Hellobee Boards

I want to be more active on my maternity leave! Do more activities, do more around the house, arrange playdates, exercise, etc.

I plan to travel a little and get out more.

I will not spend my maternity leave trying to get LO2 to take a bottle or hold him for every nap.

If I had another, omg that baby would only know the crib! We'd go exploring and none of this tiptoeing around nap-time nonsense! That baby would learn to sleep when it can. And DH would have to take a much longer paternity leave!

@Adira: Totally.

I will try to remember that a newborn won't die if he/she isn't held every moment of the night and day!

Be kinder to myself in the early days! that's really about my only big "thing" that i'm telling myself I'm going to do. I really had the mentality with E of not starting any bad habits I didn't want to keep, and it worked for the most part with her personality, so I'm going to try the same thing with #2, which will hopefully make transitioning to daycare easy!

Just trying to take a laid back "it's no big deal" attitude to everything, especially feeding and sleeping.

@PinkElephant: @rattles: This. Dear god, this. I was the first in my family to BF for like 3 generations and I was so worried about nipple confusion and bottle preference (we did legit get latch issues from a paci for a bit) that I was way too uptight about the bottles and wasting breastmilk. She took bottles early on when we had to introduce them at 3 weeks so I could get dental work done. Well, we didn't have to give her one for about a month at Christmas (2 months) and she never took one again.

She's 6 months now. DH and I have never had a date night. I can't leave for more than the 1.5-2 hours. And I have like 75ish ounces of milk sitting in the freezer about to age out. lol Such an ironic waste of energy.

Next time I will chill tfo about it, knowing that I will be successful in BFing.

Stress less and enjoy the newborn phase more, easier said than done and ignore unsolicited advice especially from my MIL.

Ask for more help from my mom, I really regret not having her help the first night home from the hospital and the week when hubs went back to work.

Listening to all the rules when i started pumping.... I wish i had started pumping sooner than 5 weeks and after every feed to boost my supply and freezer stash before going back to work. in the same vein - also having LO feed on both sides at every feed. (Pumping at work and having a low supply was a huge source of stress the first year of LO's life)

Sleep trained before the baby can stand in the crib (before 6-9 months)

Have Hubs help with some of the night wake ups i was far too sleep deprived for far too long.

I would like to do a bunch of things to be less stressed, such as:
- Ask for more help and accept more help
- Be kinder to myself about getting back in shape
- Try to go with the flow more about sleep, nursing, schedules, etc.
- Actually let baby cry for a minute or so before running in and grabbing them
- Get outside more during maternity leave (we are specifically aiming for a spring baby instead of a fall/winter baby like last time so I can do this)
- Actually consider formula if baby has MSPI/FPIES instead of forcing myself on a restrictive diet (this will probably be the hardest for me since I already know that I will feel guilty if LO1 is EBF and LO2 is not)

- Not rely on advice from "parenting experts" and instead trust my own instinct more
- Co-sleep sooner if the next LO awakens every 2 hours...
- Stop allowing myself to feel judged