Against the norms parenting

There are so many things that people always make sure they tell you when you are pregnant. They have their silly wives tales and shitty advice. I remember being so annoyed at the amount of crap I had to listen to. You know, make sure you sleep now, you won't ever get your body back and so on.

Fast forward to the birth of my second child and no one can give me advice because I have done it all different than the norm and end up with a toddler and a newborn, both breastfed!

My first baby was all attachment parenting. I breast fed on demand, did skin to skin daily and shared my bed with her.  Every night she slept next to me in some way shape or form. There was a time period that she slept in the crib but I would welcome her with open arms when she woke up in the middle of the night. As my second child was approaching his debut I started to panic about feeding times and bed time. The thing was, although close to weaning my daughter drastically reduced the amount of times she was nursing but it started to increase more once the due date got closer. We have an amazing bond together and I was also so scared I would lose that or not have a good bond with my son.

In the hospital she was very excited to meet him but she didn't want anything to do with me. I wanted to be home so bad with everyone. All of it killed me emotionally.

I don't remember verbatim what happened that first night but I know it wasn't pretty. How do you keep your toddler, bed sharing, breastfed baby asleep when a newborn is crying every hour? Where was the advice on that?where was the advice when the newborn wanted boob and so did the toddler at 3am and the toddler is screaming her heady off because she wants attention too and you haven't quite figured out the whole tandem nursing thing.

I Will admit I lost my mind a few times. At one point begging my toddler for forgiveness. The nights continued on this way until we decided to just let the toddler be up if she was woken up. I tried so hard to shoot out of bed and grab the screaming newborn as fast as i could but when the other child is attached to the boob its not that easy. Then we realized how crabby she was because she was so tired. Oh.my.God. am I cut out for this shit? I'm starting to think maybe not

I have questioned my efforts as a mother just about every other day. The lack of sleep, the constant nursing between the two and trying to juggle attention for a toddler a newborn and a fiancé is not easy to do. Eventually the toddler got her own bed and lucky for us she loves it and not only sleeps in it but doesn't come out.

In the end it is all coming together,there will be good days and bad days but I just always keep in mind that these days won't always be here. I could  start tears right now by saying how one day they will be going to school or moving out of the house and the last thing in Want is to feel regret for acting like an asshole because I was lacking sleep.

So basically parenting is hard and parenting with  toddler and a newborn will make you question and second guess everything you say and do but in the end just remember one thing, the day will come when they won't be nursing, oneday it will just stop. One day they will be picked up for the last time and you won't even know it. Cherish these times,good and bad andi am leaving this blog for once in my life taking my own advice.