Classically Abby - July 20, 2022


I Couldn't BELIEVE The Difference... ⧸⧸ Motherhood Update #2


Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

189.11751

Word count

1,973

Sentence count

139

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In today's episode, I m sharing my thoughts on the first three months of being a new mom and the challenges that come with it. I m also sharing some of the things I ve learned and the struggles that I ve had with my son.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
00:00:00.000 Hello Classic Crew and welcome to today's video where I'm going to be sharing my thoughts
00:00:04.300 three months into being a new mom.
00:00:11.400 If you are new to my channel, here we talk about classic living and traditional values
00:00:14.780 and I would love if you would consider subscribing and hitting that notification bell.
00:00:18.280 If you haven't already subscribed to my Substack newsletter where you'll get access to a ton
00:00:21.620 of exclusive content including my book club, my podcast, and exclusive weekly articles,
00:00:26.700 make sure to head over to classicallyabbey.substack.com.
00:00:29.680 So I decided to start a series on my channel kind of sharing my experience as a new mom.
00:00:35.280 I sort of did some updates during my pregnancy and I thought it would be good to kind of continue
00:00:39.340 that now that I'm a new mom and I think that there's so much that happens in the first year
00:00:43.320 of being a new mom.
00:00:45.080 So I wanted to share that with you guys, share my experience, and I'm really looking forward
00:00:49.660 to it because I think it'll be good for me to look back on.
00:00:52.240 It'll be nice for me to look back on for my next baby to see, okay, how did it progress?
00:00:56.880 How did I progress as a woman, as a mother, being a new mom?
00:01:01.020 Is there stuff that I can reference when I'm, you know, dealing with another baby and that
00:01:06.460 I don't remember?
00:01:07.140 Can I go back to my old videos?
00:01:08.500 So for my own sake, I think it'll be nice, but also I'd like to be able to share these
00:01:11.800 thoughts with you so that hopefully if you are feeling similarly or you need some advice
00:01:16.900 or anything like that, we can kind of bounce ideas off each other.
00:01:19.760 So make sure to leave a comment down below and let's get into today's video.
00:01:23.660 So I recently wrote an article for my Substack newsletter called The Truth About the Fourth
00:01:28.780 Trimester.
00:01:29.740 And now that I'm through the fourth trimester, I feel like I've learned so much and I'm
00:01:36.240 so much happier.
00:01:37.520 So the fourth trimester is a term that was kind of coined by Dr. Harvey Karp.
00:01:43.040 And the idea is that the baby is attached to the mother in such a way that it's almost
00:01:48.080 like you're pregnant for another three months.
00:01:50.040 And the mother is in a whole new stage of life where she's really learning how to cope
00:01:55.340 and to be a new person.
00:01:57.160 I think that's a very accurate description of what the first three months of a newborn's
00:02:02.200 life are like.
00:02:03.380 Your baby needs you so much and the baby is so helpless that you are in it all the time.
00:02:11.640 There's no time to be paying attention to anything else.
00:02:14.480 You are just so involved with this little person that there's really not a lot of time
00:02:19.860 for you.
00:02:21.180 And even to kind of take in what this experience is, you're just figuring it out.
00:02:26.200 It can be a really difficult time.
00:02:28.420 And I say that not because I want to make anyone afraid about being a new mom.
00:02:33.800 Actually, I think knowing that you come out the other side is a really helpful thing.
00:02:39.220 It's really difficult when you're in it to recognize that this isn't going to be forever.
00:02:44.420 So, you know, in those first three months, you're so sleep deprived.
00:02:48.480 Your hormones are going crazy.
00:02:50.320 You have this little person who really doesn't know how to be a person yet.
00:02:54.520 And you just have to help them survive.
00:02:57.580 That is your entire reason for being while this baby is so little.
