9 Months of Blake

Everyone told me I would blink and Blake would be one. I was always like yeah, okay, except it really is true. In 2.5 months we will have survived the first year. Also just want to say the first birthday party should really be for the parents. Like hi, I haven't slept through the night, had a clean house, or actually finished my laundry in over a year, but here I am. Surviving, probably not quite "thriving" is what I call this phase of my life. I remember hearing people talk about having kids and the most common phrase was it's so hard, but so amazing. Part of me was like if it's so hard, why would you do it? How can it be both amazing and hard? That's life though isn't it? Nothing worth having ever comes easy. It's amazing knowing you get to shape this tiny little human and [hopefully] do it well enough to raise her to put some good back in the world.

Sleep. Like what actually is that? I actually had to google it to refresh my memory and the definition is something along the lines of: a condition of body and mind that typically recurs for several hours every night, in which the nervous system is relatively inactive, the eyes closed, the postural muscles relaxed, and consciousness practically suspended. People are actually getting several hours of this? If I could give a talk on things to be prepared for postpartum, educating about baby sleep would be at the top of the list. We did previously do a little bit of sleep training (before I did extensive research obvi) and it worked for a few weeks and then she decided she didn't want to sleep. Like at all. After spending some time exploring infant sleep, I learned babies are meant to be wakeful. It's a protective mechanism. Babies sleep in lighter stages of sleep than we do as adults, in an ideal world they would be close to their mom so that when they did wake. mom would be there to help regulate babies temperature and breathing. We are actually the only country in the world that even uses the term "co-sleeping" when our kids sleep with us. Everywhere else it's just called sleeping. After weeks of being up multiple times a night and surviving on approximately zero hours of sleep (while still having a job, and a home and being an adult that needs to function) I decided to let Blake sleep with us. Study after study that I read showed that the most successful, independent, and emotionally adjusted adults are ones who had parents that consistently responded to them. They're also the ones who seemed to have the highest confidence levels and lowest reports of anxiety and depression. Joe Rogan recently released a really great podcast episode with Dr. Gabor Mate that goes over all of this and I highly recommend every parent listen to it. I mean how would you feel if you talked to someone who blatantly ignored you, or if you cried they just left you alone without a word. We would hate it, so why are we doing that to babies? I'm positive Blake is not going to go to college and still need to sleep with her parents. At some point she will decide we aren't cool and she wont even want to be seen with us. At one point Blake was up every hour so we wanted to look into a few other things. Babies waking every two to three hours through the first year of life is normal, but more frequent than that can be a sign of a bigger issue. I've always suspected she had acid re-flux due to the amount she spit up and the fact that she slept better on the move and when she was elevated. We did do some food sensitivity testing through Neighborhood Naturopathic in Edina and had a really great experience. Being that we addressed and corrected her oral ties, food sensitivities/allergies were the next step as having even a minor sensitivity to a food can cause inflammation leading to re-flux. We took the foods out of my diet for 2 weeks and then slowly added them back in. We are still keeping them out of Blake's diet for now, but will reintroduce them at some point. We found that keeping nuts, most seeds, eggs, and minimal dairy does seem to make a difference for her. She went from waking up every hour to sleeping 2-3 hour stretches which has been helpful. We also added in Klaire Labs Infant Probiotic and Colic Calm before bed to soother her belly.

Walking. Blake is on the move. No one warned me that once she started walking, I would just follow her everywhere because she would be on a constant mission to seriously injure herself. I'm contributing her walking early to my liver consumption in pregnancy and the fact that we focused on a lot of tummy time and never did any baby containers so her movement was never restricted. We did get a nugget couch from my mother in law which Blake loves. It's the only "activity center" we've gotten for her. It's washable and comes with multiple pieces so that she can build forts and exercise those creativity muscles as she gets older. I've really tried to limit toys for Blake. I'm unsure where I find time to read these studies but I've read multiple ones that have showed excess toy choices for kids can lead to multiple issues later on. I also absolutely hate plastic and die inside anytime someone gives her something made of plastic. She genuinely is much more interested in outlets, spatulas and whisks like most kiddos. I prefer people shower her with experiences to create endless memories and books to foster that brain growth.

Solids. Most people know that I'm a genuine psycho when it comes to this period. Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least two prescription medications and the rate of auto immune diseases and behavioral disorders are constantly increasing. I really pay close attention to what we are consuming and setting Blake up for health success. At the rate of sounding like a crazy person, my goal is to not expose her to any sugar other than from fruit for the first two years. Your palette is strongly developed at a young age and focusing on whole foods like healthy fat and protein from high quality meat sources helps to create a preferred taste for these foods over highly palatable ones like sugar. The approach of baby led weaning (what we are doing) focuses on not making separate meals for baby and giving them whatever you're eating so it's kept my nutrition and sugar intake in check too, actions are caught not taught. I find the majority of my recipes from Real Food Dieticians, Kelly Leveque, What Molly Made, Kale Junkie, and Lexi's Clean Kitchen. Food has such a way of bringing people together I try and wear Blake anytime I'm cooking since the more you expose and involve your kids in the cooking process, the more likely they are to want to consume what was created. The other phrase I heard about motherhood "they will teach you far more than you teach them". I'm notorious for not finishing anything I start. Part of it is my ADD brain and the other part is I only look at the end result and get discouraged about how long it will take to get there. Being a mom has given me a whole new level of tenacity and compassion for all moms. I know giving up isn't an option and it will be a long time before I see the end result of any of the decisions I'm making for Blake. It's made me want to apply that to more areas of my life. Success is never linear. I see all the moms carrying the invisible burden of wondering if you're making the right decision, dealing with the countless opinions people like to give of how you should do things. Trying to balance a career while also trying to be the very best mom/wife/daughter/friend, etc and the countless list of other things we are [supposed] to be. It's A LOT and so often it can feel like all your efforts go unnoticed but I assure you they don't. To sum it all up, motherhood is amazing, exhausting, and life changing all rolled into one and I would do it over and over.