How Do You Make A Baby Thrive When You're Running On Fumes

Dear Jess from six months ago. You're currently sitting on the floor of the laundry room, eating a stale granola bar you found in your maternity jeans, while the breast pump makes that horrific wheezing sound and your four-month-old screams from the bassinet. The dog is barking at the UPS guy who's here to pick up your Etsy orders, and your oldest son Jackson is suspiciously quiet in the living room. I know exactly what you're typing into Google on your phone with your one free thumb right now. You're desperately searching how do you make a baby just shut their eyes and sleep for twenty consecutive minutes without needing something.

I'm writing this from the future to tell you that you survive this, but also to tell you that half the stuff you're worrying about right now is a complete waste of your limited brain cells. You're trying to do the whole aesthetic motherhood thing while living twenty miles out of town on a dusty dirt road in Texas, and it's a losing battle. I'm just gonna be real with you, the newborn phase is less about magical bonding and a whole lot more about keeping a tiny, fragile roommate alive while you slowly lose your mind.

They just let you drive away with him

I'll never get over the absolute absurdity of hospital discharge. You push a human out of your body, or get sliced open like I did with the last two, and three days later a nurse wheels you to the curb and is basically like, okay good luck with your new life. There's no test you've to pass to prove you won't accidentally break them. You just strap this seven-pound sack of flour into a car seat that took your husband two hours to install, sweating through his shirt in the hospital parking garage, and you drive away at fifteen miles an hour convinced every pothole is going to be fatal.

My grandma always says babies are tougher than we think they're, but bless her heart, she also used to put whiskey on my dad's gums when he was teething. I don't trust anyone's advice anymore, especially since Jackson ate a literal penny when he was eight months old and I had to check his diapers for three days with a plastic spoon. So when we brought the new baby home, my anxiety was through the roof. I wouldn't let anyone hold him unless they washed their hands with scalding hot water and antibacterial soap while I watched them do it like a prison guard.

I wish I could go back and tell you to stop letting Aunt Linda come over unannounced to hold the baby while you sit on a bloody ice pack trying to be polite. You don't have to entertain people who bring over cheap, itchy polyester onesies and expect you to make them a pot of coffee while your nipples are bleeding. Kick them out. Lock the door and ignore the doorbell because your mental health is worth more than their hurt feelings.

Oh, and for their fingernails, just bite them off gently while they're asleep instead of trying to use those terrifying tiny clippers.

Sleep is a myth but we try anyway

Dr. Miller, our doctor who has seen me cry more times than my own mother, told me that babies are pretty much born a whole trimester too early because if they stayed in any longer their heads wouldn't fit through the exit door. I guess the science implies that's why they want to be held constantly and hate the crib, because they're used to being squished up inside a warm, noisy water balloon for nine months. This whole "fourth trimester" concept sounds great in a book, but at three in the morning when you're hallucinating from sleep deprivation, it's just cruel.

He told me the safest place for a baby to sleep is flat on their back in a totally empty crib to lower the risk of SIDS, which meant I had to throw all those fluffy, expensive pillows and blankets my mother-in-law bought into the closet. Dr. Miller looked me dead in the eye and told me to put him down "drowsy but awake," which has to be the biggest lie ever sold to modern parents. I try it, the baby's eyes snap open like I just dropped him on hot coals, and we start the whole rocking process over again while my back spasms.

The only thing that actually saved my sanity during those first few months was realizing that skin-to-skin contact actually works to calm them down, even if I was freezing my tail off sitting shirtless in the nursery chair at 4 AM. That's when I finally caved and bought the Colorful Leaves Bamboo Baby Blanket from Kianao. I know I'm usually tight with our budget because Etsy sales are unpredictable, but my mom kept handing me these scratchy bargain-bin blankets that made the baby's cheeks break out in weird red bumps. This bamboo one is so incredibly soft that I actually wrapped it around my own shoulders while holding him against my chest, and it breathes so well that neither of us woke up in a pool of sweat. It's expensive, yeah, but it's massive and organic and Jackson has already tried to drag it into his playroom to build a fort, so I know we'll use it for years.

What to shove in their mouth when the screaming starts

If you're reading this, you're probably about to hit the teething phase or the "shove my entire fist down my throat" phase. You'll read a bunch of articles telling you about the holistic ways to soothe their gums, but let's be real, you just need something safe they can gnaw on so you can pack three shipping boxes in peace.

