Things i said about being a parent, before i became a parent

When I was pregnant, I said a lot of things. #firstbabyproblems I literally had no idea what I was talking about. The best word I can use to describe my parenting style is “hypocritical.”

Baby-led Solids: there are a few concepts to starting solids with an infant. The route we chose to take was “baby-led solids” which means that baby eats what you eat, no exceptions. All of the food just needs to be cut appropriately for safety reasons, but otherwise you don’t really do anything different seasoning-wise. Research shows that it is a safe and effective way of introducing solids (versus traditional weaning which means purees, rice cereal, etc.). We chose this route because we hoped it would make Theo less of a picky eater in the long run (his favorite foods are club crackers and mandarin oranges, though). I was striiiiccccctttt in the beginning and we only ate foods that were appropriate for Theo. Now that he eats 3 meals per day and at least one snack, I basically make whatever is fastest / easiest / most effective. Some days that is lunch meat, shredded cheese, and crackers. Other days it is microwaved chicken nuggets and broccoli tots. He also eats baby food pouches, which are very much against the baby led solids principles. But he can feed them to himself and he loves them, so it works for us. Also, do not get me started on Cheerios. He eats so.many.Cheerios. General Mills, where you at?!

Breastfeeding: I am going to write a lot more about this later, but I never thought I would be the breastfeeding mom. At most, I thought I would pump and bottle feed. Little did I know, pumping is the world’s biggest pain in the ass, and if your baby will latch effectively, the convenience of breastfeeding is unparalleled. We struggled, and struggled for months. My goal in pregnancy was to “breastfeed if I could” because you hear of all the benefits for baby and mom. And then when he was born, I wanted to breastfeed for 6 months, because that seemed do-able, and also that was the length of my maternity leave. But now, 11 months in, Theo is still exclusively breastfeeding with no plans to wean him soon. He nurses 3x per day, which is working for us right now. I will also breastfeed anywhere, any time. I eat in public, why can’t my child?

TV Time: Television is a very important pasttime in our household, so we always knew that Theo would watch TV. I had no idea, however, how OBSESSED he would become with TV. He is almost one-year old, and compeltely addicted to the following TV shows: Dora the Explorer, and Dora & Friends. It is funny, because the kids I watched when I was younger were also obsessed with these shows. I guess Dora is a timeless classic! Theo gets pumped up when he hears the fire stick click, and sometimes turning on Dora will literally take his breath away. I hope we have not created a monster. But I watched a lot of TV as a kid, and I think I turned out fine!

Room Sharing: before Theo was born, we decided to put a twin sized bed in his nursery. My grand plan was to sleep in there with him until he was night weaned and I was going to put him in his crib on day one. I was around 36 weeks pregnant when I decided we needed a bassinet, so I found a Halo Essentia on Facebook Marketplace and we picked it up and set up the bassinet in the nursery. I figured it would be easier to have him right next to me when I needed to nurse in the middle of the night. Well, the night we got home from the hospital I SOBBED AND SOBBED thinking about us sleeping in a different room, away from Matt and the dogs. I was scared as hell, and also just didn’t want all of us to be separated. So we moved the bassinet into our bedroom and never looked back. Theo moved into his room when he was about 3 months old.

Social Media: this is where I am self-admittedly the biggest, most giant hypocrite that ever existed. Before I had a baby, the absolute last thing I wanted to see on my social media was photos of other people’s kids. If it wasn’t a dog or a meme, I wasn’t interested. Now, most of my own posts are of my child (I still like to include some dog content though), and my entire feed is of other people’s babies, and I absolutely would have it no other way.

What things did you say that before you became a parent (fur child or himan child) that you’ve done the opposite of as a parent??