10 Things You Need to Know Before You Have Your First Kid.

Saturday, November 17, 2012



When I was pregnant with my first, I soaked up all the parenting books, overflowing with their advice on how to get the baby to sleep through the night or proper swaddling techniques or burping techniques or get-the-baby-to-stop-crying techniques.

It's all garbage.


Look, if you are pregnant right now and reading this, I am going to save you a lot of time and tell you everything you need to know right here.

1.) If you are pregnant with your first kid, do not do ANYTHING except sleep. Just sleep, and sleep, and sleep. If you get up and the clock says 10am, fluff your pillow and go right back to sleep. May I even suggest having someone take video of you sleeping? It will be a great memory to treasure...and cry over....in the months ahead.

2.) That said, sleep deprivation is torturous. If you have a kid that sleeps through the night, get down on your knees every hour on the hour and thank your lucky stars. Don't ever complain about anything ever again.


If you have a kid that doesn't sleep through the night, quickly disassociate yourself from any friends who have kids sleeping through the night, as that will only make you feel even worse than you already do on zero sleep. (Oh yes, it's possible to feel worse.) It is perfectly ok to make yourself feel better by making predictions about all those parents with the sleeping kids...like they will probably have a horrendous time with potty training, or their kids will be the weird ones who eat boogers and like it.



3.) Realize that anything you think is weird and swear your kids will NEVER do, they will do. Like eat their boogers and like it.

4.) Never do anything productive like clean out and reorganize cabinets full of toys.

5.) If you ignore my advice on #4, this will happen about seven minutes after you are done putting the last airplane in the newly created "Airplane Bin".



6.) Do me a favor and look up "airplane bins" and "at the end of her wits" in a baby book right now.


7.) I told you those books are garbage.


8.) Set your expectations low for the day. For example, "Today I will wipe away the crusty eye boogers from my eye." That way, anything else you accomplish for the day is bonus and you feel good about how productive you are.




9.) Throw away any and all pre-pregnancy shirts now. Trust me on this. Even if you lose all the baby weight. Something really weird happens once you have a baby: all your old shirts become belly button baring crop tops. It's the strangest phenomena I've ever seen.




10.) Ignore any advice given to you by other moms who are dressed to the nines, in full perfect makeup, with their perfect kids lined up beside them. Do, however, accept any advice from their nanny, housekeeper, night nurse, or assistant.




Feel free to ask questions, get advice, or complain away to any moms who are tired, hungry, mismatched, or bitter about airplane bins. They get it.




But don't trust anyone in a crop top. 

60 Comments!:

  1. Thanks...I just put down my Sears book to go to bed.
    HUGS!!!

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  2. I love the blog and everything you listed is so true....

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  3. I LOVE your take on parenting...I would buy your book for all of my expectant friends.

    LOL!~

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  4. I just bagged up some toys and in nearly 7 minutes my 8 year old "rediscovered" them and now they are being played with in a very scattered but meaningful formation that will require many more days of imagination. Once those toys are old and boring, I'm thinking another week, I plan to quickly re-bag those toys and out the door they will go!! But only AFTER I take my naps because I am preggers with baby #3! yawn.

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  5. There was a woman who had a baby the day before me. We were in the nursing room at church together and she wouldn't shut up about how her baby slept long periods during the night and how her husband would get up for one of the feedings so she could sleep 7 hours in a row. I wanted to kick her in the throat. How inconsiderate is it to brag about that to the woman who is obviously sleep deprived, has a 2.5 year old as well and a husband who is overseas so she has to get up for every feeding.

    Another point of advice might be to remember that hormones are a perfectly good excuse to have no control over our tongues! If you want to get back at someone, unleash after you have the baby and then apologize for your "out of control" hormones.

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  6. McMommy, I agree with all points! The kids have an internal radar-once you finish cleaning, it all becomes undone again. Oh, also enjoy your showers/baths, because an open-door policy begins once the baby is born. Thanks for another fine post!

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  7. Could of used that info 15 years ago! There is a Mom at my daughters school had a baby 3 weeks ago she already looks amazing I hate her!

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  8. Great list. I've given up on organizing the kids toys. They never want to play with them anyways, they'd rather play with out pots and pans

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  9. You are absolutely dead on with all of these! Love it.

