The School of Hard Knocks (Part 3)

And Part 3...which did take quite a while for me to post.
Sorry.

21. Breastfeeding is hard! And it doesn't always work right. Pumping or adding more feedings does not always equal fatter babies/more milk. Drink a bunch of water, eat right, do what you can, and if you need to make any other changes, trust your intuition and just do it. You'll both survive!

22. Don't be afraid to wake your babies up during the day to feed them. You won't want to every time. You'll appreciate a few minutes of quiet or a few minutes where you don't feel like you need to entertain them. Train their bio-rhythm and this will help them eat their calories during the day and sleep during the night. This is not cruel. This is helpful to you, your baby, and your whole family. A sleep deprived momma never helped anybody.

23. If you're of the scheduling persuasion, you can come back from having a day or two, or a week, where your schedule is all out of whack. Give it about three days and you can get back on track from just about any interruption.

24. Kids sharing a room is wonderful. They learn to sleep through so much. It's like they know they don't need to wake up for the sibling screaming in the night...

25. Delegate jobs to the kids as they are able to handle them. You may have to totally redo it after them and they may make more of a mess than they clean up, but it will (at least I'm trusting that it will ;)) pay off later.

26. Hug your kids first thing every morning. It's easy to get distracted with morning stuff and not even touch them. Kids need physical contact. They need hugs. If you've heard of The Five Love Languages, know there is one for kids too. Even if one your child's love language isn't quality time or physical touch, your child's love language is quality time and physical touch.

And last but not least, in fact, maybe the most important...

27. No one has it ALL together.

There are things that specifically stand out to you, like well-behaved children in public, or a clean house, a successful blog, or a put-together mom with perfect hair, make-up, and super cute clothes. Whatever areas you feel lacking in, you WILL find another mom who has it together in each of those particular areas. If you take each of those moms, and in your mind, group them into one perfect mom who has it all together, you are setting yourself up for insecurity and great feelings of failure. Remember, you grouped multiple moms into one idea. I promise, none of those moms, alone, has it all together. And honestly, each of those are probably looking at you as someone who has something nailed down that they don't!
Find a few things that you have a good handle on. Ask your husband or close friends if you can't come up with something on your own. Then, make a plan of attack to conquer something else!

As always feel free to add any lessons you've learned in The School of Hard Knocks!
(Part 1)
(Part 2)