agreement with me, and partly because there are mamas-to-be that will find this info helpful for their upcoming journey.
Mostly though, I’m afraid to forget.
So many wonderful moments come and go, and I had been convinced I could never forget them…but the newness of every phase brings its own moments. Shiloh has letters and videos from us that someday she will look at and possibly roll her eyes at her corn-ball parents, but these posts are also a gift to her. They are a highlight reel of what we learned, what went well, and memorable moments.
As I started writing about these past 10 month with her, I realized it was more like a book, not a blog post. So, my little girl gets a whole series on her.
To say Shiloh has been the most amazing blessing feels like the biggest understatement of my life. If you haven’t read her birth story, you can find it here. Or, if you are looking for a list of our most used baby items, skip to the end – no offense taken. 😉
Otherwise, here’s a glimpse at our first three months.
Those First Few Days Were…
A whirlwind. I was in utter awe at this tiny being and YES we counted and recounted her tiny fingers and toes because we simply could not help ourselves.
Shiloh was born at 9:21 pm and she slept like a champ overnight and we got the best sleep ever.
Hahahahahahahaha jk. Not that I minded, I mean we waited so long to meet her and were thrilled to spend this time with her, but the sleep deprivation was R E A L.
I didn’t remember learning that babies have their days and nights all mixed up, but it makes sense. She had been rocked to sleep in her comfy waterbed & perfect temps all day, every day by my daily movements for the past 9 months. Night time was for play, day time was for sleep.
It crossed my mind on multiple occasions over those first few months that women must be superheros because how on earth can you put your body through the most stressful and taxing thing ever, only to dive right into sleep deprivation for months without a definitive end in sight and still function and even ENJOY it??!
What I Didn’t Talk About
I don’t know why I struggle so much sharing when I am going through a tough time. My default is to be to put on a brave face and focus on something else. It is something I am acutely aware of and have been actively working on, especially when I was going through that new postpartum period.
Postpartum was tough. Like, those first few weeks were really a struggle. Weirdly though, the struggle didn’t outweigh the amazingness of everything.
I can’t say I dealt with postpartum depression (my heart goes out to all you mamas who have though!) I just had such high expectations for this time. All through pregnancy I was able to workout (even the day right before Shiloh was born) so I thought I would bounce right back. While I may have looked like it, I didn’t feel it…which is basically the reverse of what I had expected. Mentally and physically I was this new person and I really had to give myself the grace as I worked through this.
About one week postpartum we went for a walk, and a little elderly couple with canes passed me out…and I was using the stroller as if it were a walker haha! So yes, walking was tough. If anyone was to check my google search it was pretty much will I ever feel normal after childbirth & do second degree tears ever heal.
Fun fact: Yes & Yes.
One of my sweet friends gave me a care package along with the wise advice to treat this “fourth trimester” as if it were my job to rest and heal. If you are a new mama, I hope these words sing to your heart like they did to mine. (Some other great postpartum tips were shared in a recent post: Interview with a Doula.)
By the time my 6 week doctor appointment rolled around I was maybe a week into feeling “myself”, but in all honesty there were so many moments I thought it was hopeless…dramatic but true lol. If you are a new mama and worried about that, I promise you, you will feel better again!
It wasn’t until I erased expectations and standards I created for myself that I suddenly realized – you got this and today is better than yesterday. In the big picture, it was such a short period of time that was tough. Even during the hardest moments, I would still do it all over again a million times.
Our Typical Days & Nights
Once I got my strength back, things really got fun. Shiloh was a dream baby! She would fuss when she was hungry or had a messy diaper, and then maybe a bit when she was ready for a nap. But really she was not a baby who cried for no reason. She spent like 99.8% of her time sleeping and eating. The rest of the time she just stared at us or our plants. I literally have never seen a baby so observant – the way she would soak up her environment and the people around her.
I got the Moms On Call book, although to be honest I didn’t do a great job of following their sleep training program. By the time I got it, we were already in a pattern that was far from perfect, but somehow worked for us. I did find the book super helpful for tips and general guidelines. For example, I learned the importance of eat-wake-sleep cycles and tried to work that into our “schedule”. Another awesome resource I recently stumbled on is Taking Cara Babies. I didn’t know about her and her sleep tips at the time but I wish I had!