I picked up the Squirrel Teether a while back. Look, it's fine. It's a piece of silicone shaped like a squirrel holding an acorn, which is cute, but it's just a teether. My baby drops it on the floor where the dog steps on it, I wash it in the sink with dish soap, and hand it back to him. It doesn't harbor mold like those weird hollow bath toys, and it's BPA-free so I don't feel guilty about him chewing on it for an hour, but it's not going to miraculously fix your life.

I also got the Bear Teething Rattle because I saw it and thought it would look adorable in photos, which is a terrible reason to buy things. It has this little crochet bear on a wooden ring. The truth is, right now your newborn is a floppy potato who doesn't even know he has hands, so he can't hold this thing yet. Toss it in your diaper bag and forget about it until he's like four or five months old, because eventually he will figure out how to grab that wooden ring and the rattling sound will distract him long enough for you to drink a lukewarm cup of coffee.

If you're trying to figure out what really matters right now instead of buying plastic junk that'll end up in a landfill, go check out Kianao's organic newborn collections so you can invest in a few high-quality things that genuinely survive the heavy-duty wash cycle.

Feeding them without losing your mind completely

I spent so much time crying over my milk supply with Jackson that I swore I wouldn't do it again, and yet here I'm, hooking myself up to this milking machine like a dairy cow while trying to calculate if we can afford the good organic formula if I quit. Dr. Miller reminded me last week that my mental health is genuinely more important to the baby's brain development than whether he gets breastmilk or formula, which is a wild concept when you spend all day on the internet where everybody is judging you.

I read some study online that said babies need to hear something crazy like twenty thousand words a day to build their cognitive pathways. That sounds completely made up or calculated by someone who doesn't have a toddler screaming in the background, but I try to do it anyway. I just narrate my boring life to him while he stares blankly at the ceiling fan. I tell him about how the post office raised their rates again, or how his dad forgot to take the trash to the end of the driveway, wrapping him tightly in his sleep sack and praying he absorbs some of my vocabulary.

You're doing fine

Stop looking for the perfect routine. Stop feeling guilty that the baby has been in a stained onesie for two days because you didn't have the energy to do a load of laundry. You've gotta just strap the kid to your chest in a carrier while you vacuum the dog hair and accept that your house is going to look like a tornado hit it until they go to kindergarten.

If you're standing in your kitchen at 2 AM crying into a cold cup of coffee wondering how do you make a baby stop screaming for five minutes, the answer is usually just surviving the hour. Buy the good diapers that don't leak up their back, invest in a couple of really soft, organic blankets that don't irritate their delicate skin, and lower your expectations for yourself down to the absolute floor.

Stop reading late-night parenting forums that make you feel like a failure, and go look at Kianao's safe, organic baby gear because at least your kid will be wrapped up in something non-toxic while you both cry in the rocking chair.

Answers to the questions you're panic-googling right now

When do babies finally start sleeping through the night?

Honestly, whoever invented the phrase "sleeping like a baby" was an absolute liar. Some moms swear their kid slept twelve hours at three months old, but I'm convinced they're hiding the truth. Mine didn't string together more than four hours until we hit six months, and even then, every time a tooth pops up or a breeze blows the wrong way, we're back to square one. Just stock up on under-eye concealer.

Is it normal for a newborn to poop this much?

My doctor warned me but I still wasn't prepared for the sheer volume. A newborn goes through like ten to twelve diapers a day, and it's this weird mustardy mess that gets everywhere. Yes, it's normal. If you're doing cloth diapers, bless your heart and your washing machine, because I gave up after week two and bought compostables.

How do I know if the teether I bought is safe?

If you bought it off some random sketchy website for a dollar, throw it in the trash right now. You want 100% food-grade silicone or untreated natural wood, like the ones from Kianao. I'm terrified of the cheap plastic ones leaching chemicals into their mouths, especially since they suck on these things for hours a day. Look for stuff that says BPA and phthalate-free.

Can I put my baby to sleep in the swing if I'm watching them?

Dr. Miller scared the life out of me about this. Even if you're sitting right there staring at them, their little heavy heads can slump forward and cut off their airway. It's so tempting when they finally fall asleep in the swing after screaming for an hour, but you really have to move them to a flat surface. I hate it, but it's not worth the risk.

Why does my baby's skin look like a teenager's forehead?

It's baby acne, and it looks terrible but it's totally normal. It's just your lingering pregnancy hormones leaving their body. Don't put adult acne cream on it, please. I just wiped his face gently with warm water and made sure whatever touched his skin—like his burp cloths and blankets—was organic cotton or bamboo without weird chemical dyes.