No matter how prepared you are, the time from your child’s birth through his 3-month birthday is really one of the toughest periods of your lives together – and the most amazing. Elation and despair will both take up residence in your house, and you’ll never know which one is going to hit you between the eyes.
Because the baby depends on you completely and doesn’t give back much in return, you will hear this period dubbed “the fourth trimester.” The basic things you’ve been waiting for – the smile, the adoring gaze, the mere recognition of you as his life-giving parent – are simply not there yet. When a new baby is demanding so much from you, that lack of feedback can be almost unbearable.
Up again at 2 a.m. with an inconsolable little alien, you may find yourself feeling trapped, desperate, and utterly out of your league. You will be sleep deprived, worried, hormonal, hungry, fed up, thankful, in awe. You will wonder how this creature ended up with you, and what you’re supposed to do with him now. You will not know where the days go, but they will go – usually either too quickly or way too slow. You will weep and you will (hopefully) laugh, and you will be both stunned at what you can do and panicked that you have no idea what you’re doing.
Are you scared yet? After interviewing many experienced parents, I learned that those first twelve weeks can be just as overwhelming and topsy-turvy the second, third, and fourth time around – which means there is simply no way to prepare your way out of them. But the one thing seasoned parents all agree on is this: The newborn stage may be a roller coaster, but in the grand scheme of things, it is so short. So while it’s perfectly normal to panic when you’re in the thick of it, know it will pass.
“Those first three months are the endurance test,” Tim, a dad of three girls, told me. “We’ve learned to just clear the decks. We stock the freezer and the pantry, we line up childcare help, we make sure we have as few commitments as possible at work and at home. Basically, we prep the nest as best we can. That’s all you can do. Then we expect to just put those blinders on and soldier through it.”
And rest assured, it’s not all tough stuff. Blazing moments of love and joy – the depth of which you may never have known before – will repeatedly pierce through the fog. Somehow, in the midst of changing another diaper or waking up in the middle of the night yet again, you will feel immense pride for creating this new life and guiding him through each moment. Each day, he gets stronger and more fascinating. Each day, he feels more like yours, like you belong together. Each day, you are closer to that three-month mark, when new parents high-five each other and realize it only gets better and more fun from here.
The miraculous newborn weeks are like nothing else on earth. You and your baby will have good moments and bad, but you will get through them together – and when you do, you will have reached the first big milestone of parenthood. You will have completed the fourth and final trimester, and you will be more confident as a parent than you might’ve ever imagined. More importantly, you won’t be able to imagine your life without this beautiful creature in it. You did it. Congratulations!
