Hellobee

As rewarding as parenthood is, everyone knows that it’s not without its challenges. So today the Bees open up and share their three biggest parenting challenges.

1) Lack of sleep. I love at least 9 or 10 hours per night. We all know this is kind of impossible. But, Mr. H&S takes them during the nights and mornings on the weekend so I can get my extra sleep. He’s so good to me!

2) Learning to accept my calling as a mother. I plan on blogging about this issue more. Going from a career to a Stay at Home mom has been a big transition for me. I grew up in an area where people put a lot of focus on career success where everything else comes second. I always believed in that too. But then, things shifted when I got married. The things I wanted changed and I knew I wanted a family and I wanted the family to come first. We are lucky enough that I have the choice to be home and be the primary caregiver. Now that I’m doing it, it’s sometimes hard to not look at tending to our home and children as drudgery or worse. Sometimes I’m cleaning poop off something for the hundredth time and I think: “I have a college degree for this?” Those are hard days. But, I always remember that I am blessed to have this calling. I am blessed to be home with my kiddos and keeping things running. I use my degree every day in a million different ways. Not just the ways I always assumed I would. I like to think I’m doing God’s work. It makes washing those dishes easier, that’s for sure! My children’s smiles are my payment and I’m happy to be so wealthy in that. One day, there will be plenty of time for other things. For now, this is the season I am in and it is beautiful.

3) Frustration and handling anger. It’s taken a long time, but I’ve finally learned to not yell or get overly angry at things. (Disciplinary issues anyone?) When I want to blow up I remember: 1. they are babies. 2. they are trying their best. 3. I LOVE them so much 4. PEACE. I refocus and remember that patience is my friend and that the more I smile and resolve things peacefully, the less fussing and tantrums there are. If I’m happy, they are happy. When in doubt, FAKE IT and have wine later. Ha!

 

1) How to encourage independent play with a clingy kid. Little Y loves to read, and I love that he loves to read, but sometimes I wish that he would play with his toys for longer so I could at least unload the dishwasher or something. Usually I get three dishes put away before he toddles in with his Richard Scarry book and whines until I go flip through it with him. And I would also love to know how to get something done with a toddler around without relying on the TV (which still only works for 5 minutes if I’m lucky).

2) How to be productive with my personal time when I am just so flipping exhausted. We are lucky to have a pretty good sleeper, so I can usually count on naps and bedtime going smoothly, but I am so so so tired from the 5- or 6-hour stretch of time on “mom duty” that I often just collapse and accomplish absolutely nothing.

3) How to get back to being a better wife, friend, and self when I feel like everything in my life now revolves around being a mom. I sometimes find myself resenting DH for the time he gets to spend with adults at work, or some friends who are coming into their own in their careers while I feel like I’ve been knocked down a few rungs in the past few years because I’ve had to be the “trailing spouse.”

I think that my top three are constantly changing as we go through different ages and phases. With one huge exception…

1) SLEEP. Sleep has always been, and I fear always will be our biggest challenge. Spencer is a spirited, hyper-aware, super smart kiddo and it just results in really. bad. sleep. Either getting to sleep, staying asleep, falling back asleep. Whatever. When he first came home I literally thought I was going to die from sleep deprivation. (I’m not in any way joking.) And while it got better, it’s never been good. We’ve sleep-trained this kid over and over again, but we keep coming back to the multiple wake-ups/early riser that is ingrained in him. I’ve tried to accept it… but that’s really hard for me. In the meantime, I’m just coping best I can with a two-wake-ups a night and up for the day by 5:30 kiddo. (I also cope with lots and lots of coffee and whining incessantly about it on my personal blog.)

Other issues are currently:

2) Defiance. It’s an age thing, but also a lot of personality mixed in. And it just grates on my nerves! I just want to yell “oh yes you will cause I’m the MAMA!” when he says “I don’t feel like it!” or “No!” or “I don’t think so!”

3) Quality Time. I struggle to give my child the quality time he wants. Or, let me rephrase that, I struggle to play how my son wants me to play during quality time. I really, really try… but I always find myself zoning out or thinking about something else or itching to take a peek at the phone… I just don’t get that jazzed by trains and trucks. Sigh. I have a lot of guilt over this one!

