We’ve scheduled an induction for August 3. If Elias doesn’t make an appearance before his due date, he will be making an appearance on it. Sona is past the point of discomfort and, since Finn had shoulder dystocia, making his delivery a little difficult, we don’t want to wait for Elias to get bigger.
It’s strange to think that, at this time next week, we will very likely be a family of four. I am ready for a new baby. We worked especially hard for this one, and we know it is going to be our last. So, we’re romanticizing Elias’s newborn days in a way that, perhaps, we won’t once we’re ragged and tired.
Of course, because time is a thief, I’ve also been thinking a lot about Finn’s newborn days, which seem impossibly long ago. If you weren’t with us then, you can look back at some of my older posts, detailing that time, like this one, about the first day of his life.
I am so glad I have dozens of blog posts from Finn’s first year, as they not only help me relive that time, but they also remind me of what life was like for us as parents of a wee one. I’ve already been re-reading blog posts as a way to remind myself of some of the practical things: how we got Finn to be such a good sleeper, when we introduced solids, what our daily routine was in the first few weeks, etc. I know this stuff will come back to us naturally–like riding a bike–but it’s also nice to have record of the fact that we’ve already done this, and we all survived.
There are some things, though, that we are approaching differently with Elias. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say, and we definitely feel like we learned some things with Finn that will lead us to change things up a bit with Elias.
So, I thought I’d write a bit about what we will do the same–and what we won’t. Here it goes:
We will follow the exact same “sleep training” program. “Sleep training program” sounds a bit more rigid than what we did, actually. Still, there’s a reason this is first on the list: Finn is, and always has been, an amazing sleeper. He regularly sleeps past 8:30, goes to bed without a fuss, doesn’t wake in the night, and still takes 3-4 hour naps. We got very lucky in this regard, and folks are quick to remind us like Elias will likely be the exact opposite. Still, I’m going to follow the same protocol, which actually isn’t any formal protocol at all. We did a mix of “le pause,” from Bringing Up Bebe, starting when Finn was first born, and incremental night weaning, necessitated by Sona returning to work at eight weeks, and a tiny little bit of cry-it-out–but not until he was several months old. The fact is, Finn slept 3-4 hour stretches from the get-go, and he was sleeping through the night in his own crib, pretty much unassisted, by 7 weeks. It will be a bit trickier this time, as Finn and Elias will be sharing a room, but I plan to do things as similarly to what we did with Finn as possible. I talk a bit more about his transition to STTN here, and I’m happy to share more, if anyone wants to chat.
I will not stress as much about “connecting” with Elias in the first few days. With Finn, I struggled a lot with insecurities about whether or not, as the non-bio mom, I’d connect with him easily. That stress overshadowed some of my interactions with him in the days when we were at the hospital, which I wrote about here. I also spent a lot of time running around, checking on the pets and taking care of out-of-town guests, in those first couple of days, which meant that I missed out on some hospital time. All of that got me pretty down, and I had more than a few good cries. What I now know is that I will love Elias to the ends of the world and back again, and our relationship doesn’t hinge on how much time we get together in the first 48 hours, though, of course, I want all of the time. With Elias, I’ll be more confident that things will progress naturally, and I won’t let worry about that interfere with the birth.
I will not wear an ugly grandma bra for my first skin-to-skin interaction. Okay, this is silly, but really: LOOK AT THIS PHOTO. Don’t worry. I already bought a simple black sports bra for the occasion.
Sona will be better at self-monitoring her emotions. This is a biggie. Sona is, now, quick to say that she didn’t enjoy her maternity leave with Finn. She struggled a lot as a new mom, and, looking back, I think we both wonder whether she had post-partum depression. Anxiety and fear overtook her ability to experience much joy at having a newborn, and as a result, she doesn’t remember much of that time–and she has a whole lot of regret about that. This time around, she wants to be more proactive about her emotions. That means a lot of things: seeing a therapist regularly, checking in with herself about how it’s going, and acting quickly when she feels like something is off. She wants to enjoy Elias in a way that she wasn’t able to enjoy Finn, and she knows now that she can’t get those days back.
