Valuable Lessons I’ve learned in taking care of Aisha

This month I officially complete 9 months of motherhood aka Aisha will be 9 months old! How crazy! Where has the time gone?! Everything is such a blur, yet it has been a beautiful and overwhelming journey. In these past few months I’ve learned a lot about myself, my parents, and the kind of person I’d like to be. So check out the most valuable lessons I’ve learned below!

My Parents Did the Best They Could-I have a whole newfound respect for my parents after becoming a parent myself. Having a baby is a lot on the body, mind, energy, etc, and my parents had me in their early 20s! I can’t picture myself having a baby so young! On top of that, they had just moved to California, away from their network of family and friends. Therefore, I tagged along with them everywhere.

Life isn’t Over After Having a Baby-If you were to talk to me 10 years ago, I’d say that you don’t have a life of your own after having a baby, and it is for this reason alone that I waited such a long time to start this phase of my life. However, while it does end a specific phase, it also begins another phase-which is crazy and beautiful all at the same time. And because of that, I don’t miss my life before Aisha. I had my fun and got a chance to be selfish, but I wouldn’t trade this for anything else in the world.

Patience-I read a meme once which said “having a baby is like interacting with a smaller, less patient version of you.” I consider myself to be a fairly patient person, but this is a whole new level. I had to learn to be patient with my body as it continues to heal, patient with Aisha as she took her own time to reach specific milestones, and patient with any unsolicited advice I got.

Babies Have their Own Clock-So there are so charts for babies online. Feeding schedules, sleeping schedules, solid foods schedules, you name it. For me, it was all very overwhelming. While I used these schedules as a very lose reference, I realized one thing very quickly. Aisha as a newborn understands a couple of basic things right away-hunger and discomfort. So when she was a newborn, I used a reference schedule to help me keep track of things. However, eventually Aisha just started letting me know on her own what she needed-eat, sleep, or change

There is No Right or Wrong As long as Parents and Baby are Happy-There are soooo many schools of thought from what feeding method to how the baby should be treated, and plenty of people to give their own opinion. Frankly the best is to trust yourself as a parent on knowing what is best for you and your baby. What works for someone else will not work for you. The amount of guilt and self doubt I experienced because I kept relying on others’ advice-being so new in the journey-was unreal. So little by little, I started trusting myself and realized that is the best route to take!

So those are some of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned after becoming a parent. Do any of these resonate with you?? Let me know!