The best advice for a new parent

So that day on facebook I came across a first time mom asking for the best advice we could give to her. Immediately I thought of one of my yoga students back in Kula Sembawang - Alena. She was a German lady who used to come for my morning class. When I was heavily pregnant with Kay, she shared with me, what I still feel is the best advice for a parent: Do not expect your baby to change, to expect him/her to not cry, to sleep through the night, to be this and that... NO. You are the adult here. If there is one person who can change, it's you yourself who need to change. When the baby doesn't go your way, change your perspective, change your style/method. Parenthood is all about trial and error and we all learn and grow with the baby.

Unsurprisingly after I posted that comment, many fellow mummies came to agree that this is so true. Even for myself, I first experienced how true this was a few days after Kay was born. For those who knows me fairly well, you would have known that I have been very blessed with my motherhood journey so far. My kids are what most people would call easy babies and I even had the luxury of having my own mom staying with my to help me with them. By the way , my mom is a really experienced grandmother who has taken care of 8 grandkids and so many other babies...

Anyway, so i remember when Kay was a only few days old and we had already been discharged from Mt Alvernia, she wouldn't fall asleep. This is very normal and common for newborns since they are still trying to get used to the sleep routine and everything is still very new to them. It was already 2am in the morning and her eyes were still wide open. She wasn't crying or anything but just being wide awake. I had already fed her, pat her, changed her, and was just carrying her in my arms pacing up and down the house. I got really desperate and started sobbing after what seems like forever. I begged her to go to sleep but she wouldn't. I told her that everyone else had already gone to sleep because we all had to wake up early the next day and she should sleep too. Obviously she didn't understand and didn't care. But just as I finished saying that sentence myself, it suddenly dawned upon me that maybe I should also not care that everyone else had already slept. I was in my confinement month and honestly I didn't have to wake up early like everyone else anyway. And so I changed my perspective: Instead of dwelling on the fact that Kay was not sleeping, I focused on how Kay and I were still awake and started bonding with her.

So here is Baby Kay when she saw the world for the first time. One look at her eyes and you can tell she will give you a terrible time when it comes to bedtime!

Baby Kaizen on the other hand is always peaceful. Even till now the childcare teachers comment that he's the first one to sleep and last one to wake up in school!

I talked to her and told her how beautiful she was. I told her how much I love her. I sang to her. I enjoyed my every moment with her until she fell asleep and then I put her back to bed. And from that day onwards, things started changing. I embraced everything about her and she became the easy baby and later on easy child that everyone sees. She started sleeping earlier and earlier each night: from 2 am, to 12midnight, to 10pm and then to 8pm. While she never slept through the night until she was much older, it didn't bother me at all too. Instead of having a baby cot, I co-slept with her. When she wakes up in the middle of the night, she would quickly fell back to sleep again when I cuddle her in my arms. Up till today she still sleeps with me. Some people say that they are too old to sleep with me and need to sleep in their own room (they do have their own bedroom which they use it as their secret room!). Initially I did miss having my own space when I sleep but as they grow older, I start to dread the day when they would no longer want to sleep with us anymore. So right now I just treasure every night I have with my 2 little babies cuddling together to sleep.

Many times, instead of labelling our babies as this and that, all we need is for ourselves to change our perspectives and method. With Kaizen, our first challenge came after Singapore's first lockdown. He started walking when he was 14months in January 2020. Unfortunately that was the beginning of the covid pandemic which basically meant that we didn't have the chance to bring him out to explore as much as Kay. When the first lockdown finally ended, I was horrified to find little Kaizen running around refusing to hold my hands whenever we took him out. We had not experienced this with Kay at all previously. Willy plainly decided he would not bring Kaizen out himself because he was too difficult to take care - too mischievous.

So I sat down and thought hard. What had gone wrong? And I thought that perhaps when Kay first learnt to walk, we always took her out and while she was still tumbling around and exploring her surroundings - touching every single thing she saw, she required us to still hold her hands because she simply wasnt steady in her steps yet. In other words, even though she was curious, physically she wasn't capable of going fast. And when she was finally agile enough to run fast, she was less curious of the usual surroundings already and was also used to having me holding her hands when going out. However this was not the case with Kaizen. By the time he was allowed to go out freely, he was able to run independently. Coupled by the lockdown period, all the more he wanted to run wild and explore his environment. So the question is what's next now for me?

Honestly there's only 2 options given that I have already managed to convince myself and Willy to change our perspectives: that Kaizen was not mischievous or simply being a boy but rather just curious:

1. Accept that he is just going to be like for God knows how long and allow him to run around like a wild child. The problem with this is that it could be dangerous since he could potentially get knocked down by e-scooter and bicycles or get into all kinds of accidents. Also, I'm one mother who believes that if you don't correct a misbehavior right from beginning then when do you do it? How can the kid suddenly accept that a particular behaviour which he had been exhibiting since day 1, and was totally acceptable, becomes unacceptable when he wakes up one day? This is also why since they were babies, I reason with them alot even though many people might think that they might be too young to understand.

2. Devise a method to help him explore safely. And that was what I did. Even though this seems more effortful initially but it was definitely safer and better in long run.

And so I started bringing him to our nearby parks and playground after sending Kay to school in morning. Before we left the house, I would tell him where we were heading to, what we were going to do and made him promised me that we hold hands when i told him to. Otherwise we would have to come back home. The first few days were tougher. I had to constantly remind him to hold my hands. And there were occasions we turned back because he didn't hold my hands. He didn't have to hold onto my hands all the time though. When we reached places such as playgrounds and open spaces where I deemed safe, I would tell him that that was a safe area and he could let go of my hands and explore the area while I stayed close to him.

Morning outing with Kaizen to allow him to get used to following my instructions yet have the freedom to play however he wants within a safe setting.

And my efforts paid off very soon. In about 2 weeks or so, Willy noticed the difference when he took Kaizen out. He started thinking actually Kaizen was just as manageable as Kay.

So here are just 2 examples of how when instead of labeling our littles ones, we change our perspectives and devise methods to cope with the situation (not the little ones), we can help both our little ones and ourselves to grow and learn. I hope you may find this useful in your parenthood.