motherhood—the beginning

Leading up to the birth of a child things are measured in trimesters.  And I’ve heard of the first three months of your newborn’s life being called the 4^th trimester. That got me thinking, it sort of makes sense to continue with the trimester concept for your baby’s first year. From my experience there are drastically different stages that somewhat correspond with three month time frames. Furthermore, if this is your first child, this is also a time that you are rapidly learning how to be a mother.

During the first three months after your baby is born they will be the most amazing little lump you will ever lay your eyes on.  Don’t get all uppity, you know it’s true. They just don’t do anything! They need you 100% and can’t communicate their needs any other way than crying. As a new mother you will be thrust into a new life abruptly to put it mildly. I don’t think a person could ever be fully prepared for it, but I guess all the inconveniences of pregnancy do their best to ramp you up for the big leagues. You will be a walking, talking, human feeding machine. My son only nursed for a few minutes per feeding so I usually was nursing him hourly. And that was round the clock.

With time your infant gradually becomes more and more alert and able to connect with you. I found that after your child gets to be about 3 months old I felt I could really enjoy him so much more. I was getting (a little) bit more rest and was more comfortable with nursing and caring for his needs. Also in addition to gaining skill and confidence as a mom my son was also gaining the ability to see things more clearly, smile, coo, look at toys and hold his head up on his own. Might not sound like much, but we’re talking baby steps here.

In the 3-6 month trimester we worked on ground mobility—a lot. My son went from lump status to being able to hold his head up for longer periods while doing ‘tummy time’ and so he was able to play

with toys that way. He was working on rolling over and while he was able to do it, he never used rolling as a method of transportation like some babies do. Around 5-6 months old he was able to get his knees up under himself, but then what. He spent a couple months on hands and knees just rocking back and forth. You could see that he wanted to get going but just didn’t have the coordination part figured out.

During this time frame I had to return to work. Thankfully I only work part time but still it was hard to go back to the office and leave my baby during the day. Fortunately, my parents watch the baby so I knew he was in good hands while we were away. Also, my parents helped ensure my success in breast feeding by bringing the baby to me daily at lunch time. This was beneficial for a number of reasons. It helped me because I only had to pump once and nurse once during the 6 hours I worked each day. Pumping is sort of a hassle so I was glad I only had to do it once. In fact, when I first started pumping at work I wasn’t getting very much milk and that was really stressing me out. Fortunately I stuck with it and it worked its self out, my body got used to pumping and had enough milk for the baby bottles. Of course another benefit to my parents bringing him to see me was that we got to see each other for a quick visit every day. That made being apart easier.

For us things pretty much stayed business as usual for a while. All until he figured out that crawling thing...