Advice for New Moms: 8 Shocking Truths

Motherhood, motherhood, motherhood. It’s that part of life that most women hope for in their future. Whether it be playing with dolls and developing baby fever early on, or waiting until you’re almost 30 and the biological clock starts ticking, motherhood certainly has a way of surfacing in us women.

Let me tell you, as someone who falls into that second category, the biological clock phenomenon is 100% real. I’d never spent any time around children, and I never understood how life could possibly be better with them. But once I met my husband and hit my late twenties, the question of whether I could have kids started consuming me—kind of like how TikTok reels have taken over Gen Z.

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Most people have had some experience with children, whether from having younger siblings or cousins, or from becoming aunts and uncles. Not me. I was the youngest of all my first cousins growing up, and moving across the Atlantic at a young age meant I never got to be around family that was younger than me. Becoming an aunt was out of the question, and my first real encounter with a baby was when my aerial silk teacher asked me to hold her infant as she demonstrated “the Rebecca split”. I was 25 years old.

Needless to say, I had no idea what to expect with having children. I’d never held a newborn baby, and certainly never changed a diaper. My husband hadn’t had much experience either. But there he was, baby Jace, born perfectly healthy to two clueless new parents. They sent him home with us after only observing our parenting skills for 24 hours.

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When you haven’t been exposed to babies, you’ll likely be well under-prepared for motherhood and be in search of advice for new moms.

Here are 8 shocking truths about motherhood and some of my top advice for new moms.

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1. Newborns Eat Every 2-3 Hours

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So, I think I first learned this when my husband and I were watching the online prenatal education videos offered by the Canadian government, and the question came up, “how often do newborns eat?”.

Thanks to COVID, the in-person prenatal education classes had been scrapped, and they stuck with the much cheaper alternative.

I recall learning how small a newborn’s tummy is, and how they get hungry frequently, but this information got lost in the midst of my other nesting priorities and caught me by surprise. At the hospital, following my baby’s birth, I was instructed to set a timer on my phone every 3 hours, starting at the start of the feed. I was also told to wake my baby up, as newborns eat every 2-3 hours.

One piece of advice: don’t allow this three-hour rule of thumb to dictate your feeding schedule. If you breastfeed and your baby shows hunger signs, feed them, even if it’s every 45 minutes. I made the mistake of thinking my baby couldn’t be hungry again, and my milk supply dropped.

The guidance from my doctor was that I would have to continue doing the 3-hour feedings, including waking my baby up through the night, until he was back to his birth weight. We ended up opting to combo feed with formula to get him back to his birth weight quicker.

The 2-3 hour feeding schedule continues until they’re at least two months of age, which is why most mums I know don’t start social activities until the windows between feedings get longer.

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2. It Takes a Long Time to Heal from Birth

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Male TMI warning. If you’re a guy, you might want to skip this one.

Whoever knew that giving birth would require healing and downtime? Not me. In fact, I’d have been completely oblivious to the whole messy postpartum experience if it weren’t for enrolling in prenatal yoga. Half of the class was always spent discussing pregnancy and birth, and it’s from these discussions that I learned that it takes at least six weeks to heal from a vaginal birth.

The placenta - an organ which forms in the uterus during pregnancy - detaches itself at the end of giving birth. That means that an open wound the size of a dinner plate is left in your womb. Gross!

While some people think every part of birth is beautiful, I, for one, do not. Especially not the messy aftermath of shedding my placenta while caring for a needy newborn.

I won’t get into all the gory details, but ladies, if you plan to give birth the “natural” way, be prepared with the following items:

Peri bottle for washing after the restroom and in the shower
Maxi pads
Adult diapers or disposable underwear
A lot of Tylenol and Advil
Raspberry leaf tea (to help with internal healing)
Witch hazel and aloe vera to make padsicles*

Good old padsicles. You can make these by spreading aloe vera and witch hazel onto a pad, wrapping them up, and freezing them. These will be very soothing during the first days or weeks of healing.

Just ask this random woman on TikTok.

You also need to avoid exercise until given the clear by your doctor, which could be at least six weeks. Exercising too soon can worsen diastasis recti, the separation of the abs during pregnancy, leaving you with a permanent pregnancy pooch. Trust me, the novelty of having a baby bump wears off two years after the baby is born….

And if you get sick of the mess, don’t even think about using a tampon. Can’t use those either.

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3. Breastfeeding Might Not Work for You

Breastfeeding is nature’s way of nourishing your baby, so it must come naturally, right?

WRONG.

Truth is, breastfeeding presents many challenges to new mothers - beyond just getting used to a live creature chomping down and suckling on body tissue that likely hasn’t received that kind of attention. One recent study claims that around 70% of new mothers experience breastfeeding difficulties in the first month. These include, but are not limited to:

Cracked nipples
Insufficient milk supply
Breast pain
Ineffective latch
Engorgement

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Of these difficulties, an insufficient milk supply and an ineffective latch correlate with an infant’s weight gain. One study found that about a third of women experienced complications with latching, and one in six experienced a low milk supply.

I had a low milk supply, and unfortunately, no matter how much time and effort I dedicated to pumping after each daytime feed for three months, I never managed to breastfeed exclusively. This perception of “failure” can be very common amongst mothers who have to supplement with formula, especially when surrounded by communities of pro-breastfeeding groups.

In my early days of breastfeeding, my cousin said something that really resonated with me: “A full baby is a happy baby.” For me, this became significantly true. Giving Jace formula in the evening helped him sleep through the night, and giving him top-ups of formula after breastfeeding kept him content during our mum and baby activities. Of course, I still envied those who “could do it” and exclusively breastfed. But when you think about it, a tiny baby doesn’t deserve to be hungry in order to feed their mother’s ego. There’s no shame in doing what you need to keep your baby fed, healthy and happy .

