Entry 3: The Cave, Regressions, and Not-So Shared Experiences
The benefits and dangers of outside opinions
“Once you get through the first three months, it all gets easier.”
“The first three months are easiest because all they do is sleep.”
“Just wait until they can talk and move around; it’s much more fun.”
“When they start moving, your life is over.”
Those are just a few of the fun and helpful bits of completely conflicting insights I’ve received over my first few months as a parent.
I don’t mean to come off as ungrateful for the words of wisdom. Our friends and family have been incredibly helpful in offering us some idea of what’s in store for us and giving us tips on what helped them get through it. But that advice or insight is almost always in some sort of opposition to what we’ve heard from somebody else.
Which means we have to rank our friends in order of intelligence and emotional well-being in order to decide whose advice to follow.
Just kidding, there is no list. In print.
But even if we’re not ranking anybody, the conflicting pieces of advice reveal something that it took me a few months to figure out: parenting is entirely subjective.
Yes, there are pretty consistent recommendations for how to raise a child. Generally, it appears that kids need to be fed, cleaned, and well-rested. However, everything beyond that is just advice that worked for a specific person or a handful of people.
When I was getting insights from other people, I was naturally getting opinions shaped by that person’s emotional reactions, tolerances, prejudices, and preconceived notions.
Not to mention insights shaped by the differences of the individual kids.
Some people viewed the first three months as “The Cave.” You can never escape your house, and it just feels like you’re piecing together sleep as best as possible.
We survived during those months, but I was rendered useless at times by my anxities and we traded naps like we were in a wrestling tag team match.
I was fully prepared for parenting to be easier once those three months were over.
Then somebody told me it was only going to get harder when my son was awake for longer stretches, so I started to worry that parenting was only going to get more difficult. Not a positive development considering how hard the first few months felt.
Essentially, I was anticipating what our life was going to be like and morphing my visions for it around the experiences of others.
Only, I didn’t see it as that.
I saw it as gaining valuable knowledge from people who had been through the crucible of fire and emerged on the other side. I held onto those pearls of wisdom for dear life.
It was like I had forgotten that old cliché my own mom used to jokingly say when I was growing up: “If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?”(I guess we can add that to the growing list of expressions from the ‘90s that have become problematic).
However, the point remains the same. I was following the advice and insights of others so blindly that I wasn’t even focusing on my own observations and instincts.
Which makes sense, to a certain degree.
My wife and I have never raised a child before. Even though we’re smart people, it’s logical that we would sometimes feel unsure of what to do next. Parenting often feels like something you can’t imagine they let two people just figure out as they go along.
The choices you make when you’re parenting have a direct impact on another human life, so you feel the added pressure to not make any mistakes. When you compound that with the fact that a first-time parent has never had to make these choices before, it becomes natural to simply do what other people who have already done it suggest.
It feels like the easiest way to avoid screwing up.
But, for me, it also felt like I was trying to walk in somebody else’s footprints in the snow. It didn’t matter what size shoe they wore or how long their stride was, I was intent on hitting each footprint exactly the same, even if it wasn’t natural for me.
I was operating as if parenting was some sort of recipe to follow.
I felt like I was at an advantage because I had the information on the next steps. I knew what to expect and how we could get through what was to come. Only, oftentimes that also caused me to invent problems or hurdles to overcome that were never really there for us.
Every month, somebody told us our son would experience some sort of sleep regression, so I just came to expect it.
He would be more aware of his surroundings and stop sleeping. He would start teething and stop sleeping. He would experience growing pains and stop sleeping.
Basically, there was always somebody telling me I’d never sleep. But, you know, in a way that suggested solidarity.
I worried about those regression even if they hadn’t happened yet. My son was a great sleeper, but if he cried at 3 am, I convinced myself it was the beginning of weeks of poor sleep.
It made it so I dreaded hearing a cry in the middle of the night or I overreacted to him just having a rough morning. Each could be a sign that he was turning some corner into the rough patch I was told would come.
But like the truth of most things with anxiety, I wasn’t just putting those expectations from other people’s experiences on myself, but I was putting it on him.
I saw my son’s actions through the lens of other kids’ experiences and was unknowingly trying to have him be like other kids at just a few months old because it felt easier for me. It felt like something I could control because I knew what would happen next. I just needed him to follow along.
But I don’t know what will happen next. My son is his own person who will change and grow and react to things in his own way. Even if that means I have no recipe or playbook for how it unfolds.
Getting comfortable with that hasn’t always been easy but opening myself up to the idea that I can’t control how a night of sleep is going to go or when he’s going to experience his growths and regressions has been rewarding.
I’m able to see how he’s changing and live it with him, instead of plan it out ahead of time. I get surprised when I see him develop a new skill instead of wondering if he’s on some right path or track.
Of course, there are still moments where I slip and wonder if we’re about to hit a “rough patch” or predict how he’ll start to change, but I tell myself it’s only natural. There’s no playbook for parenting a child just like there’s no playbook for learning how to be a parent. I still need some help with that transition from time to time.