8 Month Baby Review: what the last 8 months with Zoe have been like

I have been the parent of a newborn for almost 8 months, and I was thinking that it would be good to do a review on what the first 8 months of being a parent was like. A look back on my expectations before I gave birth, the reality of having a baby and raising a newborn, and a look at what it was really like for me going through postpartum.

I think overall, I was expecting it to be harder than it was. However, I am constantly saying how things are getting harder as time goes on, not easier like people said it would, so it feels confusing at times. I specifically remember in those first weeks and months I was living in constant fear of it “getting worse”. I had a lot of anxiety around the 12 week mark, as apparently that was when shit got real, and after 12 weeks you are never EVER supposed to rock your baby to sleep (insert eye roll here- I still rock Zoe to sleep lol). I don’t know if it was because Zoe turned out to be a pretty easy going baby (the words James and I kept throwing around was “she’s pretty chill”) but I definitely thought it was going to be harder than it was. That’s not to say that it wasn’t hard, because it was! I think I was more expecting it to be hard 24/7, when it was more hard 60% of the time. That being said, once James returned to work it infinitely became trickier, for various reasons which I will go into more detail later. I wouldn’t say that life with a now 8 month old Zoe is “easier” than it was compared to 8 months ago, but it is just a bit more settled.

The Fourth Trimester: months 1 to 3

Zoe, milk drunk at 2 weeks old

The fourth trimester was the thing I was dreading the most while I was pregnant. I knew that the labour was going to be hard, but that basically it would be a painful 24 hours and that was it. But the fourth trimester? You go from literally no changes to your life to BANG having a baby in the course of one day. A baby that has no idea about the world it is now inhabiting. It doesn’t know why this world isn’t warm and cosy anymore. I think if you bear this in mind as your raise you baby in the first trimester, it makes it easier. We would be crying all the time too if we suddenly found ourselves on an alien planet that is cold all the time and the creatures there kept trying to cover us in fabric when we liked being naked.

The hardest part for me was not really anything to do with Zoe (other than breastfeeding, that was torture) but my own ability to come to grips with the changes that were suddenly happening. I am usually a romanticist about the past and I often daydream about how I wish I could go back to being 24 and on my way to the UK for the first time. But never had I been so haunted by the past than I was in the fourth trimester. Even though I loved Zoe to bits, I was really mourning my past life and the freedom that it came with. The simplest tasks were so much harder now, and I knew that was going to happen, but I think that, coupled with lockdowns and restrictions on leaving the house, really made me feel limitations on my freedom. And whilst I never resented Zoe for it or held it against her (how could I, she was just a tiny little babe) there were a lot of times I wished I didn’t have a baby just so my life could go back to the comfort of what it was.

The things I found the hardest:

• Burping Zoe was an absolute nightmare (it’s still difficult). She just would not burp and I spent hours trying to Google different techniques and watch YouTube clips on how to do it. She really suffered with gas pain and it didn’t matter how much Infacol she had, she just wouldn’t burp. Now, she still doesn’t burp, but she can at least fart it all out so it’s not causing her pain or discomfort.

• Breastfeeding and pumping were probably the hardest part for me. I suffered from some nipple trauma early on (burnt it with boiling water in the hospital!) so when she fed it was really painful. However, it was still painful on the non burnt nipple. I was just so difficult, I just couldn’t get into the right position, Zoe would be screaming from hunger, it hurt after like 3 seconds, and even when I'd push through the pain would just get worse and worse. The nipple shield kept flicking off, she'd scratch the shit out of my boobs it was just awful. So I went to exclusively pumping, and whilst that was less traumatising, I was shackled to that god damned machine day and night. Literally every time I sat down to pump she would wake, but I couldn’t hold her cause of the machine, I couldn’t go to the toilet, I couldn’t eat. And the amount of times I split that fucking breast milk on the floor. Once James went back to work the stretches between pumping got so long my supply just started to dry up, so I basically said fuck it, and went to formula 100% of the time. Best decision I ever made.

• Getting only three hours sleep at a time was pretty tough. It wasn’t impossible, and James and I managed to get through it without being unbearable, but it still sucked.

• Tummy time with the umbilical cord still on. The nurses were like “do tummy time from day one”, which I knew and we did, but how?? The umbilical cord was all weeping and hard and gross- she couldn’t lie on that! No one explains to you how to do tummy time before the cord falls off.

• Different Maternal Heath Nurses telling us different information. We had a big issue with this. One MHN told us she didn’t need to have 3 hourly feedings anymore, and then the other one told us she was underweight and she definitely needed the feedings. One told us to wash the bottles and pump parts in hot soapy water, the other told us everything must be sanitised. You get so much conflicting information, and when you are stressed, only getting three hours sleep, and running on pure adrenaline and cortisol you get very frustrated about the conflicting information.

The things I found easier:

• All she did was eat, sleep, nappy change repeat- she didn’t need entertainment, she didn’t need too much attention, you could pretty much just put her down and she’d be fine. When she cried, you knew it was only one of a few things that would be upsetting her (now it’s anything!)

• She could sleep anywhere and everywhere, and there was less pressure to sleep. Those first few weeks it didn’t matter about her room being dark, it didn’t matter about whether she got fed to sleep or not. The problem that I mainly had about her sleep in the fourth trimester was that I thought you needed to sleep train from day one, I didn’t know that that doesn’t come in until much later (if you want to at all). So I was doing this routine of a book before bed and specific lullabys and ways to rock her from about week one- made absolutely no difference. Luckily (touch wood) Zoe has always been a good sleeper. She never went though the four month sleep regression. She had moments of wakefulness here and there, but they were pretty sporadic, and happened more after the fourth trimester. But I had spent the whole time freaking out that I needed to get her into good sleep habits now. If I could go back in time, I would 100% tell myself that it was not worth the stress- the baby will do whatever the baby wants to do. Oh, and it is FINE to rock your baby to sleep (it’s actually nice- bonding time and some relaxation for you!)