I definitely agree that the biggest challenges definitely change with each stage. Now being a momma of two, the challenges are similar but the BIGGEST challenge is a brand new one to me– time. So here are my three:

1) Personal Time. Before having 2 kids, I had all kinds of time. Now I totally understand why some parents have a bedtime of 9pm (some even going to bed with their kids at the same bedtime and co-sleeping). These days we are always rushing home from work to get LMW to bed and feed WJ dinner, then put him to bed… after we’re done putting the kids to bed, we quickly eat dinner and by the time we’re done washing dishes and bottles and prepping lunches and bottles for the next day, it’s already almost 9pm. Knowing that LMW could get up for her night feeding as early as midnight, we’re always rushing to get to bed so we can get at least a few hours of sleep in before the feeding. Needless to say, all TV watching, book reading, and hobby doing has totally gone out the window!!

2) Discipline. Obviously this doesn’t apply to LMW yet, but it’s been a steady road with WJ. We’re at a good point right now where time-outs work really well and WJ is speaking and understanding very well, but it’s always a challenge dealing with a defiant toddler/kid. It’s a struggle for us to stay consistent in the way we communicate with him, and we’re always trying to balance being firm with not being too critical or negative with our feedback. And of course, even if we deal with them well, meltdowns are never fun.

3) Sleep and eating used to be two huge challenges for me as a SAHM, but now that I have two and have such little control over both, I don’t really see them as challenges anymore. The truth is, both of my kids are naturally good eaters and sleepers, so the challenge really came from me being way too controlling about both. Wagon Jr. won’t eat vegetables and is still pretty picky, but I know that if I put more work into it he would get better. I just don’t have time or energy to do so!!

1) Balance: I really struggle maintaining a household, running a business, being a WAHM, spending quality time with my family and finding time for myself. I feel pulled in way too many directions.

2) Food: Chloe goes through phases of having a favorite food and only wanting to eat that one thing. I worry that her diet isn’t balanced enough. She has days where I worry if she’s had enough to eat, and other days where I wonder how she can even still be hungry.

3) SLEEP: From the moment she was born, Chloe has been a hyper-aware always on the go kind of kid. I don’t think I have one photo with her eyes shut from the day she was born — and we had visitors in and out of my room all day. She is always aware of her surroundings and is easily distracted. She started sleeping through the night at six weeks old, so I thought we were blessed with an amazing sleeper. She started teething around 5/6 months, and it’s been a nightmare ever since. She’s notorious for taking 5 minute cat naps that somehow completely rejuvenate her. Chloe will literally run around the house (or outside) for hours, and not be tired. She fights sleep and is the most stubborn person I know. It’s like she’s worried that she’s going to miss out on something, and nothing I say or do can convince her otherwise. We drink a lot of coffee and I never say no when my mom offers to help out for an afternoon so we can take a nap.

1) Food: Food is a struggle for us probably not in the sense most people are thinking – I am not a cook. I dread doing it, and before LO I maybe cooked once a week, but now that she’s here I try hard to prepare more meals throughout the week so I know she’s getting home-cooked, healthy food, but it is SO hard for me to do this. DH and I both work out of the house, and so from the time I get home until the time LO goes to bed, it feels like a mad rush. Come home, wash hands, prep dinner, cook dinner, clean up dinner, play with LO, bath time, bed time. LO is great with food, she’ll eat anything and a lot of it. She’s not a picky eater, and the problem is that she’s a bottomless pit and I’m not sure how to combat this either! She’s in about the 45% for weight (her belly is enormous though, I’m sure this is where all of her weight is distributed), but is in the 90% for height (so she’s long and lean with a huge belly). I have a hard time diversifying our weekly meal plans with easy, short prep/cook time meals and making them different enough so they’re fun for LO to eat. This is really my problem, not LO’s.

2) Productivity – Like some other mamas here shared, I have a hard time being productive when LO is napping or down for the night. I’m pretty good about keeping our house clean, so often I will do this after bed time. But once everything’s been cleaned, I am pooped, and all I want to do is watch TV or surf the net on my phone. And I never exercise.

