We do our best at The Bump to answer all your pregnancy and parenting questions, but sometimes, even we need a fresh perspective. So we called in our friends Shayna Ferm and Tracey Tee from the Pump and Dump Show. We think it’s exactly what you need to hear.
Q: "I’m having a hard time letting go now that I have some childcare/ help during the week. I feel guilty. What I should I do?"
We totally know how you feel — letting go can be so Flardfull. We recommend disappearing inside an Ikea. Walking slowly through the Swedish maze looking for better ways to organize all your kid’s crap while watching other people’s children misbehave will certainly help reinforce why childcare is a great idea. You can finally Kallax while eating meatballs and sorting through the Kvittras and Lillerøds.
Q. "My son is one week old and I don’t think I’m comfortable with him going to my mother-in-law’s house. Am I being over the top?"
You just had a baby a WEEK ago! You probably still have your hospital ID bracelet on your wrist. There is no need to go anywhere right now — so give yourself a break. If over-anxious grands want to help out, make a nice little list of “Doctor’s Orders,” which may or may not include fruits and vegetables they can cut up for you for the week or 30 minutes of baby-holding while you take a "therapeutic” bath with a Guinness in your hand.
Q. "Did you feel prepared for labor?"
Sure we did! Here’s all you need for labor:
- A really great “Labor of Love” Spotify playlist that you’ll spend hours making but never listen to.
- A brand new, extra comfortable birthing nightgown you’ll forget to wear or you will wear and stain.
- A yoga ball that will take up half the room and will eventually be thrown at your baby daddy.
- Your birth plan written out on a piece of paper. Hahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Q. "I can’t stop Googling and checking to see if my son is 'normal.'
YOU MUST STOP. Google facts are checked by tiny drunk gnomes raised in oak beer barrels built by meerkats with strange, unidentifiable rashes. We learned this on Google. YOU MUST STOP. Mainly because you will see things while searching that you cannot unsee.
Q."When you were trying to pick out names, how were some of your favorite names ruined?"
Here’s a collective list of how our baby name ideas were ruined and we suggest you avoid these at all costs:
Dogs
Disney
Pottery Barn Kids
The Today show
The Duggars
All Real Housewives
Cats
Political candidates
College frenemies (see Facebook above)
Trips to the zoo (i.e. Zoe the baby gorilla)
Q. "Does anyone have any experience with little babies during the holidays or advice to offer?"
If we may, here are a few suggestions for Pump and Dump holiday survival:
- Wear the baby everywhere. Consider coordinating your baby to your holiday outfits, or to be extra festive you could don your baby carrier with Christmas lights/tinsel/menorahs and really get the party started.
- While wearing your baby, feel free to over-indulge! He’ll be extra chill due to the sleep-machine-like stomach rumblings from your constant digestion of never-ending hors d’oeuvres.
- Lysol. You have shopped, cooked, cleaned and wrapped for weeks in anticipation for that 23 family member party –- nothing can stop you now. Spray everything. Twice.
- Save your money and let other people buy him presents — he’ll never know or remember.
- If you are waiting in line for Santa for more than 13.4 minutes, LEAVE. There is no photo worth the public meltdown that’s about to ensue.
- No one really likes to sing carols in the dark when it’s 9 degrees outside. Especially your children.
- Great news! You have a little baby in the house that can’t eat solids yet! That means you do not have to bake 13 varieties of cookies this year! Woot!
- Lysol.
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