It is. For me at least. I wasn’t born naturally good with children. I used to grow up not wanting kids at all! They freaked me out. They annoyed me. They were exhausting to be around. Just wasn’t for me. Until I got baby fever and it never went away so I wanted to have my own. Now all I want is a big family to love on. But besides that…what I’m trying to say is I’m kind of on a struggle bus lately.
I constantly feel like I’m a shit parent compared to other moms out there. I know everyone puts on their best image on social media but holy shit is it exhausting to look at sometimes. I’m currently dealing with a baby who refuses to sleep in his crib. He was able to sleep during his naps in there but now I can’t even do that! We spent a week at my parents house while we renovated our bathroom and I think that kind of messed up his routine because he slept in the bed due to not having his crib. Anyways, I’m trying to train him to sleep in his crib for bedtime and boy is it a freaking struggle. Cry it out method? Who invented that because it’s awful! Last night I went in first after 20 min of him crying, then 30, then another 30, and then after another 10 minutes I said forget it and brought him into the bed. How am I supposed to get sleep? How is he supposed to get sleep? It was the third day in a row doing that and I just didn’t see any improvement so I stopped it. But now when it’s bedtime I’m robbed of my alone time because I have to stay in the bed while he’s sleeping. In the dark. Can’t watch tv or read a book, I’m stuck on my phone mindlessly scrolling through social media apps. Bored while Jesse plays his video game downstairs. We don’t get to spend time together. We used to just leave pillows all around Levi, and we still do, but last week the unthinkable happened. Poor Levi fell off the bed (which is why I have to be with him now when we put him down). It obviously scared us and was a wake up call and that’s why we tried crib training him but, excuse my language, what the fuck?! My son must be extremely hard headed and stubborn because he won’t stop crying if he’s in there. I’ve invested in a rocking chair praying that once it arrives it’ll be the answer to our prayers. I didn’t want to admit that our son fell off the bed because of our stupidity but it happened and I feel like a shitty ass parent because of it. Also, I think because I’m now with Levi all the time and put him down for naps during the day, he prefers me over his dad when it comes to going to bed. He’ll literally cry and say “mama” when he’s with his dad and will stop as soon as I walk in. I really love that he loves me but I need him to want his dad too ya know? I’m sure some moms out there think I’m crazy for not appreciating the love and neediness from my child but maybe you don’t get it. I LOVE that he wants me but I’m the kind of person who also loves my alone time and space and I think all mothers shouldn’t be afraid to express that. The whole, “I let him do xyz because one day he’ll grow out of it and not want me anymore,” is insane to me. I love getting stuff done while Levi naps. It’s the best! I’ll workout, or clean, or watch my favorite show. I refuse to be a prisoner and stay upstairs in my bed just laying there not doing anything because he won’t go in his crib. I mean, I’m literally doing it right this second but I can’t live like this forever! I can feel the judgy mom eyes already for wanting my own time for myself….
Another thing I feel shitty about is how I feed my son. So I follow some IG accounts that talk about healthy foods and so on and so on. I love those accounts but I can feel them making me feel guilty when I don’t feed my son an entirely balanced meal. I legit feel guilty when I feed him a pb&j with an applesauce squeeze pouch. But sometimes I just don’t have much on hand! Or sometimes the leftovers I have he won’t eat! Or sometimes I don’t have enough time because he’s already crying and upset and I just want to hurry up and feed him! My peanut butter is natural but my jelly isn’t and I feel awful that I’m feeding him jelly that probably doesn’t have the purest of ingredients. Or how about the only vegetable I’ve been able to get him to eat is broccoli but I don’t cook that every day so he still probably isn’t getting a bunch of veggies because he won’t eat the other ones. I try really hard to feed him well balanced meals but sometimes I suck and when I suck I feel so shitty about it.
The dentist is another topic. He’s going to be 14 months old and we still haven’t taken him. He actually doesn’t have dental insurance and I wasn’t even aware that I should take him to the dentist before a year old. My doctor never even mentioned the dentist at his last appointment! He won’t let me brush his teeth so I feel like I’m the shittiest parent ever because what if I’m fucking up his teeth right now by not brushing them?? He needs to go to the dentist but I need to make the appointment. I need to adult and I’m scared of adulting sometimes. Wow. What a mom I am, right?
I’m friends with some moms that seem to just know everything and do everything perfectly. They’re naturals. They do research, they read books, they’re perfect! I just feel like the worst lately and I don’t know what to do about it. It’s probably just a funk. I hate asking for advice because I’m just one of those people who would rather figure it out on my own I guess…even though that’s probably what I shouldn’t do. For the crib situation, Jesse brought up bringing the crib into our room and putting him in there but I’m afraid of it not working or if it did work then we’ll have to do the whole training again once he’s in his own room so I just don’t know how that’ll work out. As for the food problem, I think I need to let it go. Jesse makes fun of me sometimes about how anal I can be about nutrition but I just want the best for my kid and I want him to haves good diet not filled with processed crap. And the dentist situation…I just need to make the appointment and get help on how to brush my sons teeth without him pursing his lips together and moving his head away from me *shrugs*. See, I got some of this figured out. But being a mom is still hard.
Liz With Type One 