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  10. I love it :) My Daughter was up every two hours for the first six or so months!! So yes, sleep is a BEAUTIFUL thing :)

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  11. I had a child who slept 45 minutes, ate 45 minutes all night long for the first three months. Most of his naps during the day were 20 minutes. Occasional long ones were 45 minutes, but they were so sporadic as to be simply torture, not help. Trust me, sister, I hear you on the sleep deprivation. You and I should write a book for new mothers called "How to Sleep with One Eye at a Time". :)

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  12. Sheesh.....I should have know. My kid sleeps through the night, and potty training, well, is, well, not going so well.

    But, I am still greatful that Madaline sleeps through the night - she will just be 25 and still wearing diapers.

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  13. Great advice to the moms-to-be! You are spot on about the short shirt phenomenon! I remember you telling me that when we first met and I've never forgotten!

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  14. Great post!

    My B who is now 9 slept for about 5-6 hour streches at night beginning at 2 weeks. He hardly cried and one of the easiest babies I had met.

    He was a very challenging toddler. His terrible twos started at 18 months and he has calmed every year since. He went through 6 month biting phase at 18 months that was horrible and he was extrememly difficult to potty train.

    He is smart and sweet and I love him to death but if you tell me you had both an easy baby and an easy toddler I can't believe you! (does anyone have any easy toddler)?

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  15. Amen! you just talked me out of reorganizing the playroom ;)

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  16. I love number 9! I have never heard anyone else talk about this so I didn't know it happened to other people.

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  17. I know all this, and this is why I don't have kids. :) Have you read the book, "Sippy Cups are not for Chardonay?" I could totally see you writing a book like that!

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  18. My friend, Mary K. Moore, wrote the UNexpected When You are Expecting, a spoof on the classic. So funny and so true. I'm glad I read books like Jenny McCarthy's when I was pg. Helped me feel like I wasn't insane when I couldn't stop farting and my husband had to leave the room because of noxious fumes.

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  19. I think this is my most FAVOURITE EVER post from you. Seriously, thanks. I'm printing it out and giving it to my friends at a couple of baby showers I'm going to next month. And to my sister, who will hopefully soon be pregnant. OMG, you are so RIGHT about the shirts. WTF is that? I remember a friend of mine told me even if I lose the weight my clothes won't fit the same, and I was like "As if! I can totally lose all the weight, like, in 5 days and of course I'll be in my abercrombie tshirts again! I'll even be wearing them while I nurse!" Um, yeah. REALITY, Loukia, reality...
    And organizing the toys. And the books. And clothes. That always happens to me, too. 5 minutes into it, the boys will want to 'help' or they'll be doing something dangerous so I have to stop and then I wonder why I bothered to begin with. LOVED LOVED LOVED this post! Love the chair rail/paint colours in that room... we have done that for Christos's and Dimitry's room, too, only Christos's walls are blue/green and Dimitry's are yellow/blue. :)

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  20. So far I am taking #1 to heart. Due date is next Monday and I am just staying at home, lounging in pj's, enjoying take-out and sleeping while I can. Mental note about airplane bins has been taken.

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  21. LMAO at "low expectations for the day"...today's will be 'remove the dead fly i swatted yesterday from the windowsill'. I rock!.

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  22. Dude, this post is suspiciously out of left field... have you gotten McDaddy to budge on #3?

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  23. Amen...Hallelujah...you hit the nail on the head sister!

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  24. Is there a similar list for "before you have your second kid?" Because if it's half as spot on as this list, I need it! :)

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  25. Ha, ha! So true. I may have to stop being friends w/ my neighbor whose 2 mo. old just started sleeping thru the night. Meanwhile, my 4 mo. old has STILL never gone more than 3 hrs. between feedings!!

    And what is UP w/ the booger eating thing? Where do they learn that nastiness?? Other kids, I suppose...

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  26. So I shouldn't pack my silver lame crop top for BlogHer?

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  27. #9 is so spot on. I just don't understand!!!! I am 5lbs LESS then I was before I was pregnant and wearing these shirts ALL the time and NOW they don't fit? For the love of Pete (whom I have no love for). Is it that I just grew to love the long belly coverage of the maternity tee?

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  28. OMG! #9! How on earth does this happen? I thought that I had forgotten that I had really bad taste before being pregnant... when I pulled out a shirt I should be able to wear again and WHT, it's too short!

    I am so glad I read this post... I thought I was a freak of nature with regard to #9!

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  29. So perfect!

    The shirt thing....omg. I have always had a hard enough time finding shirts that are long enough since I'm so tall....in fact, some of the best fitting ones now are pregnancy shirts because they are made to be longer!