3) Defiance/Discipline – This has become an issue more recently as LO is approaching the 1.5 year mark. When we take things away (she shouldn’t be playing with) or tell her “no,” it is a battle which usually includes whining, screaming, crying, hitting, or stomping feet (or all of the above). The good thing is her tantrums are short-lived (usually lasting under a minute – I am VERY grateful for this), and we have been doing our best to try to teach her and communicate, while also showing her love after it is all over. But it is very tiring.

1) As a SAHM it’s finding enough activities to do with my 9-month-old! We live in a small apartment and it’s not the easiest job in the world to be with an infant all day, every day, by myself! DH works three nights a week, so I do it all on my own until the weekend. As it is getting colder, it means less time spent outside walking or at the park.

2) Motivation to maintain being a good wife and domestic goddess: While Cobi naps it is hard to find the motivation to take a shower, do the laundry, wash the dishes, prep for dinner, etc. All I want to do is curl up in my cozy chair, turn on a show on netflix, and Hellobee and browse pinterest! But I think about how much those things really contribute to my overall life and convince myself that those things in moderation are best for me in the longterm. It’s hard to maintain being a great wife too when you’re tired all the time from lack of sleep and exerting so much energy from being with an infant all day!

3) Sleep! Honestly I cannot complain too much at this point as Cobi is nearly 9 months old and waking up once to nurse (usually). However, when he was 6 months old he was sleeping through the night 2x a week and I was spoiled. Our move caused a regression and he never fully recovered. I cannot express enough how much 8 hours of straight sleep would help me right now! I am so thankful to have a very helpful husband though who is often willing to wake up with Cobi on the weekends to let me sleep in.

1) Sleep. With my first it wasn’t so bad, but Wonder Baby hasn’t slept more than 5 hours straight in her nine months of life. I could count on one hand the days I haven’t felt tired since she was born. It’s brutal. So it’s a two sided challenge – helping my kids to sleep better, and learning to function on fragmented sleep myself.

2) Not getting a day off. Ever. I love my girls, but I do miss being able to just lay on the couch when I’m sick. When Wonder Baby was a newborn, Toddler Girl and I both got a terrible stomach bug while Mr SH was on night shift. So not only was I completely miserable, I had to change TG’s bedding twice a night and nurse WB every couple hours. Rough.

3) The crying. Toddler Girl was a colicky baby and man could she scream. It gets inside your head and makes you crazy. We did eventually learn how to help her (Happiest Baby on the Block) but she would still scream in the car for months. It’s so hard when your baby is hysterical to keep your cool.

1. Sticking to a schedule during the day: Scribble naps at irregular times and odd intervals. Sometimes I end up holding him through a nap because I know he will wake up if I put him in his pack and play (in fact, we’re doing this right now!). If we’ve had a rough night we both will sometimes sleep in a little longer which can put our fledgling nap schedule off balance. We also take the occasional overnight trip to visit family and often host family here, and I find it really hard to limit relatives’ time with the baby in order to protect his nursing and napping schedule.

2. Getting enough sleep: I am lucky that Scribble is such a good sleeper; I can usually count on him to stay asleep once he’s down for the night until no earlier than 3:30 AM. But my husband and I use the time after he sleeps to catch up, watch TV, do house projects, or discuss family business. So we end up going to bed much later than we should! It is bad for both of us, and it really needs to stop.

3. NURSING! Oh goodness. We’ve had frustrations from the very beginning. I have overactive letdown and oversupply so any disruption in our nursing relationship can cause a day or more worth of fussiness. Just when I get comfortable with OALD, now Scribs is dropping feedings left and right. I can’t tell if he’s finally just gotten tired of my OALD and is striking, or if he is too busy working on new skills to take time to eat. Either way, I feel like I am constantly sticking a boob in his mouth and he is always resisting it. I actually look forward to night time feedings because I know he’ll nurse for a good long time!

I think because we are adopting little ones from a rough background, there are all sorts of special issues that arise.

1) Fear and anxiety about food
2) Discipline
3) Balance – I feel like I have NO balance in my life. There seems to always be something left undone or forgotten. As though I can’t catch up with the world around me – it can be exhausting!
4) Unfair expectations of myself – I want to be super mom and wife. It’s never gonna happen, I know!

1) Discipline – She’s been hitting and biting and throwing things, and we put her in time outs all the time for it, but sometimes it seems like she doesn’t mind being there at all! Sometimes she’ll know she did something we don’t approve of and put herself in time out. Overall, she’s a pretty obedient girl, but I’m still learning how to effectively discipline her. It’s definitely something that doesn’t come naturally/easy for me.

