Well, That Was Useless!

The learning curve is steep when you have your first child and there are many instances when you are scrambling to find the answers to questions that seemingly pop out of nowhere. Sometimes you reach out to family and friends who have kids to see what advice they have and chose from one of the many options that have inevitably been offered. Other time you reach out to the professionals and either call the doctor or, as we did a number of times early on, ask the doula. Each time we listen to the advice from those people who have “been there, done that.”

Thanks to social media, we can get a plethora of opinions and answers to our questions in a very short amount of time. At least that is what I have seen on my wife’s Facebook feed as I have usually just picked up the phone or asked someone in person when I run into them. While my approach may take longer and seem outdated by many, it is how I prefer getting the answers and advice that we need. It also eliminates the “other opinions”.

I have had countless conversations and have heard the many humorous anecdotes from family and friends who used social media (mostly Twitter and Facebook; these aren’t LinkedIn conversations) when they first became parents. While they received the helpful hints, tips, advice, and answers that they were looking for they also got the opinions of those who don’t have kids but “read somewhere that this is the best thing to do” or passed along the half of the conversation that they heard 5 years ago when their friend was considering having a child. Basically, useless information… I actually heard of someone saying that you should hold your newborn upside down and lightly shake them if they get hiccups. Wow, just wow. Either they don't have kids or they're in jail. 

While I have an opinion on just about everything (I know, you’re shocked) there are certain things that I will not offer second hand advice on. This includes parenting. And I still hold fast to that as we are only 6 weeks in so I can’t really speak from experience on anything. If specifically asked, either by phone or in person, I will gladly share my experience but I can’t give advice especially when there are general posts made on social media. Maybe after we have done this more than once I might offer my opinion but I doubt it.

A Family Of Three

Sometimes the easiest and hardest thing you can do is to ask someone for help. This is especially true when you have your first child. While there was a part of us that just wanted to do it ourselves, we knew that with everything that was going on around us it would, at the very least, be a difficult undertaking. It is with this in mind that we decided to have a doula (also known as baby nurse or postpartum nurse) assist us during the first month.

We first met one of the doulas when we were still in the hospital trying to center ourselves again after all that had transpired over the first 24 hours as a family. With our son arriving a little earlier than expected, there were a number of projects around the house that we had yet to complete. This is when we experienced one of the big perks of having this extra help as I was able to take her to the house and show her a few of the things that we would like taken care of before we got home (mostly laundry, dishes, and a few organization projects).

When we opened the door, there were a number of things checked off our list. Maybe the most important one was that we were able to go to bed that night and sleep on clean sheets. This support continued for the next several weeks as we became more comfortable with having a newborn in our life and while we had to deal with a variety of other events beyond our control.

As time passed, the help continued to be appreciated (most recently while I was on my annual business trip) but the need to be alone with our son continued to grow. Our routine was taking shape and we looked forward more and more to the times when it was just the three of us. It was time to do things on our own and look to family and friends for the advice we needed from time to time (we still sought the advice before but now it is what we solely rely upon when needed).

We still question whether we held on to the doula safety net too long but, in hindsight, we know that there were moments early on when it would have been a struggle without their presence. But now we have our routine and our son expects to see us rather than someone else when he gets fussy or wakes up in the middle of the night. While the constant support may be good for some for a long period of time, it is not something that we wanted to last and now we can enjoy life as a family of three.