00:03:02.500 And as the baby gets older, and like now my son is 13 weeks when I'm recording this,
00:03:08.740 and he is such a person.
00:03:11.000 Like he knows exactly what he wants.
00:03:12.660 He knows what he needs.
00:03:13.540 He has such a good sense of humor.
00:03:14.960 He's very opinionated.
00:03:17.120 And the idea that it only took 13 weeks for him to get to this point where he's a person
00:03:21.560 is crazy as opposed to the first couple of weeks where it was like he doesn't even know
00:03:27.720 that he has to eat.
00:03:28.640 So you have to be the one who's telling him when to feed.
00:03:31.100 That's how you have to deal with a newborn. 0.96
00:03:32.940 They're so unaware of themselves as a person that you have to be their mind, their brain
00:03:40.200 for them.
00:03:41.380 And it can be really overwhelming.
00:03:42.940 There's just not a lot of time for you.
00:03:45.060 There's not a lot of time to figure yourself out and to process what's happening.
00:03:51.960 I feel so blessed now that we've come out of that to say that I love being a mom.
00:03:59.580 I love it.
00:04:01.100 I am so happy.
00:04:03.240 And if you are going through a similar struggle right now where you feel like really overwhelmed
00:04:07.740 and it's just not joyful, it will happen for you.
00:04:12.020 So I, on top of just the normal hardships and difficulties of new motherhood, on top of
00:04:21.120 that, my son had reflux and has reflux.
00:04:24.480 He was struggling to gain weight.
00:04:27.160 We had a lot of issues breastfeeding because I had an oversupply. 0.84
00:04:30.540 And I really had to work with that so everything was even more intense.
00:04:37.180 I think that maybe for some moms when they're dealing with their newborn, you can feed them 0.94
00:04:43.560 and put them down and then they sleep all day.
00:04:45.700 My son, it took him a really long time to eat because he would spit up everything and
00:04:50.900 then want to eat more.
00:04:51.660 And then I had to hold him up for like 15 to 30 minutes after he ate so that he wouldn't
00:04:57.500 spit up.
00:04:58.740 And then when I would lie him down, he would spit up.
00:05:01.800 It was very painful to watch him.
00:05:04.860 He was happy.
00:05:05.800 He really was a happy spitter.
00:05:07.220 But he wasn't gaining weight.
00:05:08.400 And every time, I had to go into the doctor's office twice a week for a month so that we
00:05:12.780 could do weigh-ins.
00:05:13.720 It was really stressful.
00:05:15.740 And it felt like I couldn't do anything right.
00:05:19.440 So I think that that was an extenuating circumstance.
00:05:22.780 But actually, I don't know.
00:05:24.240 Let me know in the comments if the first few months of motherhood were as hard for you
00:05:28.900 as they were for me.
00:05:29.540 Because for me, I don't know if that was a uniquely hard situation or if everyone has
00:05:36.960 a hard situation at the beginning because it is new.
00:05:39.520 And motherhood is a totally new adjustment.
00:05:42.920 I would love to know because it's hard for me to know.
00:05:45.480 I don't.
00:05:45.780 I actually don't.
00:05:46.780 You know, everyone only knows their own experience.
00:05:49.220 So if having a newborn that didn't have reflux was still hard, I think it would make me feel
00:05:54.200 better to know that I wasn't overreacting.
00:06:00.100 So that's something I've been thinking about.
00:06:02.300 But those first few weeks of motherhood, I think it's just so important to know that
00:06:08.700 there is an end point and that at some point, the baby's going to figure himself out.
00:06:13.540 He's going to figure out his schedule.
00:06:15.400 He's going to figure out his routine.
00:06:17.240 You obviously can be helpful with that.
00:06:19.200 I am pretty involved in his routine to help him get down for naps and to feed the right
00:06:24.020 times and all of that.
00:06:25.040 But he is engaged.
00:06:27.800 Like, he knows what's happening.
00:06:29.840 And that's a really comforting thing as a new mom.
00:06:34.100 I feel like I finally figured out how motherhood looks for me.
00:06:39.020 And it looks like a different reality but a beautiful one.
00:06:44.420 That's okay.
00:06:45.480 I think that there's a lot of fear going into motherhood that everything's going to change.
