I did not feel strongly about having a baby shower at all, and my MIL felt very strongly, so this meant there were only 2 people at my shower under the age of 65 – all the guests were her friends, which was honestly extremely sweet in its way. And they did do a little book where everyone got a page to write some advice! AND one of the pieces of advice was literally something I thought back to, and relied on, and even still rely on now, with 10- and 7- year olds, and impart in my turn to new parents!!
That advice was: do whatever works, until it doesn’t. That was it. That was the whole page.
I have thought a lot about it over the years. How so, so much of the pressure we put on ourselves as parents – especially parents of infants and toddlers – comes from feeling like the things that “work” in our situation are actually BAD, because they are “crutches” or something. Pacifiers. Nursing to sleep. Rocking to sleep. Co-sleeping. Putting the baby in a separate room and shutting the door. Bouncing the baby on a yoga ball for hours a day. Stroller naps. Car naps. Giving M&Ms for pooping in the potty. Laying on the floor of your toddler’s bedroom until you army-crawl out once they are finally asleep. Propping an iPad up to watch YouTube for all meals because distracted eating is the only eating your kid does. Whatever. I did many (all?) of these things, between my two kids, and there was always this pervasive sense that, like, “am I going to do this forever? If not, aren’t I making my life worse down the road, creating a situation I will need to wean this kid off of eventually?”
NO. You are making your life BETTER by doing whatever works now. We use all kinds of “crutches” that we do not weight with this weird guilt. Diapers! You will need to eventually transition a kid away from diapers, and maybe it will be hard, maybe it won’t – but it will in no way be worse than just not using diapers on a 3-month old. Diapers work in a given stage, and when they stop working for you/your kid, you will move on from them. “This isn’t working anymore” can also just mean “this isn’t working FOR ME anymore,” as was the case for me for, say, laying on the floor of my 4-year old’s bedroom for 2 hours a night. But up until it just stopped working, it was our best solution, and so? I DID IT. Without apology.
Do whatever works, until it doesn’t. The freedom of that – freeing myself from weighting the present down with imagined future baggage, just knowing I could always change things once change became the thing that worked better, whatever “better” meant – was such a gift. I wish I had any idea who the old lady was who wrote that. I feel like I would have liked to actually know her.
This is so great! It reminds me of my favorite piece of parenting advice that my mother gave to me: “Parenting is just a series of letting things go too far and then reeling them back in.” It helps me forgive myself when I change direction (instead of kicking myself for creating bad habits) and has applied way beyond the baby years.
Thank you for sharing - I LOVE this (and I also did pretty much all of those things). This advice also ties into one of the biggest realizations I had as a new parent, which is that every stage feels eternal in the moment, but soon enough it passes, so there is no point in trying to find permanent solutions. You are basically learning to be a parent to a new person with every developmental milestone. Ergo, do whatever works until it doesn't amen!
My actual baby shower was, as requested, full of both dudes and women and was mostly just gay men drinking mimosas. It was just a lovely hour of “I’m pregnant but still a human.” (The host’s one year old spent 30 minutes spinning an empty beer bottle on the floor which was also a great “this will be fine” moment.) Also there was a cake with Kermit the Frog on it.
But because my in laws never honor my choices, we got a second awkward suburban shower full of “relatives” I had never met before complete with mandatory gift opening.
My advice is always “somethings will be easy for you that are hard for others, some things will be hard for you that are easy for others, you won’t know which is which until you get there and you can’t predict it so take the wins and realize the losses are temporary.”
I found my little advice cards recently. The only one I remember is from my mom. “You will be a great mother. No advice needed.” I sent her a photo of the card and she responded “and I was right” 🥹🥹🥹
Over the years, I've come to realize I love being a mom, but I don't like being a mom in America. I wish someone had found a way to tell me that when something feels impossibly hard, it's probably because it is set up in the least parent-friendly way, not because I'm doing something wrong. I spent a lot of energy trying to mother the way I wanted to inside a system that gave me zero support.
The best baby advice I got was "go pee first." The extra 30 seconds won't make the baby more or less mad, they're already screaming, so make sure you don't have a full bladder when you're gonna be trapped for forty minutes.
Also--my go-to gift for partnered parents-to-be is a copy of Babies Make Three from the Gottmans, because in a healthy relationship you'll both be working harder than ever while feeling unappreciated and unseen, and that is normal, but guaranteed to make you fight.
When I first read Eve Rodsky's Fair Play (while nursing a newborn), and got to the section about how hygiene is important but it does not count as self-care, I just about started shouting. Clean hair may feel like a luxury but it does not replace actual time off!
