Wonder Weeks

When I was pregnant on my daughter I spent the months researching everything to do with pregnancy and labor. I went to pregnancy yoga classes, I met a doula for prenatal classes, I read every book and article I could get my hands on. I binged One Born Every Minute, I wanted all the gory information. I was a pregnancy and labor expert. I mostly enjoyed my pregnancy despite being sick, nauseous, and having migraine for pretty much the whole nine months. My labor didn’t go as planned but I had a wonderful experience that I’m really grateful for. And I had my beautiful, healthy baby girl in my arms…

I had this baby in my arms. What was I supposed to do with her? How on earth had I spent 9 months researching pregnancy and labor and not thought to look into what I do when the baby gets here? I had worked in childcare for over 5 years so I guess I naively thought I knew it all already. I did not know it all. When we were leaving the hospital with her I kept looking over my shoulder thinking, surely someone is going to realise I’ve left with this baby despite not being in anyway qualified to care for it. A few days later at home, I rang my mam sobbing. I told her I had no idea how to care for a baby and I didn’t know what to do with her. My mam was getting all worried and asked where the baby was, I said she’s asleep in her pram. My mam asked if she was fed and changed, I said yes of course. She asked what the problem was then, I said I don’t know what to do when she wakes up. She said, you feed her and change her, cuddle her and put her back to sleep. Makes sense, I can handle that. My point is, I wasn’t prepared at all, even though it was manageable, the whole thing was just incredibly overwhelming.

I thought back to when we left the doctors surgery after he confirmed I was indeed pregnant. Her dad was in shock and I was just thinking, holy shit, there is an actual thing inside me that no matter what, will have to come out of my body. It was in there now, no matter what I did my body was going to grow it, and no matter what the circumstances, my body was going to birth it. The only thing I could do was accept it and start looking at ways to become more comfortable with the idea. So I began researching. It was difficult and scary, all the things that could go wrong, the pain even if things were going right, all the opposing views, all the changes my body was going to go through. But here I  was now with the baby, I had done it all, got through it all, mostly enjoyed it even. So now I just had to do it again, accept my situation again, how difficult and uncomfortable it was, and I had to put things in place to make it more manageable or comfortable. I got myself a whole new selection of books and articles to pour through, found what I felt would work for me and my baby and started putting it into practice. By three weeks old she was sleeping through the night, success.

Here’s the problem though, babies are constantly changing at a very rapid rate. Their bodies are growing, their brains are growing, they are constantly developing and learning. I couldn’t just read one book and have all the answers. I would have to continually learn and research and change things up as she developed. One of the tools I had found became a godsend to me. It was the Wonder Weeks app. You fill in all the relevant info about your baby and it tells you approximately when they are going to go through a developmental milestone, how to recognise the changes, how to handle them and what to expect. It wasn’t always spot on but for us, it was pretty close every time. It was unbelievable how often she was going through these changes and how, when you knew what to look for, you could prepare and be ready and handle the difficult period with more understanding. Why couldn’t I have a Wonder Weeks app for my life?!

I’m serious though, that’s actually where I’m going with this long rambley post. Does anybody feel like they’ve stopped going through developmental milestones? The first few paragraphs of this post describe exactly that, me reaching two new developmental milestones. At first I felt uncomfortable and overwhelmed and I can guarantee I was no joy to be around (like the fussy crying baby entering the changing phase). Then I had to start learning and be patient with myself as I developed my womanly skills (pregnancy and labor) and my motherly skills and tested them out. Once I was comfortable I was able to appreciate that I had grown and learned and could now cope with my new more difficult environment. I could be somewhat more relaxed until I reached my next challenge or milestone. Tell me this is not the exact same thing that the babies are doing! Here is a quote from the Wonder Weeks website that I could apply to my life over and over again, “Babies cry during a leap because they’ve reached a radical new step in their mental development. That is good: it gives them the opportunity to learn new things. The “difficult” behavior is actually a signal that great progress is underway.” That is beautiful.

Imagine we could all apply this to our lives and to the people in our lives. Imagine the compassion you would feel for a teen acting out when you think of them as that fussy, crying baby trying to find their way, learn a new skill and apply it. At least the baby has people there guiding it, doing everything for it and cooing and smiling at it the whole time. The teenager doesn’t have that. You don’t do that to yourself when you’re going through a bout of depression. You don’t do that for your partner when they’re having a particularly difficult time in work or with family. And all we’re really doing at these difficult times is entering a new phase, reaching a new milestone. Here’s a new problem in my life that is too big and overwhelming for me to handle right now, I need to learn new skills to cope and I need to be gentle with myself. But we don’t look at it like that. You reach teenage years and adult life and you start to hear stuff like “you should know better”, “you should have this figured out at this stage of your life”. But should we? Life is constantly changing, and we as people change constantly over the course of our lives so why should we have it all figured out? How could we know better?

Ok, we’re not babies and our processing skills are much better now as adults, we have much more life experience behind us but still an infinite amount of learning lies ahead of us. And the problems become more complex as we grow. And we lose our guides as we get older, no one is holding our hand and cooing at us. Oh man, I really wish someone would hold my hand and coo at me! So let’s develop our own wonder weeks for ourselves, or maybe wonder years since our growth spurts are probably going to take longer to recognise and figure out. Why don’t we be compassionate and loving towards ourselves during the difficult times when we are growing and learning new skills? Why don’t we be compassionate and loving towards others when we can see they are going through growth and change. We’ve all been through it so we could try to empathise and be patient with one another.  I myself feel I am currently going through a wonder year. It feels huge and terrifying and overwhelming. I am being patient and compassionate with myself, everything isn’t as I want it to be but it is as it should be. I’m at a milestone now and I’m learning and I’m giving myself all that love I give to Zoe at every step of her development. Change is exciting when we apply our tools we’ve been honing all our life. I’m off to coo at myself in the mirror! Namaste.