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4. Babies Get Bored

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Have you ever wondered, “do babies get bored?” Oh God, do they ever. Now that my boy is two and a half, I’m quite used to having to plan at least one outing every day to keep him happy. We started doing social activities twice a week when Jace was around six weeks old, but on our non-activity days, we used to be fine laying him down on his tummy time mat or placing him in front of the TV in his bouncing chair between feeds and naps. At about four or five months, that all started to change….

Our mornings would be busy enough with feeding, then coming outside with me for a walk or downstairs to do my morning workout. During the afternoon, we always had a period of time where there was nothing to do. It was winter, so I couldn’t even take him outside for a stroll in the park. Boy, would he get angry. It got to the point where I would try to find some activity for us to do every day in the afternoon or morning, because somehow, he knew whether or not he left the house that day, even after a nap.

Here are a few indoor baby activities to do in winter:

Baby swim lessons
Mom and baby yoga
EarlyON infant programs (Indoor baby activities Niagara)
Walks around the mall
Mom and tot music classes
Library drop-in programs
Baby wearing dance class

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5. You Can’t Just Put them to Sleep and Go About Your Chores

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The art of knowing how to do chores with a baby is pretty hard, and this is coming from someone who never did “contact napping”. If you don’t know, “contact napping is when a baby or toddler sleeps with their little body on top of—or squished against—a parent.” Sometimes I do regret not allowing contact napping, as Jace is not very cuddly and very independent. But, it allowed me to get a lot more done… and that’s not saying much.

It can take a long time to get a baby to settle down. Protesting sleep is something that happens at many stages for various reasons. You may find yourself spending up to an hour in the nursery trying to calm your baby to sleep, or you might just give up let them self-soothe. Whichever way you choose, once you finally can leave them alone, you’re not going to want to be making any loud noises like vacuuming or cleaning out your fridge. It’s not like you’d have time anyway before they’re up again and wanting to be entertained.

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6. There are Multiple Sleep Regressions

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To go along with the point above, there are many stages when a baby is prone to protesting their sleep. When I first started Mum and Baby yoga, I heard a lot of talk about the dreaded 4-month baby sleep regression.

Once we hit that mark, sure enough, I do recall it being harder to put Jace down for his dinner time nap, and there were times when we had to let him self-soothe to figure it out. Other times, I’d come home from the gym after dinner, and Jace would be wide awake, rolling around in front of Ms. Rachel on the TV with my poor husband sitting up, knowing that his only chance to relax was ruined before he had to wake up at 3:30 am.

When things started to settle, and I thought we were through it, I remember hearing one mom whose baby was entering the “6-month sleep regression.” I distinctly remember interrupting this mom and saying, “There’s another sleep regression?!” If I remember correctly, the six-month sleep regression was even worse for us. Settling him at bedtime took over an hour for a couple of weeks straight.

According to Medical News Today, “The consensus among sleep specialists is that there are roughly six stages of sleep regression at different ages—when the baby is 4, 6, 8, 12, 18, and 24 months old.” Now that we have a 2 and a half year old, we are into the even more challenging toddler sleep regressions!

7. Starting Solids with a Baby is a Nightmare

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It’s a natural animal instinct to eat, right? Wrong. Starting solids with a baby is a nightmare.

If you don’t know anything about breastfeeding, it’s really interesting to learn that babies are born with an instinct, the” rooting reflex”, almost instantly after exiting the womb. After 9 months of sucking all your ice cream binges and pickle cravings effortlessly through the umbilical cord, once a baby makes its grand entrance into the world and is placed on its mummy’s chest, it will start rooting like a little piglet to find the nipple. Of course, breastfeeding does not come easily, and many babies and mums experience challenges, but the rooting reflex is an adorable natural instinct which lasts for a few months. Unfortunately, there is no natural reflex with eating food. Babies have no idea what to do with food when starting solids at 5 months old.

The first time we tried Jace with baby cereal, it was like he didn’t know how to keep it in his mouth. Eventually, the cereal came easily. Puréed food pouches were simple too, as long as he liked the flavour. Eating textured food, however, was a whole other ball game. Jace had a very sensitive gag reflex and would choke on everything. I never got into “Baby-led weaning”, a popular trend which “involves jumping straight to finger foods and bypassing purees.” The thought of allowing him to chow down on solids with his toothless gums scared me to death. Even when he was older and had several front teeth, I was still nervous to give him food that I hadn’t soaked in yogurt or mushed the hell out of.

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8. You'll Get a LOT of Attention

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Maybe I should have expected it, but then again, I was the kind of person who had absolutely no experience with babies or young children before one was beside me in a hospital bassinet, and somehow I was responsible for him.

What surprised me almost as much as becoming a parent was just how much attention having a baby attracts.

“Can I have a peek?” ask the old ladies as you’re sifting through bananas in the grocery store.

“Awww. How old?” from an unexpected old man power walking laps at senior speed in the park.

But if there's one phrase you hear over and over again after having a baby, it's simply: "Enjoy it."

Sometimes, the pressure to “enjoy it” seems overwhelming. Between the crying, the feeding, the diaper changes, and the bags and bags of stuff you need to take to and from the car, simply enjoying your baby is easier said than done.

It’s not always easy to enjoy motherhood in the present, but those moments of attention, the smiles, and the compliments allow you to pause and appreciate the little person in front of you.

It does “go by fast”, so take all the photos and videos and make collages, because the digital memories help you relive the precious moments over and over again.

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