2) Neediness – Noelle has a STRONG mommy preference, and has been this way since birth. Some days she’s more independent than others, but for the most part she always wants to make sure I’m near. I read on in disbelief when I hear stories about how their babies can play upwards of 30-min at a time. If I leave her side for even 10 minutes she’ll come looking/calling for me. She also hates being held by strangers and anyone else outside our immediate family. She is very opinionated, knows what she likes/doesn’t like. I wouldn’t say she fits the “high needs” definition, but she does seem needier than most and it can be very exhausting… especially since my belly is growing bigger by the day and it is getting harder to carry her around everywhere.

3) Food – She LOVES to eat. Seriously, bottomless pit. But at the same time, she is picky. She only wants carbs these days (she loves porridge, rice, bread, and oatmeal), and the only protein she’ll eat is tofu, eggs, and fish (no chicken or beef!). She used to eat her fruits and veggies without complaint, but these days she will pick out anything green and insist that I take it away from her – she doesn’t even want it anywhere on her high chair tray! Any advice on how to get an almost 2-year old to eat her veggies and protein?

1) The biggest challenge for me has been keeping up with my work responsibilities. As a high school English teacher, I always have stacks and stacks of papers to grade and since I’ve had Liam, I always feel like I’m drowning and can’t ever catch up. On the same note, I find it harder than ever to keep the house clean because there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done!

2) Finding time for myself. During the school year, I miss Liam so much that I don’t want to spend a minute of my weekends away from him, so I usually save all of my beauty treatments for summer and winter break (which means I go way too long between appointments).

3) Letting go of control. I’m the first to admit that I like to be in control; I am a teacher, after all. However, I’m learning that I can’t control everything that Liam is exposed to – too much TV at the grandparents’ house, for one – so I have to pick my battles and do my best to go with the flow, especially when I know he is in loving hands.

1) Juggling it all! I’m looking around my house right now and it’s a mess. And quite frankly, I have no desire to straighten up. At the end of the day, all I want to do is sit down and veg, especially after working and then coming home and spending time with Lil’ CB, and then cooking dinner and cleaning it up. Housework has tended to become the last priority and sadly, a few other things have taken a hit, too. You would cry if you saw my inbox! I’d love 5 more hours in a day…

2) Taking care of myself. Along with housework becoming almost nonexistent, I’ve completely stopped working out. And I can feel it! I’m still considered on the thin-ish side (I think!), but I can just feel how out of shape I am. Sometimes, I get winded just walking up the stairs with basket of laundry! It’s sad. I am also long overdue for a dentist appointment and should be eating better… I know in my head that if I take better care of myself, I’ll feel better and I’ll have more energy, but dang it, it’s just easier not to right now. My New Year’s resolution (again) will be to fit in at least a little bit of exercise 2-3 times a week.

3. Being in the moment. I think all moms feel like they’ve got a million things to do every day. And clearly, in my case, I don’t really make much of a dent in that daily to-do list. Sometimes, when I look at what I’ve accomplished that day, I’m sad when I realize not only did I not finish what I had intended, but I also didn’t spend the best quality time with Lil’ CB while trying to get the little that I did accomplish done. I need to be better about really being in the moment with him, even if it means I get even less done! Because really, being in the moment with Lil’ CB right now truly is most important.

1) Not yelling. I grew up in a household where yelling was normal. Even though it wasn’t meant to hurt us, the cumulative effect takes its toll. You don’t notice when you are raised in that environment, but it is really easy to slip into the same patterns that you know when you are stretched thin. The issue was especially pronounced around the time we brought Jack Jack home, since I was often occupied with the baby and Little Jacks wouldn’t listen. I raised my voice to try and gain her attention and regain control. I hated myself every time it happened! I am so conscious about this and try my hardest to never do it, but in times of stress I have to actively override the impulse.

2) Sleep. We learned so much the first time around about how to create poor sleeping habits. It has taken 2.5 years to undo what we created early on. Luckily, we learned from our mistakes and have hit the sleep jackpot the second time around. It could be that Jack Jack is just a better sleeper, but I’m pretty sure that our attention to routine and consistency are key in making our second a great sleeper!