I like to go on a rant about how safe sleep guidelines are designed on purpose to make babies sleep worse, it doesn't make the lack of sleep any better but at least when the baby doesn't want to sleep anywhere but on a person they can know they're not doing anything wrong.
A general warning that postpartum is just very very damp has also gone over well, I nearly killed my sister's doula saying that right after she had her first lol but between the postpartum person and the baby there's just a lot of fluids
Love this! My baby shower was like most other planned events in my life: have zero recollection and all the pics show me with a deer-in-headlights crazy eyes which, TBF, is exactly how I felt the entire time
It’s like the one objective piece of helpful advice that doesn’t shame anyone’s philosophy unless your philosophy is, I love changing sheets in the middle of the night when I’m fucking distraught.
Yes !! Definitely a great advice that is useful for every parenting philosophy. Another one I would give for someone who is pregnant : don't skip on pelvic floor and abs rehab afterwards. Not sure of it's a thing in the US but in France it's paid for by Social Security, so it's "only" (lol) a matter of finding the time to do the sessions.
Haha yes... likely to not illicit the same responses to "just feed the baby, formula is fine if you need it" lol (as someone who breastfed both babies easily because I had the leave to do it).
My dad unexpectedly died while I was pregnant with my second, so instead of a “sprinkle” or whatever, my sister invited just a few close family members and friends out to eat to celebrate. We had hamburgers and shakes and it was just right. Honestly, apart from unexpected death I would recommend it. So much more fun than a *luncheon*.
My baby shower was this past December. I [bravely] demanded an "unwrapped" shower because I was not opening gifts in front of everyone for hours. After lots of confusion and texting before the party, many approached me after and said "that was AWESOME".
I think I’m in the minority that I love showers! Honestly any reason to celebrate. That said — I tell all my newly pregnant FTM friends to worry less about the baby, and think more about what THEY need to be set up for success. Aka: lots of help. The brand of your stroller really doesn’t matter that much, I promise.
I had not one but two cute baby shower Pinterest boards set when COVID hit. It sounds so dumb but I was honestly so devastated about not having a shower. I was the first of my cousins and friends to have a baby, and I was really excited about the advice and stories and love I’d get from the moms before me. Having a COVID baby was the loneliest thing, that was honestly just the start.
Rite of passage is such a good phrase, that's exactly it! None of my family/friends ever really even saw me pregnant, I just came out of quarantine with a baby lol
I also felt deep sadness about not having an IRL baby shower because of my September 2020 baby. American culture is largely devoid of rituals and that was one I was looking forward to.
I so feel you about this push pull of what to share and what gets to/should/can stay in a bubble until it invariably pops. I always write, “couples therapy” on this little sheets 😬
We didn't do the wisdom sharing thing at mine (or almost any baby-related activities except onesie decorating tbh) because I was too scared after a bunch of IVF to acknowledge the future baby. I didn't even open gifts. We requested they arrive unwrapped for environmental purposes, and in the years since I've wondered if the whole thing was crass and tacky. "Come eat an assortment of snacks at my coworking space while I try to pretend I'm not terrified of the presents you brought me and put in a pile." I try not to dwell, but I feel weird and bad about it more than I maybe should.
When I was pregnant with twins my friends made a meal train that included helping with household chores (I had two other littles - 3 and 5 at the time and was in bedrest). If I could rewrite etiquette books, I’d say ditch the diaper cakes and do dishes one night for your friend after the baby. Watching my friends sweep my floor and do a load of laundry and then magically disappear was delightful!
Also, for Father’s Day, bought my husband a Solo Stove and he is obsessed.
thank you for the Stove reco! My husband probably needs one since our fire pit is just a twist of metal but I already ordered him some shirts and a book so he is set til Xmas
I did not feel strongly about having a baby shower at all, and my MIL felt very strongly, so this meant there were only 2 people at my shower under the age of 65 – all the guests were her friends, which was honestly extremely sweet in its way. And they did do a little book where everyone got a page to write some advice! AND one of the pieces of advice was literally something I thought back to, and relied on, and even still rely on now, with 10- and 7- year olds, and impart in my turn to new parents!!
That advice was: do whatever works, until it doesn’t. That was it. That was the whole page.
I have thought a lot about it over the years. How so, so much of the pressure we put on ourselves as parents – especially parents of infants and toddlers – comes from feeling like the things that “work” in our situation are actually BAD, because they are “crutches” or something. Pacifiers. Nursing to sleep. Rocking to sleep. Co-sleeping. Putting the baby in a separate room and shutting the door. Bouncing the baby on a yoga ball for hours a day. Stroller naps. Car naps. Giving M&Ms for pooping in the potty. Laying on the floor of your toddler’s bedroom until you army-crawl out once they are finally asleep. Propping an iPad up to watch YouTube for all meals because distracted eating is the only eating your kid does. Whatever. I did many (all?) of these things, between my two kids, and there was always this pervasive sense that, like, “am I going to do this forever? If not, aren’t I making my life worse down the road, creating a situation I will need to wean this kid off of eventually?”