• No rolling! Not mobile! If I put her down in a spot she would pretty much stay there. It made popping her down and walking away to get her bottle ready so much easier. Its still not too bad now as she is not crawling yet, but I have to pop her on the floor or in her cot for safety.

Months 3 to 8

Being cheeky at 6 months old

Months 3 to 8 were a LOT harder for me than months 1 to 3, but in different ways. In terms of my mental state and transitioning to being a mum, it was easier. I had finally accepted that this was my life and from day to day Zoe was going to be a part of it. But everyone around me kept telling me how “it gets easier” and I was not finding that the case at all. It was gradually, day by day, getting incrementally harder. What was making it harder was Zoe’s growth and development. All of a sudden she wasn’t going through one thing anymore, she was going through multiple things at the same time. Teething, growth spurts, leaps, all happening on the same day. I found myself wishing for the days where it was just hunger, nappy or tried and I could figure out what was wrong through the process of elimination. People kept telling me that I’d be able to distinguish her cries. Well, she’s 8 months old and I still can’t! I can sometimes; the pain cry and the hunger cry are the ones that I’ve managed to cue into, but other than that, I have no idea why sometimes she’ll just start bawling out of nowhere! Her moods are all over the place because her body is going through so many changes of growth and development all so fast. Not to mention, by the time I got the hang of something it would change again, and I’d have to relearn a whole new way of helping her. My village that had helped me in the first three months has now all but disappeared. No one came over to help any more, James was back to full time work, and everything came to rest on my shoulders. The amount of times I had meltdowns about “I physically cannot do everything” has been too many to count.

The things I found hardest:

• People have stopped coming over to help anymore even though things are still hard. People assume that by now you have it under control, and in a sense you do, but it would still be helpful for someone to be able to pop the clean laundry that’s been sitting on the kitchen table for 2 weeks away, or walk the dogs and give them some attention. The amount of jobs around the house that has to be done has really grown. Coupled with this is the idea that “mummy has to do everything”, so my workload has increased tenfold. Mummy has to put Zoe to sleep because Daddy is working. Mummy has to get dinner organised because Daddy is working. Mummy has to comfort Zoe when she cries because Daddy is working. But Mummy is working too, she’s just not getting paid for it.

• Feeding solid food is so confusing. This is something that Zoe is really behind on. I just cannot wrap my head around getting her to do it each day. There just doesn’t seem to be enough time to do it. There are all of these rules involved, and I can't figure out a way to do it so that it works for us. This whole “they eat what you eat” thing doesn’t work out. Unless Zoe is eating Wheat Bix for dinner, she’s not going to be “eating what I eat”.

• Sleep is a lot more complex now. She’s still a good sleeper- she can even do all of her naps at Yiayia’s house! But there has to be a lot more involved with it. The dark room, the white noise, the temperature. Her sleep schedule needs to be met, and while there are times where I am flexible on it and can alter it a little bit, generally she needs to stick to it. I miss when I could just pop her down for a nap in the middle of the living room and she’d be fine.

• Always have to stimulate her somehow, always have to be working on some skill, and there are so many of them! Before it was just working on one skill (eg: lifting head), now we’re working on multiple, and it’s hard to find the time to fit it all in. She needs to be learning to roll, sit and stand all at the same time. So each skill needs time to be worked on, then all of a sudden, her awake window is filled with feeding, play, working on those skills and then wind down time and then you don’t have any time to fit in solid food! See what I mean? And that’s if you don’t decide to go anywhere or doing any jobs (like putting the laundry away).

The things I found easier: not much

• She can just sit and play with a toy now, I don’t have to hold her up. And she can actually grab things. More independence means I can do more while she’s playing. I am able to sit her on the bed with a toy while I fold laundry. I am able to pop her in her cot and she’ll happily play while I eat some breakfast. This has been one of the best things and the thing that I have been looking forward to the most. Where she is just independent enough to be left to play with a toy for a while, but not too independent where she can get up and walk around. This is the sweet spot.

• The schedule and routine really works for her now and I can get her down for a nap in 5 minutes. The schedule was the best thing we ever did for her. She works really well on it. Additionally, due to the schedule and knowing her awake times, taking her out and about to places now that she can be awake for longer stretches of time is a lot easier. I can get more jobs done and its not too much of a hassle bringing her places as I have now figured out how best to do it. She’s also strong enough to sit in a shopping trolley, so I no longer have to put all of the groceries at the bottom of the pram.

• She is a lot more enjoyable now. She will laugh at jokes and chat to herself and it is just the funniest and cutest thing. She is such a ray of sunshine and it’s actually nice hanging out with her all day. It’s so good to see her watch the world around her and take it all in, and because she is super aware of everything now, she’s a lot more inquisitive. She loves to study things, watch faces, look outside the window (we call it “nature’s TV”) and she can do it for a long time.

That’s pretty much been my experience with raising a baby for the last 8 months, and I'm sure the next 8 months will be completely different again. Everyone’s experience will be different, some people might have it harder or easier, or some people might be like “yep, pretty much exactly the same for me”. But either way, I hope reading this has given some insight into how certain things can be easier or harder for different people, and what it was like for our little family.

Love, The Feminist Mum xoxo