My journey so far

My son is 8 months old now and boy has it been a huge learning experience. The first thing I have learned is to lower my expectations.

Before the birth of my son I knew everything or at least I thought I did. My friends laughed at me when I told them my parenting intentions. I had everything planned, the birthing experience, my maternity leave, the sleeping arrangements and my relationship with his father. How hard could one baby be?

And then along came Dylan. I would never have imagined my birthing experience to turn out the way it did. Not in my wildest imagination and trust me it can be wild. The whole sleep when baby sleeps idea is fine if you don’t have an insomniac baby like I did. All the parenting advise I had read became irrelevant as I realized my child was unique. That is why there is no manual that completely works because they are based on other children. My relationship with my partner was tested more than I could have imagined.

Eight months later I look at my little family and am truly amazed at far we have come. We have made mistakes, but we try to learn from them. I am happy to say we sleep a bit more now, we laugh a lot more now, we cry much less now and we love unconditionally.