Dear Past Me: Surviving The First Year And That Lil Baby Age

Dear Sarah from six months ago—

Actually, wait. No. Maya is seven and Leo is four now. So writing a letter to myself from six months ago would just be me aggressively telling myself to buy more coffee before the preschool run and to stop shrinking Dave's sweaters in the dryer.

Let's rewind a bit further. Let's write to myself from years ago, when I was actually in the thick of it. When I was sitting in that hideous beige nursing chair at 3:14 AM, wearing a nursing tank that had sour milk crusted on the strap, frantically Googling if it was normal that my kid was breathing weird.

Listen, when you're in the thick of that lil baby age—you know, that bizarre purgatory between the sleepy newborn potato phase and the chaotic walking toddler phase—everything feels like life or death. You're so exhausted that your bones actually ache, and everyone keeps telling you to "enjoy every moment" while you're literally just trying to survive until your husband takes over at 6 AM.

So this is for you, past me. And for anyone else currently trapped under a sleeping infant, terrified to move, wondering if you're doing this whole thing completely wrong.

The absolute lie of "drowsy but awake"

I remember sitting in Dr. Evans' office when Leo was like four months old. I was crying. I was crying because I had read somewhere on the internet that babies need exactly 12 to 16 hours of sleep a day, and Leo was apparently running on pure spite and a collective 45 minutes of napping.

Dr. Evans looked at me with deep pity and said something about sleep cycles and establishing a routine. He told me to put Leo down "drowsy but awake."

I STILL WANT TO SCREAM ABOUT THIS.

Who are these babies? What magical, unicorn infant is put down in a crib while semi-conscious and just politely closes their eyes? If I put Leo down drowsy but awake, his eyes would snap open like he'd just remembered he left the stove on, and he would scream until I picked him up again. I spent hours—literal hours of my finite life—rocking him until my arms went numb, terrified of waking him up because Dr. Evans had also put the absolute fear of god in me about safe sleep. Like, no blankets, no pillows, no soft toys, just a baby alone on a rock-hard mattress on their back to prevent SIDS. Which is terrifying, right? So you're staring at the monitor, paranoid, while your baby is furious about being on their back.

I tortured myself trying to follow the rules perfectly. Dave would come in, completely rested because his nipples didn't produce milk, and be like, "Babe, just let him cry a little." And I'd glare at him with the fire of a thousand suns.

Anyway, the point is, if your baby only sleeps while being aggressively bounced on a yoga ball in a pitch-black room while a white noise machine plays the sound of a roaring hurricane, you aren't failing. You're just surviving. Eventually, their brains mature, and they figure it out. Or they don't, and you just get really used to functioning on three hours of sleep and cold brew.

Oh, and Dr. Evans also said no screens until 18 months, so good luck ever showering again.

When their skin hates everything

Okay, let's talk about the rashes. Oh god, the skin issues at this specific baby age are just entirely unfair. You think baby skin is supposed to be this soft, perfect, peach-fuzz situation, right?

Nope. With Leo, around five months, he started getting these angry, red, scaly patches in the folds of his neck and behind his little knees. I was buying every organic, super-expensive oat cream on the market. I was slathering him in so much aquaphor he looked like a greased piglet.

It turned out I was basically suffocating his skin with cheap clothes. I had bought all these adorable, trendy little outfits from fast-fashion places—tiny jeans, polyester blend sweaters that made him look like a miniature fisherman. Cute for Instagram, absolute hell for infant eczema.

Our doctor basically told me that infant skin barriers are essentially useless and that I needed to strip everything back to basics. I ended up throwing all the synthetic stuff in a donation bin and basically lived out of the Kianao Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit.

I'm not exaggerating when I say this is the only thing he wore for like three months straight. I love this thing. It's 95% organic cotton, undyed, and it doesn't have those horrible scratchy tags that make babies lose their minds. The stretch on it's perfect, which matters when you're trying to wrestle an angry, squirming baby into sleeves after a blowout. Seriously, just ditch the heavily scented detergent, buy a few of these breathable bodysuits, and let their skin breathe. It cleared up his neck rash in like a week. It was wild.

The great floor time guilt trip

Have you heard of "container syndrome"? Because I hadn't until I read an article at 2 AM and immediately convinced myself I had ruined Maya's physical development because I left her in a bouncy seat so I could empty the dishwasher.

Suddenly I was obsessed with floor time. I think Dr. Evans said something about their core and neck muscles needing gravity and unrestricted movement to develop properly so they can crawl, or whatever. So I became the floor time police.

I bought the Kianao Rainbow Play Gym because I refused to have another hideous, flashing, singing plastic monstrosity in my living room. And honestly? It's just okay.

