Truth from the Trenches: It's Just a Phase

Before I had BB, I always heard parents talk about how things were just a phase.  "My kid having a fit in the middle of Target?  Just a phase."  "My kid eating only french fries?  Just a phase."  And at the time, I remember thinking, "yea right....what a joke!"  But then along came BB and I learned I was wrong about that, just like everything else.

Good or bad, it does seem like everything is just a phase.

Let's take eating for example.  BB has been a champion eater since Day 1.   Green beans?  Loved 'em.  The pureed peas that smell like death?  Can't get enough. Grainy squash mash?  I'll have more please.  And when table food was introduced and mashed potatoes were an option?  He could out eat his mom at any restaurant.  I bragged on this, when I probably should have kept my big mouth shut.

Because now, that phase has ended and a new one has entered.  For the last few days, any vegetable we try to feed him gets promptly chewed twice and then spit out.  Now cheese, meat, carbs, ice cream bars....all cool.  But try and sneak a carrot in there and things go south.  It's a phase.

And much to my dismay, he wants nothing to do with anything mashed or pureed.  Give us real food only, please.  Those mashed potatoes he used to eat by the bowl full?  Spits 'em out and glares at me like I'm trying to pull some sort of fast one on him.  Give him a french fry?  Downs it like a champ.

And sleep.  Oh, sleep.  We've been through the phases on this one.  For the first 6 weeks of his life, he would not sleep unless someone held him.  I know, I know.  We should have sleep trained. I read all the books and that was my plan.  But at some point I was just so damn tired, I did whatever I had to for some zzzz.  And then we got him on formula (praise the LORD for formula...another blog for another day), and a switch flipped and he slept like an absolute champ in his bassinet.  The transition to the crib went quite smoothly and there was a multi-month period there where he slept from 9:30 pm to 7:00 am on the dot without making a sound.  Sigh.  That too, apparently, was a phase.

The new phase is where he goes down relatively easy at 9:30, but when wakes up tossing and turning at 2 in the morning.  Some nights a couple of minutes of patting or walking or rocking get him right back down.  But some nights, after fighting it for an hour, I put him in our bed and we just deal with his kicks to the head for the next few hours.  Here's hoping that's a phase too.

So that's my message for today.   It's all a phase.  We've just got to hang in there.  The good will come to an end and the hard will appear.  But that hard won't last forever and the good will come back.  So for those of you in the throws of it (especially those of you with brand new babies....that's the worst in my opinion!), hang in there.  It gets better.  And then worse.  And then better again.

And something tells me that in a few  years, I am going to miss these phases.  All of them.  The good ones, the bad ones, even the ones that have me up pacing the house at 2 in the morning.

So, for now, I'm going to just try and breathe.  Savor.  Enjoy.  And know that one day, this will all just be a memory.