My oldest daughter was 14 months old when I found out I was expecting my son. I was super sick most of my pregnancy and while my daughter was a pretty easy toddler, I was still nursing her and it was making me even sicker. When I was a few months along, I had a day where I couldn’t stop throwing up and ended up in the hospital on an IV. I knew I had to wean my daughter. There was a slight problem though, she wouldn’t drink out of any of the sippy cups I gave her so I wasn’t sure how to get her weaned. I was so desperate that I wanted to just give her a bottle, feeling like that would work. However, every person I suggested this idea to told me it was a terrible idea and the worst thing I could do. They warned me that she would never give up the bottle and I would just be trading one problem for another. I stressed about this decision but then just decided to go for it. I gave her a bottle of milk and she was weaned in a few days. To my excitement and everyone else’s surprise, she traded her bottle for a sippy cup within a couple of weeks. That was when I realized I needed to just do what I felt was best for my child and listen to my own intuition better.
Everyone meant well and I love hearing advice from others who have charted this path of motherhood before me but I was my child’s mother for a reason and I knew her better than they did. My daughter (and my other two children) are well past the days of bottles and sippy cups but deciding how to handle each new stage and situation that comes along is rarely easy. I consult parenting experts online, I chat with other moms, but in the end, these are our children and we as parents have to do what we feel is best for our kids.
We have made lots of mistakes along the way but we’ve tried to learn from those mistakes too. Helping them navigate their teen years has been just as exhausting as it was to get through the newborn and toddler years. Just like it seems so fast that they went from these tiny precious babies who couldn’t walk or talk to reading and running, they quickly went from biking and playdates to driving and dating. Time does not wait for us to study all the books like we did when potty training or helping them sleep through the night. There aren’t as many resources on how to teach them social media manners and how to go to sleep when they’re anxious about all the things. We have to pull from our personal experiences and just go with what we feel is best most of the time.
People mean well but learn to trust yourself, trust your children, and keep doing your best. Parenting takes lots of patience from both the parents and our kids as we’re all just learning as we grow. We’ve got this!