NO. You are making your life BETTER by doing whatever works now. We use all kinds of “crutches” that we do not weight with this weird guilt. Diapers! You will need to eventually transition a kid away from diapers, and maybe it will be hard, maybe it won’t – but it will in no way be worse than just not using diapers on a 3-month old. Diapers work in a given stage, and when they stop working for you/your kid, you will move on from them. “This isn’t working anymore” can also just mean “this isn’t working FOR ME anymore,” as was the case for me for, say, laying on the floor of my 4-year old’s bedroom for 2 hours a night. But up until it just stopped working, it was our best solution, and so? I DID IT. Without apology.
Do whatever works, until it doesn’t. The freedom of that – freeing myself from weighting the present down with imagined future baggage, just knowing I could always change things once change became the thing that worked better, whatever “better” meant – was such a gift. I wish I had any idea who the old lady was who wrote that. I feel like I would have liked to actually know her.
This is so great! It reminds me of my favorite piece of parenting advice that my mother gave to me: “Parenting is just a series of letting things go too far and then reeling them back in.” It helps me forgive myself when I change direction (instead of kicking myself for creating bad habits) and has applied way beyond the baby years.
love that
Thank you for sharing - I LOVE this (and I also did pretty much all of those things). This advice also ties into one of the biggest realizations I had as a new parent, which is that every stage feels eternal in the moment, but soon enough it passes, so there is no point in trying to find permanent solutions. You are basically learning to be a parent to a new person with every developmental milestone. Ergo, do whatever works until it doesn't amen!
Now you get to be the one imparting that wisdom to every new parent you know. Such a gift!
And such open, accepting wisdom! Reading those words feels like a full exhale.
I just love every single word of this.
<3 thank you!
My actual baby shower was, as requested, full of both dudes and women and was mostly just gay men drinking mimosas. It was just a lovely hour of “I’m pregnant but still a human.” (The host’s one year old spent 30 minutes spinning an empty beer bottle on the floor which was also a great “this will be fine” moment.) Also there was a cake with Kermit the Frog on it.
But because my in laws never honor my choices, we got a second awkward suburban shower full of “relatives” I had never met before complete with mandatory gift opening.
My advice is always “somethings will be easy for you that are hard for others, some things will be hard for you that are easy for others, you won’t know which is which until you get there and you can’t predict it so take the wins and realize the losses are temporary.”
That is incredibly wise advice!!
I found my little advice cards recently. The only one I remember is from my mom. “You will be a great mother. No advice needed.” I sent her a photo of the card and she responded “and I was right” 🥹🥹🥹
aww that's so lovely.
Why is this the best answer. Using it forever from now on.
It is deeply satisfying to know that your own mother believes in you. I know not everyone is so lucky.
Over the years, I've come to realize I love being a mom, but I don't like being a mom in America. I wish someone had found a way to tell me that when something feels impossibly hard, it's probably because it is set up in the least parent-friendly way, not because I'm doing something wrong. I spent a lot of energy trying to mother the way I wanted to inside a system that gave me zero support.
that is something that should be inscribed in a card that gets handed to new parents
The best baby advice I got was "go pee first." The extra 30 seconds won't make the baby more or less mad, they're already screaming, so make sure you don't have a full bladder when you're gonna be trapped for forty minutes.
Also--my go-to gift for partnered parents-to-be is a copy of Babies Make Three from the Gottmans, because in a healthy relationship you'll both be working harder than ever while feeling unappreciated and unseen, and that is normal, but guaranteed to make you fight.
that is really great advice about peeing. treat yourself mama. Empty that bladder.
When I first read Eve Rodsky's Fair Play (while nursing a newborn), and got to the section about how hygiene is important but it does not count as self-care, I just about started shouting. Clean hair may feel like a luxury but it does not replace actual time off!
The peeing thing was something I'd figured out by baby 2 that made the newborn phase significantly less stressful!
I like to go on a rant about how safe sleep guidelines are designed on purpose to make babies sleep worse, it doesn't make the lack of sleep any better but at least when the baby doesn't want to sleep anywhere but on a person they can know they're not doing anything wrong.
A general warning that postpartum is just very very damp has also gone over well, I nearly killed my sister's doula saying that right after she had her first lol but between the postpartum person and the baby there's just a lot of fluids
My partner and I joked that the catchphrase of that first year post-partum was, "Why is this wet?"