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  30. Yep, just sleep sleep sleep as MUCH as you can. FILL that sleep bank so you can make a withdrawal later :)

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  31. Well, well said girlie. YOU could be my friend IRL. As I promise you we are never neatly pressed looking our best or out the door on time.

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  32. I love your tips! So true. Those books ARE garbage - as I found out after I had my first.

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  33. Thanks! I'll save this for when the time comes!

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  34. Damn Straight, Sista! You're right, it's ALL true.

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  35. #9 --craziest thing ever. Pisses me off b/c now some of my favorite shirts don't fit.

    And, how come every shirt that is in style now has to make me feel like I'm pregnant. I never want to wear anything that ties in the back again.

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  36. Oh #2 hit close to home...Yea, mine didn't sleep through the night then, and they don't sleep through the night now. I haven't slept through the night in almost 5 years. NEVER, NOT ONCE, IN FIVE YEARS PEOPLE!!! It is torture I tell you. But I am sure this will not last forever, right? I will sleep eventually, right? I will just be old and gray and wrinkling when it does.

    And #9, WHY IS THIS? I weigh exactly the same as I did before conceiving and giving birth to 2 children, yet not one t-shirt fits the same. Boobies are smaller, weight same, yet my shirts? Miniscule...

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  37. VERY, VERY, VERY true!!! Sleeping is the MOST important thing ever once you've had the baby. I still want more now and my baby is 2!

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  38. You are so, so funny McMommy! The 'airplane bin' labeling and what happens is priceless.

    Enjoy your Wednesday!
    tp

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  39. Yeah, I liked that I read those books for #1 because then I felt like I was sorta prepared. If #2 ever comes long (If I'm insane enough to lose even MORE sleep, I have a non-sleeper at 3.5) there will be no book reading.

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  40. Perfect way to end the night was a great laugh! I relate to a lot of it, but mostly the sleep deprivation part. Hilarious post! Thank you!

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  41. Hahaha you would love my list of 10 ways to take care of a torn hoo hoo!! :)

    http://preppycoasteemommy.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-take-care-of-torn-hoo-hoo.html

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  42. umm. Where were you before I had my first? I wasted a lot of time reading those stupid books. I could have been sleeping. I'm still a little PO'd about the lack of sleep. My lovely son keeps getting up at the CRACK of dawn and wants to play, poke me, kiss me, get in my face, yell MILK at me, breathe on me, sniff me, you know, just basically BUG me until I wake up. I want more sleep. WAAAH!!! And the kid is 4 years old. Can't I send him to school already?????? At least Alexa (2.5 yrs old) sleeps. Awesome post mcmommy. You know how to write 'em. :) :)

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  43. You're pretty much bang on on #2. My kids are great sleeps but potty training - OH THE HORRORS!!!

    Good tips McMommy. This must be why they pay you the big bucks! ; )

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  44. All of these are so true! Love it!

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  45. What's so funny is that every word of this is Gospel Truth! Especially the part about the mysterious shirt shrinking nymph who visits the storage closet while your regular shirts are taking their 9 month hiatus. Amazing how that happens, eh? Until now I had wondered if I were the only one. I'm glad to know I'm not.

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  46. You speak the truth!

    The first year of my boy's life was the most sleep deprived I have ever been and I have no idea how I survived. How in the world was I able to get up all night long every night and still go to work? That is a bizarre phenomena in and of itself.

    And when my best friend bragged about how her 5 week old was sleeping 8 hours straight EVERY SINGLE NIGHT I told her I wanted to take her out in the street and fight her.

    And I was serious.

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  47. Just stumbled across this blog and love it!

    I wish I'd followed #1. Any time she sleeps I follow #2. I especially love #8 - it's how I get through my days. As for #9 - so true! What happened to all my clothes!

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  48. Number 9 about the crop tops is so dead on!!!! I have had to get ride of so many shirts because they are too short! They fit fine anywhere else and I couldn't figure it out. I'm glad you knew what was going on. :)

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  49. GENIUS!!! I am serious, this post could be expanded into a book. #8 is not only ridiculously funny but also the best advice I have heard yet. And yes, what is UP with the shirt thing? Just finally tossed all of my old ones, realizing that I would never fit them again.

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  50. Thanks from someone who hasn't had kids yet. I'm glad I'll be prepared. =) Your writing is hysterical...

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