I’d love to be able to share our schedule, but it was more like a non-schedule. We would get up around 8, she would nurse right away and be back down for a nap by 830/9. Then it was nursing every 2 hours and napping in between. Plus lots of tummy time & snuggles of course. Randomly there would be time blocks where she would cluster feed, which basically means she was ready to nurse almost every hour. I honestly felt like I just nursed her 20 outta 24 hours a day haha.
Typically she was up from her last nap around 730/8, then we would start bedtime routine and she would be back to sleep for the night around 830. Waking to nurse every 2-3 hours.
I know this sounds so basic but I loved this phase. Turns out every phase is so fun, but in the moment I thought it just couldn’t get any better. She taught both Matt and I how to slow down. You would think that waking up in the middle of the night to feed and change a diaper would be dreadful, but it was so special having these sleepy quiet moments. Shiloh would snooze right through the diaper changes so that made it easier, I’m sure.
A friend gave us a SnuggleMe and it was literally life changing! I know there’s a lot of info about what is and isn’t safe sleep for babies, but after chatting with our pediatrician we felt very comfortable with letting her sleep in it. Once she did, there was such a huge difference in her sleep. I know DockATot is super popular, but we love that this one is organic and has this cool sling technology that cuddles your babe.
What Nursing Was Like…
To be totally honest, I planned to nurse Shiloh because I read about the health benefits, but I can’t really say I had the desire to nurse her. Once she was born, though, it was like a switch flipped and suddenly nursing became the most amazing and special thing. I craved these private moments where I would see little nuances of her personality come through and feel our bond grew tighter.
Before we left the hospital, I was able to get help from a lactation consultant and then followed up after we left. I highly recommend doing that! It was definitely tricky getting a hang of it. I always thought it was a simple pop-em on and go thing but it’s a little more complicated. (Did you know it’s not supposed to be painful?? Seriously – lactation consultants are amazing!)
Like I mentioned earlier, Shiloh would cluster feed, so I was convinced she wasn’t getting enough milk. By cluster feed, I mean girlfriend would start to nurse and then keep going for like an hour straight, take a break and then right back in for more. That added up to a lot of time to sit around and google “is it normal for my newborn to nurse for an hour…every hour…all day long”. I already felt completely unqualified as a mother so all of that googling only fed my complex.
There are two pieces of advice that I focused on.
First, her pediatrician reminded me that every baby has their own normal. She called some babies “barracudas” – they’re done nursing within 5 min flat. Others are “grazers” and just take their sweet time. Actually her specific words were that Shiloh was “a cluster feeding grazer”…that still makes me laugh. The thing is, that was her normal. NORMAL! She had enough wet diapers and had great growth rates (always in the 90-95th percentile!) to know she was being well nourished.
The second piece of advice came from a sweet friend who had been a lactation consultant. I realized that Shiloh could have been “nursing” so frequently out of comfort and not because she was actually hungry. I looked at that as a bad thing that we needed to fix.
My friend turned that theory upside down. Basically, so what. So what if she’s just nursing for comfort? And it struck me, she is so so right. Here’s this tiny human that was thrust into this world full of new things except me. She knows my voice, my smell, my touch. If snuggling close brings her comfort, why is that a bad thing? She’s not manipulating me or trying to dictate my lifestyle (as some things I read had me believing…thanks Google).
As a girl who was used to always being on the go, this was just another life lesson on slowing down. I stopped trying to fix this because I realized it wasn’t broken. And you know what? Every phase is so short, even though in the moment it feels like it would never end.
Our Top Five
There really are so many! But here are our top five…
Her newborn cry – We thought it was the loudest thing in the world, but fast forward a few months and I realize that newborn cry was nothing more than a squeek (she’s got some lungs now though!)
Morning unswaddling – Matt and I would race to be the one to unswaddle her because it was the sweetest moment! There is nothing like newborn stretches. I’m half proud of myself for living in the moment and thoroughly enjoying them and sad I didn’t document them more.