I mean, it's beautiful. The wood is lovely, the little hanging crochet animals are aesthetically pleasing, and it doesn't overstimulate them with aggressive electronic noises. But like... it's a play gym. Sometimes Leo would bat at the little wooden rings for ten minutes and look like a genius, and other times he would ignore it completely to stare deeply at the shadow of the ceiling fan on the wall.

Babies are weird. It's a solid, safe, non-toxic place to put them down when you need to use the bathroom, but don't expect it to magically teach them geometry or keep them entertained for an hour. Still, it looks way better in the background of photos than the neon plastic junk Dave's mom bought us.

(If you're also drowning in loud plastic toys and want to pivot to things that won't assault your senses, you can check out some seriously decent stuff in Kianao's wooden toys and play gyms collection.)

The absolute misery of teeth

Then comes the drool.

Right around six months, it's like a faucet turns on inside their mouth and never turns off. Everything is wet. Your shirt is wet. The dog is wet. The organic cotton bodysuit you just bought is completely soaked.

Holding my fragile lil baby while he sobbed because his gums were literally splitting open was the worst. He was gnawing on his own fists until they were red and chapped. I was desperately rubbing his gums, trying to figure out if it was a bottom tooth or a top tooth causing the meltdown.

We had a bunch of teethers, but the one that seriously saved my sanity was the Kianao Panda Teether. I don't know why, but the flat shape of it was just easier for his clumsy little hands to hold onto. Most teething toys are weirdly bulky, and he would just drop them and scream because he didn't have the motor skills to pick them back up.

I kept this panda thing in the fridge (never the freezer, Dr. Evans warned me frozen solid things can genuinely cause frostbite on their gums, which is another terrifying fact I didn't need). When Leo was losing his mind at 4 PM—the witching hour—I'd just hand him the cold silicone panda. He'd gnaw on the textured ears with this look of pure, unadulterated relief. Plus, you can just chuck it in the dishwasher, which is my main requirement for anything entering my house at this point.

You're the only expert on your baby

I spent so much of that first year reading books and following Instagram accounts run by "experts" telling me exactly what my baby should be doing at exactly which week of their life.

If you take anything away from my rambling, let it be this: throw the milestone charts away if they're making you crazy. Or at least put them in a drawer.

You'll obsess over solid food, boiling organic sweet potatoes and mashing them by hand, only to watch your baby spit them directly onto your favorite rug. You'll worry that they aren't babbling the right syllables. You'll fight with your partner about whose turn it's to wash the pump parts.

It's messy. It's relentless. You'll question your sanity daily.

But then one day, they'll smile at you—not a gas grimace, but a real, gummy, full-face smile that reaches their eyes—and your heart will basically explode in your chest, and you'll realize you'd go through the sleepless nights a hundred times over just for that one look.

You're doing fine. Seriously. Drink the coffee. Wear the spit-up shirt. Let the baby chew on the cold silicone panda. You will survive this.

Ready to upgrade your infant survival kit with things that are really safe and won't make you crazy? Explore the teething toys collection to save your sanity during those rough gummy months.

The messy questions we all Google at 3 AM (FAQs)

When does the "lil baby age" seriously get easier?
God, I hate when people say "it never gets easier, it just gets different." It's so unhelpful! For me, things honestly got easier around 7-8 months when Leo could sit up by himself and hold his own toys. The newborn potato phase is beautiful but exhausting because you've to do literally everything for them. Once they can sit and engage a bit, it feels less like you're serving a tiny dictator and more like you're hanging out with a very small, drunk roommate.

Do I really have to wash all the baby clothes before wearing them?
I used to think this was a myth pushed by detergent companies, but yeah, you kind of do. The chemicals they use in factories to keep clothes from wrinkling in shipping are horrific for sensitive baby skin. When I skipped washing a batch of onesies, Maya got a rash immediately. Stick to natural fabrics like organic cotton and wash them in something unscented. It's annoying, but less annoying than dealing with a screaming, itchy baby.

How do I seriously clean all these baby toys without using bleach?
Look, I'm the laziest cleaner on earth. If a silicone toy (like that panda teether) can't go in the dishwasher, it doesn't belong in my house. For wooden stuff like the play gym, I just wiped it down with a damp cloth and a little bit of mild dish soap when it looked gross. You don't need to sterilize everything perfectly once they start army crawling and licking the floor anyway.

Is it bad if my baby hates tummy time?
Leo screamed face-down into the carpet like he was being tortured every single time we did tummy time. I stressed about it constantly. My doctor eventually told me that carrying him upright on my chest or babywearing counts as core work, too! So if your kid hates the floor, just strap them to you while you walk around drinking cold coffee. They'll figure out how to hold their head up eventually, I promise.