Love this! My baby shower was like most other planned events in my life: have zero recollection and all the pics show me with a deer-in-headlights crazy eyes which, TBF, is exactly how I felt the entire time
The three crib sheet thing might be the most important info to share always lol
It’s like the one objective piece of helpful advice that doesn’t shame anyone’s philosophy unless your philosophy is, I love changing sheets in the middle of the night when I’m fucking distraught.
Yes !! Definitely a great advice that is useful for every parenting philosophy. Another one I would give for someone who is pregnant : don't skip on pelvic floor and abs rehab afterwards. Not sure of it's a thing in the US but in France it's paid for by Social Security, so it's "only" (lol) a matter of finding the time to do the sessions.
I second this! PT is amazing. I love that it's covered in France (sighing from the US).
Haha yes... likely to not illicit the same responses to "just feed the baby, formula is fine if you need it" lol (as someone who breastfed both babies easily because I had the leave to do it).
My dad unexpectedly died while I was pregnant with my second, so instead of a “sprinkle” or whatever, my sister invited just a few close family members and friends out to eat to celebrate. We had hamburgers and shakes and it was just right. Honestly, apart from unexpected death I would recommend it. So much more fun than a *luncheon*.
That must have been so hard, but I’m glad something meaningful like that came from that kind of forced prioritizing. I’m sorry for your loss.
My baby shower was this past December. I [bravely] demanded an "unwrapped" shower because I was not opening gifts in front of everyone for hours. After lots of confusion and texting before the party, many approached me after and said "that was AWESOME".
I did that too! No regrets. In retrospect I’m a little surprised my mom (who is old fashioned and hosted) went along with it.
For baby shower advice, I can think of three (all, strangely, diaper-change related):
- zip-up jammies only. Snaps in the midde of the night are a villian origin story
- onesies can be pulled down the body, that’s why the shoulders are split. Handy for terrible blowouts!
- if using disposable diapers, make sure the leg ruffles are all fluffed out. If they’re tucked in, you’ll get leaks.
We had a couple pairs of MAGNETIC closure jammies and those were the shit (for little babies). Have definitely given as a baby shower gift.
I think I’m in the minority that I love showers! Honestly any reason to celebrate. That said — I tell all my newly pregnant FTM friends to worry less about the baby, and think more about what THEY need to be set up for success. Aka: lots of help. The brand of your stroller really doesn’t matter that much, I promise.
I had not one but two cute baby shower Pinterest boards set when COVID hit. It sounds so dumb but I was honestly so devastated about not having a shower. I was the first of my cousins and friends to have a baby, and I was really excited about the advice and stories and love I’d get from the moms before me. Having a COVID baby was the loneliest thing, that was honestly just the start.
aw man, I’m so sorry—I hadn’t thought about that, not getting to have that rite of passage due to COVID.
Rite of passage is such a good phrase, that's exactly it! None of my family/friends ever really even saw me pregnant, I just came out of quarantine with a baby lol
Hugs and high-fives for solidarity; this was my experience too.
I also felt deep sadness about not having an IRL baby shower because of my September 2020 baby. American culture is largely devoid of rituals and that was one I was looking forward to.
I so feel you about this push pull of what to share and what gets to/should/can stay in a bubble until it invariably pops. I always write, “couples therapy” on this little sheets 😬
that is some TRUTH
Also the title of this really made me lolz.
haha thank you. I hope nobody tried to parse it b/c it is simply nonsense.
We didn't do the wisdom sharing thing at mine (or almost any baby-related activities except onesie decorating tbh) because I was too scared after a bunch of IVF to acknowledge the future baby. I didn't even open gifts. We requested they arrive unwrapped for environmental purposes, and in the years since I've wondered if the whole thing was crass and tacky. "Come eat an assortment of snacks at my coworking space while I try to pretend I'm not terrified of the presents you brought me and put in a pile." I try not to dwell, but I feel weird and bad about it more than I maybe should.
I understand the post-party anxiety, but that sounds great to me! The gift-unwrapping ceremony is always a bit awkward for everyone I think.
When I was pregnant with twins my friends made a meal train that included helping with household chores (I had two other littles - 3 and 5 at the time and was in bedrest). If I could rewrite etiquette books, I’d say ditch the diaper cakes and do dishes one night for your friend after the baby. Watching my friends sweep my floor and do a load of laundry and then magically disappear was delightful!
Also, for Father’s Day, bought my husband a Solo Stove and he is obsessed.
thank you for the Stove reco! My husband probably needs one since our fire pit is just a twist of metal but I already ordered him some shirts and a book so he is set til Xmas
that’s so smart!