The moment I have been dreading for months has arrived: I can no longer contain my triplet two year olds in their cribs. Two-thirds of them are climbing out of their cribs and destroying the room. The one child who cannot climb out of their crib yet has declared her crib as ‘party central.’ The two monkeys go straight into her crib after they have destroyed their entire bedroom with such fun activities as opening the shades, emptying drawers, and dumping diapers. I find them like this on a daily basis, screaming and cheering as they bounce up and down in one crib together; this is how I knew I could no longer wait for them to make the transition to toddler beds.
Ready or not, your baby is coming! As a new mom, there will be a lot of uncertainty (and possibly tons of unanticipated guilt!): ‘Am I doing this right?’ ‘Is my baby eating too often? Not often enough?’ ‘Are they sleeping enough? Pooping enough?’ ‘Is the poop supposed to be that color?’ At times, you may think you are doing it all wrong. Even with the plethora of information available to new moms, I would be willing to bet that a few tips will elude you. Here are some practical insights nobody told me that I wish I had known as a brand-new mommy.
If you decide to have your child sleep with you, either for naps or at nighttime, and you’ve found how to make co-sleeping work with your family, it’s important to follow these safety guidelines to protect your baby. People have a lot of opinions and ‘what worked for me’ stories - but do your homework and make safe choices. Yes, I know you get tired, and, yes, I know that nothing bad has happened yet, but accidents do occur, and you want to prevent them from happening as much as possible. It should be your top priority to make sure that your child’s sleeping place is always safe.
Adding a second child to the family changes everything. The postpartum time produces a whirl of emotions that envelops everyone in those first tender months after bringing your second-born into your family. In our instinctive drive to keep newborns from harm, we often become overzealous. Thus, without being aware, we protect the baby, but not her sibling’s feelings, driving a wedge between them from the very beginning. The words and actions we use to shield our infants inadvertently seem defensive, accusatory, and negative to our older children who often do not, or cannot, communicate the hurt. Siblings may perceive that they should be happy at such a time but may be perplexed as to why they also feel sad.
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