We will try to maintain a more “normal” schedule. The luxury of only having one baby–and not a toddler–is that you can full enclose yourself in the baby bubble, which is a very real thing. Our whole lives revolved around little newborn Finn and HIS schedule. He was a night owl, and he regularly went to bed at 10-11 for the first few months. Our pediatrician actually encouraged this, saying that it’s a normal pattern for newborns, and we’d do best to let him adjust his schedule slowly. So, we did. We ate dinner at 9-10 each time, went to bed at around midnight, slept in until 10 or so, and so on. With Finn around, that just won’t be possible. If we try to do that, we aren’t going to survive.
We will shower with Elias. Finn took a couple of baths in his first week, and then I started to shower with him. In our little garden apartment, we didn’t have a large sink or much counter space, and using the big baby tub was a pain in the butt. So, showering started as a convenience, but I quickly realized that it provided the perfect opportunity to cuddle and connect. So, we kept it up. To this day, Finn showers with me every single night, and it is my favorite time together. He takes no more than 5 baths a year, usually, and I don’t plan for him–or for Elias–to begin bathing on their own anytime soon. Family showers for the win! (For what it is worth: a month ago, I showered with Finn, his BFF Veen, and Veen’s little bro, Dev–all at the same time! So, I’ve got this.)
We will try to be more protective of our family time. When Finn was born, so was Hotel Aquiline, as our tiny little garden apartment became a revolving door for out-of-town guests. The trouble is, when everyone you love lives far away, you have to host a lot of visitors, and we were so thankful that folks wanted to come meet little Finn–and we wanted them to meet him! But hosting out-of-towners is stressful, even when they say things like “you don’t have to entertain me!” That stress is compounded when you have a newborn. This time, we’re hoping that we can keep the visitors at bay, even for just a short while, so that we can really bask in the newness of our family of four.
We will not (did not) buy too many baby shoes or onesies or blankets. I mean, why didn’t anyone tell me that babies don’t wear shoes? And we were given onesies and blankets by pretty much everyone we knew.
We will take all the photos–and more. Finn is the most photographed child in human history, and I have zero regrets about that. I look at our old photos constantly, and they are our most valued possessions. I plan to photograph Elias just as much–if not more! And I hope to be in some of those photos, too, which is something I didn’t do as much with Finn. I also play to re-do my 365 day project, wherein I took a DSLR photo of Finn every single day for a year. With Elias, though, I want to do his first 365 days.
We will opt out of a nanny and into daycare. I was lucky to stay home with Finn for the first 6 months of his life, and I’ll be able to do the same with Elias. After that, Finn joined a nanny share with another little girl, which lasted about 8 months. When it was clear that wasn’t going to work out, we had to scramble to find a daycare. It was absolutely the most stressful part of Finn’s first year. In the end, I wish we would’ve just done daycare from the get-go. We absolutely LOVE where Finn is now, and we love everyone who works there. He developed so much more quickly when he was socialized with a bunch of other kids, and daycare was, for us, a thousand times more reliable and stress-free than a nanny. Elias will be starting daycare right at 6 months, and we’re super happy with that decision.
We will chill the *&$! out. Every meme you’ve ever seen about first and second babies is true. We were way too overprotective and anal about Finn, and we made the lives of grandparents and babysitters and everyone else who touched him pretty much miserable. With Elias, we will chill out. He will be fine. You want to come take my baby for a day? Go for it! I won’t give you a 10-page instructional manual, I promise.
We will be more present. Finn was our first baby, and we were so stressed out about everything (see above). My maternity leave was, to this day, the best period of my life so far. I relished every single second of being with him, but I still wish I would have paid closer attention during that time because, now, I know how quickly the baby phase passes. With Elias, I really, really hope that we can give ourselves the grace to stumble, be tired, be a little cranky, but still recognize that, once that time is gone, we will never, ever get it back. And one day, we will absolutely ache for these years. (I already ache for Finn’s baby years.) This, more than anything, is what I hope for the next few months.