Welcome to The Club....

My childhood  next door neighbor/friend and his wife just had their first baby boy.
He is adorably huge and perfectly perfect.   
They are now home and my mom stopped over for a visit.
She said they are great and tired.
I wanted to call them and start spewing all my best advice..but instead I decided to write about it.

Since I'm on baby #2 I feel like a pro.  Of course, this is not the case, but I do feel like it is a bit easier the second time around.
Maybe easier isn't the word....but I'm not as nervous or neurotic.  Still a control freak, but I know I'm not gonna snap off the baby's finger while trying to get the onesie on
and when the binky falls on the floor I know I don't have to run it through an hour long sanitizing cycle.

When you enter the world of parenthood it's like joining a club.  You're automatically inducted into it.  Whether you like it or not, the choice is not yours to make.  Every mother wants to tell the new mother what she did with her baby and how her ideas are  the one and only way of doing things.  Consider this your initiation into The Club.  You can't escape it.

Since I've already been through initiation into The Club, I feel it's perfectly acceptable for me to take my turn doing the 'hazing'.  I want to share my knowledge with my friends.
So here it is....
Or here's what I thought when I got home with my first son and what I've learned so far...
(on the subject of sleep anyway)
(and for the record, I, by no means, know it all.  I'm learning something new all the time, even as I type.)

If you're like me, when you got home, you are kinda freaking out.  I thought,
"Oh man, I can't believe they just sent me home with this baby without any instructions.  What do I do now?!"
All you really want to do is sleep.  But, that's not gonna happen.  Not unless you are one of the small percent whose babies sleep through the night right away.  And if you're not one of those you don't wanna hear about it.  You're too delirious from no sleep, like the rest of us. 

So try and hold your eyes open while you read this.  :)

Baby #1 went to the crib for the first 2 months.  I got up every 2-3 hours to feed and rock him.  Feed and Rock.  Exhausting.  He was a fussy baby and I felt like nothing was right.  At 3 months, I had to go back to work.  I was a manager at a restaurant so there were late nights.  The Hubs was on duty until I got home.  Bless him because he had to get up early for work.   I was used to sleeping in (way in) but the baby was having none of that.   So after a while of fighting it, I caved and brought him into our bed.  This allowed for several more hours of sleep.  Awesome.  Awesome, until he never wanted to sleep in his bed again.
This is a battle that is still going on today.  He goes in phases of sleeping in his own room, but he does  still creep in our bed.  I'm constantly trying to think of cool, persuading ideas for him to stay in his bed.  They will work for a while, but  haven't held for the long term.
Lesson learned.
With the new baby I'm holding strong with the crib.
But..
that's not how we started out.
For the first 2 months of his life, he slept on me, on the couch.  Sometimes next to the couch in the pack n' play, but mostly on me.  For whatever reason, I needed him near me and we both slept longer like that.   I knew I couldn't do that for long, he was getting bigger fast and the comfort level was declining.   This go around, I'm a stay at home mom, so I can be consistent.  I started bringing him into his room at the same time every night.  With only a night light, I would rock and feed him, then put him in the crib.   Sometimes he would go down and sometimes not.  I would try and let him cry for at least 5 minutes, then repeat.  After several nights, he started to catch on.  He's still in the crib and we are making progress with longer stints of sleep.  The most has been 5 hours,  never two 5 hour intervals back to back...that would be glorious.   But I'm thankful for what I can get.   We're still working on when and what is a day nap time.  For now, he just racks out whenever and I go with it.  (like now)

I read lots of books and articles on line and I think one thing always holds true.
You and your baby are originals.  There are no two like you.  Learn what works best for your family and roll with that.
One baby will love the swing, one will hate it.  One baby will occupy himself on a play mat on the floor, one will scream bloody murder when you put him down for a split second.
A good thing to keep in mind is that there are a lot of phases that the baby (and toddler and young boy)  will go through, but they don't last forever.  So when your baby is screaming in your face and you have no idea why, try to remember that he's not going to do it forever.  It will be hard, but know that it's true. 
On a happier note...
You've grown a person in your body.  Congratulations! It's a miracle!  There will be no other feeling in the world like the feeling when you and your baby are looking into each others eyes and he smiles at you for the first time.  Truly smiles.  It's incredible.  The best feeling and depending on how tired you are, you may cry from joy.

As things come up, utilize The Club.
Call your mommy/parent friends...
they may not have an answer, but
they will have a story to share that you may be able to relate to,
that will make you feel like you are not alone,
at least for a minute.

That's what I do and it still gives me comfort.

So, other members of The Club, please feel free to leave your comments.
Sharing is caring and we can learn a thing or two from each other.  :)