With your first child everyone seems to have an endless supply of advice and tips but today, while scrubbing throw up out of my carpet, I began to think about all the little things people never warned me about or told me about when it comes to having a child.
Therefore here’s my list (in no particular order) of little things no one tells you:
1. Sure you need a crib, car seat, stroller and so on but did anyone tell you what you really need is a reliable vacuum? Oh and it couldn’t hurt to pick up a carpet cleaner while you’re at it. For reasons mentioned above I firmly believe a carpet cleaner should be on every baby registry
2. Even if your baby sleeps though a thunder storm, fireworks, car alarms, or dogs barking the second you step on that one tiny spot in her room where the floor creaks she WILL wake up screaming.
3. One day at 9pm on a Saturday night you’ll look up to find your still watching children’s shows, even though the baby’s been in bed for 2 hours.
4. Your childless friends will disappear, much faster than you think. We had friends on both ends of the spectrum, older empty nesters and ones our age without kids, but both disappeared. Sure we’re still friends in a Facebook kind of way but I rarely get a call text from them and actually seeing them is even rarer.
5. Everything you do is wrong. Never let a baby cry; if you don’t let her cry she can’t learn to self soothe. Make sure people wash their hands and avoid public places; Dirt helps her build immunity. You must get her on a schedule; never put a baby on a schedule.
6. You’ll never be able to eat or use the bathroom in piece again. If no one is pounding on the door while I make a quick bathroom break its only because there are little fingers under the door accompanied by a cry or whine.
7. Your car will never be clean again. My car never sparkled but it was always clean (even DH was rarely allowed to eat in my car), but now its covered in shoe marks, dirt, goldfish/cheerios, extra diapers, and all kinds of other random stuff that has turned it into a clutter mobile.
8. Those shopping cart corrals in parking lots that you used to avoid parking anywhere near will now be a hot parking spot! Who cares about a front spot, I want a spot near the shopping cart return so that I can unload the cart and the kids without an extra trip to put it away with the kiddos in tow.
9. Sleeping in when you have kids means something totally different than it did when you didn’t have kids. In my pre-kid days sleeping in meant 9:30 or 10:00 am. Now I’m bragging to my other mom friends and feel like I slept until 11:00am if I get to sleep until 8:15 am.
10. You’ll spend weeks watching your baby’s every movement and listening to every sound, searching for signs that she’s about to hit that next milestone (maybe even encouraging it) but the second your baby starts rolling, crawling, walking, or talking you’ll seriously wish you had a bit more time before they reached than point.
11. Once your baby is mobile silence is no longer golden. If one moment your child is happily playing next to you and the next you realize they are out of sight and playing quietly, don’t sit back and enjoy that moment of quiet. Grab a rag and go find that kid, odds are you’re about to be cleaning something out of your carpet, off the walls, or drawing a bath for your kid that’s now covered in marker.
I’m sure there are many more but that’s all my tired brain can thing of right now! Good thing these little buggers are cute and can melt your heart with one look because they definitely put us through the ringer! 🙂
What can you add?