*New parent tip: snap or video those sweet moments (so you can look at them while your baby is sleeping, cuz that’s pretty much all you will do).
The smiles, oh the smiles!! Everyone said it was gas until they were on the receiving end of a Shiloh smile. We were seriously blessed with such a happy baby. She would smile in her sleep (side note: what exactly does a newborn dream about that makes them smile??!!!) and while examining faces, trust me – it wasn’t gas.
Another thing that MUST be mentioned here is a milk drunk Shiloh. With eyes rolling in the back of her head, going cross-eyed and drooling milk, girlfriend was living it up! If you missed it, I had to save these epic faces to my Instagram highlights under “Shiloh pt 1”.
Last, but not least: I will always remember our first night home as very new, rookie parents. We set up Shiloh’s bassinet on the far side of our bedroom – in rocking mode, of course. I heard her moving around, but kept telling myself – just relax, she’s fine. Finally I couldn’t take it and had to peek. Well, this little peanut had rocked her way right out of her swaddle and diaper. So there she was, her tiny naked body all flailing limbs and looking at me with her furrowed brow as if saying ‘what the heck mom’ and it was in that moment I was convinced I was a failure as a mother. Matt talked me down, and then after 3 hours of sleep (broken up into 15 minute increments, of course), I felt refreshed and ready to take on this whole motherhood thing.
What We Learned
We are so blessed with an amazing family and community of friends who visited us and brought us meals. I’m still so touched by it! If it wasn’t for that, we probably would have been eating cereal & frozen waffles. My first tip for mamas is to start making extra at each meal for about a month before due date and then freeze half!
Second, we never offered the bottle to Shiloh until around the 3-4 month mark and I really wish I hadn’t waited so long. I loved our quiet time when she was nursing and snuggling, and I thought that giving her a bottle meant trading in those moments. I thought that Shiloh would prefer a bottle to nursing, or that she would forget how to nurse once she uses a bottle. Turns out those weren’t rational thoughts.
When it was time for me to head back to work, it was so stressful for both Shiloh and Matt as they were so new to the dynamics of bottle-feeding. If I could go back and change something, this is a big one. Just a few feedings a week from the beginning would have made a big difference, I believe. Even if you aren’t planning to go back to work, you want your baby to be able to take a bottle. Which leads to the third lesson….
I wish I started pumping right away! Not only does it help with your breast milk supply, but it’s pretty stressful not having much reserves when heading back to work. Even something as basic as heading to the gym was complicated because when Shiloh wanted to eat it needed to happen IMMEDIATELY. It was always a game of calculating time of last feeding, plus a nap, minus a buffer of getting hungry early. I just think overall it would have been better to have that milk supply available.
Finally, I learned not to compare my body or my baby to anyone. Sure it’s great to have reference points, but at the end of the day we are all different. My brain knew this, but my heart didn’t. I think every new (or not so new) mama needs this reminder.
Our Top 10 Baby Items
Boppy lounger – Shiloh napped in this a lot! I love that the head is slightly elevated – great for post-feedings.
Boppy nursing pillow – Being totally honest, it’s probably more comfortable for someone with a shorter torso, but I’m including it because I used it (and still use it) a ton!
4 Moms – It took us waaaaay too long to realize that there’s a little knob that makes it recline. Once we figured that out, Shiloh loved it!
Infant tub – I love all the different ways it transitions!
White noise machine – We use this for every nap & at bed time, even when we travel. I have it set to the TV static and then use the red light for late-night feedings because I’ve read these are the best ones, but there are so many options!
Baby monitor – Such a clear picture, zooms, pans, and great night vision. Also easy to travel with!
Nose-Frieda – I have this thing about stuffy noses already, but I really hated the thought of her tiny nose all blocked up. This thing is amazing!
Solly Baby Wrap – Perfect for snuggling baby on-the-go or while doing house work. Love the breathable fabric.
Nursing cover – I used this way more than I thought I would for nursing and also covering the car seat during naps.
Snuggle Me Organic – My number 1 baby item! My only complaint is it doesn’t come in my size.
Thanks for reading!
xx, rae
that milk drunk face! 
Awwwww Rae this was so well written ♥️
thank you!! <3 xo