00:06:49.320 And everything does but for the best reason.
00:06:51.560 And that is what gets you through.
00:06:54.800 Like, you know why things have changed.
00:06:57.640 I just love being a mom so much.
00:06:59.620 And I feel really grateful that I can say that.
00:07:01.820 Because in the first few weeks, I didn't feel this way.
00:07:04.820 I felt like I loved being a mom as an intellectual stance.
00:07:09.940 But from a practical perspective, being in it was really hard.
00:07:14.240 And now I'm like, no, I love it.
00:07:16.260 I love when my son smiles at me.
00:07:17.780 I love when he laughs.
00:07:18.820 Like, he's such an interesting person now.
00:07:22.060 So someone wrote something in the comments of a different video.
00:07:25.260 And I totally agree.
00:07:26.500 If you are not a newborn person, that's okay.
00:07:30.300 You will be a good mom even if you're not a newborn person.
00:07:33.600 And I know a lot of people who feel that way.
00:07:35.980 Like, the thing about newborn life is that it's sort of like having a puppy.
00:07:40.980 The pictures of the puppy are really cute.
00:07:43.160 But the day-to-day of dealing with a puppy and having to get up in the middle of the night with that puppy and take him outside and go to the bathroom, that's not fun.
00:07:50.720 So it's like the snapshots of puppyhood are fun.
00:07:53.980 But what's really fun is when the puppy is old enough and kind of figured himself out enough to be self-sufficient.
00:08:01.400 Now, your baby's not self-sufficient.
00:08:04.300 But when you first have a newborn, they're so dependent on you that the snapshots are really cute.
00:08:10.100 But the actual experience can be really overwhelming.
00:08:13.780 But I really hope that with my next baby, now knowing that there is an end point,
00:08:20.100 just taking it all in and enjoying it and trying to soak it in,
00:08:26.780 I really hope I can do that with my next baby.
00:08:29.200 Because with this one, you're just trying to make it through, man.
00:08:32.520 You're just trying to survive.
00:08:34.600 But with number two, you kind of have an idea of what you're doing.
00:08:37.780 So I hope that I can just enjoy it.
00:08:41.160 And also, not hold it against myself if I don't get anything done for the first 12 weeks.
00:08:45.840 I think I was really, really stressed about trying to be productive in those first 12 weeks.
00:08:52.760 Who cares?
00:08:54.540 Who cares?
00:08:55.360 In those first 12 weeks, you're not going to be productive.
00:08:57.880 And if you are, it's a bonus.
00:08:59.500 But it shouldn't be the focus.
00:09:00.860 The focus is holding that baby on your chest and just enjoying that baby.
00:09:05.160 Now, I will also have a toddler, theoretically, when we have our next baby.
00:09:10.020 So I can't just enjoy the baby on my chest all day.
00:09:14.040 But I can enjoy both my children together by the time we have a number or two.
00:09:20.080 And if the house isn't clean, the house isn't clean.
00:09:22.960 And if we need to order dinner out, that's okay, too.
00:09:25.860 Yeah.
00:09:26.340 So I've been thinking a lot about kind of how I hope I can take this knowledge into our next baby.
00:09:33.680 Because, you know, that's on my mind a lot.
00:09:36.820 But I just, I think that the difference between what a baby is like at 13 weeks and a baby is like at 2 weeks is just so extreme.
00:09:48.140 And it's so much fun.
00:09:50.060 So if you are in the throes of it right now and you are just struggling,
00:09:54.020 know that there will be a point very soon where your baby is just going to turn into a person
00:10:01.020 and you're going to have the best time with that baby.
00:10:03.980 It is the best thing ever.
00:10:06.520 So those are my thoughts at 13 weeks after having come out of the fourth trimester.
00:10:11.800 Let me know your thoughts down below.
00:10:13.580 Thank you guys so much for watching.
00:10:15.420 If you haven't subscribed, make sure to subscribe to my channel and hit that notification bell.
00:10:19.500 If you'd like to follow me on social media, it's at Classically Abby absolutely everywhere.
00:10:23.200 Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you guys in my next one.
00:10:25.600 Bye!