The Survival Guide for Rookie Moms

Remember the blissful nights of uninterrupted, exhausted sleep during pregnancy? What am I talking about? Uninterrupted except for having to get up five times to pee and desperately trying to get comfy on that dead left hip. Well you’ll probably look back on those nights as blissful and uninterrupted once you have a baby in the house.

As exhausted as you are as a new mom, sleep is hard to come by. All of a sudden you’ll have the hearing of a bat and find yourself in a state of such heightened sensitivity that the flap of a butterfly wing in the baby’s vicinity will have you bolt upright and alert. Meanwhile Dad slumbers on. After the fifth shove he might wake up and after a few minutes remember that he has a baby and after a few more minutes realize it was his turn to get up tonight. By this time you will have reached the end of your short fuse, got up, comforted the baby and be back in bed. Are you old enough to remember it was the bionic woman who had the super hearing? – note, not the bionic man! I once heard Vancouver weather anchor Tamara Taggart talking on TV about having slept through the previous night’s incredibly violent thunderstorm. She admitted she was pretty much able to sleep through anything…except her baby boy turning over.

As soon as you become a mom there is an invisible bond between you and your offspring. Along with the super-mommy hearing you’ll develop eyes in the back of your head to enable to see exactly what Junior is up to at any given point. I have it on good authority that these super senses are here to stay. Moms of grown kids tell me they still lie awake listening for their offspring to return from a night out. In fact, according to wise philosopher Purple Ronnie’s The Rules of Being a Mom – No.2 “When you become a mom, you will not get a proper night’s sleep for about 2o years”

Filed under: Baby Tagged: | Family, Motherhood, new mom, new mom dilema, Parenting, Sleep, tired