3) Work life balance: I’ve shared about this recently, but the three days leading up to Thanksgiving, I worked over 40 hours. I have to be really careful to not get too wrapped up in work that my home life suffers. Mr. Jacks is my rudder and helps me recognize when it becomes a problem.

1) Personal time: Finding time to do non-mom and non-work stuff like blogging, sewing, and keeping up with any other hobbies.

2) Motivation: Actually doing those things I’m interested in when I do have free time. Baby Stroller goes to bed at 6pm but after making, eating and cleaning up from dinner, I end up with little motivation to tackle anything in the evenings.

3) Dealing with mommy guilt: I feel guilty leaving Baby S at daycare, I feel guilty when I’m happy that he’s at daycare, I feel guilty that I fantasize about not working when I worked hard for a law degree, I feel guilty that I work when I could stay home with Baby S, I feel guilty that my house isn’t picture perfect every day. Oh the guilt!

Initially I said food, sleep, and personal time, but I thought about it some more and this is what I came up with:

1) Comparing myself to other moms. It’s strange because I’ve never been an envious person, but when it comes to being a mom, I can’t stop comparing myself… and I usually come to the conclusion that I don’t measure up. Some moms seem to be able to raise their kids, work, blog, craft, cook, all while maintaining a beautiful home and looking great doing it. Meanwhile I would die without childcare, our house is always messy, I don’t enjoy cooking, I’ve dropped all my hobbies, and I’m lucky if I get a shower in a day (if we’re being honest, every 2 days). Quite frankly, I usually feel like a failure on any given day. I suppose I’ve always been hard on myself, but being a mom has taken it to a new level!

2) Food. Originally I was thinking about what a challenge it has been to deal with Charlie’s pickiness, but the issue has a deeper root. Eating is usually such a chore for me, and if I could get all my nutrients from taking a pill, I’d opt to do that 99% of the time. But having kids means constantly thinking about food, and after all the time I spend researching recipes, shopping, and cooking, I have no appetite except for junk. I also hate eating my own cooking, so I’ll often make a huge meal from scratch for the entire family, and I won’t eat a bite of it. I’m worried that I will pass on my attitudes toward food to my kids, so I work hard to instill good eating habits and provide them with healthy food, but having to think about food so much has definitely been one of my biggest parenting challenges.

3) Putting myself last. On the list of priorities in my life, I’m always last. The kids always take precedence, followed by work, cleaning, cooking, etc. I know that if I’m happier, I’ll be a better mom, wife, friend, and daughter, but it’s just easiest to put myself and my own happiness last. With the new year just around the corner, one of my resolutions is going to be putting myself higher on the priority list, even if that means just eating a proper lunch instead of eating in front of the computer. I’ll still be below the kids, but maybe above cooking and cleaning.

1) Managing Time/ House Stuff. I’ve always been a pretty organized person and I’ve had countless amounts of lists I would cross off, but as a parent I have an extremely hard time managing it all, simply because I don’t have much control how the day will go. Often I would like to get the laundry folded, or take a nap but it just never goes that way and I feel like I never get anything done. As a result, the house is a mess, there are piles of dishes, there are toys everywhere… I wish I had a magic wand that would save me from it all.

2) Patience / Yelling. When I don’t have enough sleep, I tend to be less patient and unfortunately Mavrick seems to get the short end of the stick. I try hard to be patient and avoid yelling, but it’s so hard to control when you were raised in a similar environment. My relationship with Mr.Sunglasses has always been very verbal and loud (he’s deaf in 1 ear so that doesn’t help with the volume) and while it may seem we are talking loud, Mavrick can see it as we are yelling at each other, which isn’t a good thing.

3) Us time (obviously sans kids) – We barely are alone, and when we are, we simply want to go to bed early because we are utterly exhausted. We tend to live separately even when we are 24/7 together. (I’m on maternity leave and Mr. Sunglasses is off work because of an injury). We try and have together time watching some of our tv shows, but it would be nice to dine out or go to the movies. We definitely need date nights because our relationship has definitely been put on the back burner and that isn’t necessarily a good thing (though common when you have kids).

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Now that we’ve shared, what are your 3 biggest challenges as a parent?