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+1 to approaching the group rather than putting someone on the spot!

I believe that if my kid damages something, it’s my responsibility to encourage my kid to apologize, and to offer to replace/fix. It grinds my gears when others don’t share this belief, for sure.

I’ll also add that as a parent / owner-of-things, you can control how you feel about your things: you can decide that you don’t mind if toys get broken. For me personally, my life as a parent has been less stressful than it could have been because I don’t sweat the small stuff.

I’m so sorry for the loss of your nephew. Here is a random grab bag of things people did after the loss of my daughter Penny that really touched my soul:

-Donated books to a library in her name
-A friend wrote her initials on some rocks with her middle name Hope on the back. Whenever we travel or go for a hike, we bring one and leave it-it feels good to bring a bit of her spirit with us and to spread it through the world
-Donated to the park where we held her memorial
-Hired a postpartum masseuse to come to the house for me
-Bought me the Stevie Wonder record Songs in the Key of Life” with the note “I put on the song ‘Isn’t she lovely’ and dance and think of your daughter, Penny. I thought maybe sometime you might want to do the same.” It touched me to know someone was thinking of Penny and it gives me a little ritual to feel connected whenever I’m missing her
-Including her in holidays. My aunt gave us a Christmas stocking with her name on it and it feels good to see it hanging there as an equal part of the family, a small reminder she’s with us in every holiday
-We think of her as a butterfly and on her birthday, my friend covered our hallway in paper butterflies
-Made a cake on her birthday. To people who haven’t lost a baby it might seem morbid but just because your child died doesn’t mean their birthday doesn’t matter. I want to celebrate her life and while her birthday is often painful, it’s a sweet pain of remembrance.

Sending so much love to your family right now.

Hi there-I lost my daughter Penny at 38 weeks as well. Here are a few things people said and did that really made a huge difference for me:

1. Don’t ask what you can do, offer two concrete things for them to choose from. Your body/mind are in shock and you don’t have the presence of mind to know what you need. Having someone say “I am going to cook you enchiladas or send a cleaner to clean your house. Which would you prefer?” removes the mental load from the griever

2. Ask their baby’s name and say it often. Even two and a half years after losing her, my friends will text every now and then “I was just walking past some pretty flowers and thought of Penny. Missing her today.” It feels so good to hear her name and to know other people miss her.

3. Be there as a sounding board for the hard stuff. Infant death requires so many excruciating decisions of postpartum moms-do you want a memorial service, do you want to bury or cremate your baby? They are dark and hard questions made even harder because it feels taboo to talk about. My sister flew in and wrote and performed our small memorial service and I will forever be thankful that she gave us something I didn’t have the presence of mind to do

4. Do NOT say “things happen for a reason” “you can try again” “at least you have your health/your other child/anything” “try to keep your chin up” Do say “You are stronger than this. I wish you didn’t have to be. But you are.” “I am here for anything you want to say. Don’t feel like you need to shield me, I want to sit in the dark with you.” “This is hard and I’m so so sorry.”

4. Do not worry about bringing up their baby (ok maybe not in an office full of people or in front of a giant family crowd, but one on one, always open the door to talking about it)-you’re not going to upset them. They’re already thinking of their baby and their grief all the time. Bringing it up will be like relieving a pressure valve.

5. Be in it for the long haul. There’s an outpouring of help a month or two afterwards but the hardest time by far is once the flowers stop coming and life starts again. Set calendar alerts every few months and on holidays/the baby’s birthday to check in.

I’m so so sorry for your loss. Sending love to you on your own grief journey.
-Colleen

This happened to one of my best friends. And it was devastating. A few things:

1. We discussed and she didn’t want to have to tell all the people who had recently come to her shower, so she asked me to draft an email on their behalf. In the email I asked people to give space for grieving and they’d reach out when ready. This took pressure off them and gave them space to be together.
2. Just being there and knowing that the grief process is real – it’s not linear. If you have a newborn, consider how that could impact them and maybe give space from your young one and them.
3. Set a calendar reminder for the day, so every year you don’t forget to reach out and honor their little one. They certainly won’t forget but other people move on quickly.
4. I had a star named for their little. It was a small thing, but one way I wanted to pay respects.

Just be there. And also be aware of secondhand trauma. I got pregnant with my second not long after and that pregnancy was wrought with anxiety from what my friend had gone through. I wish I had realized it for what it was and why in the moment, but it was only in reflecting later that I could name why that pregnancy was so challenging.

Sending love to you and your sister.

Do what serves you, and ignore the rest. When I had my baby in 2022 the breastfeeding, nap traps and Instagram/twitter scrolls went hand in hand. It felt like the inside joke for us new moms, and a great source for information for navigating this new life. It wasn’t until about 8-9 months in that I realized how negatively they were affecting my mood, outlook, and anxieties rather than helping me/baby get through the newest strugglestone. I realized this after looking at my husband’s feed and seeing how FUN it was. My feed was all Mom work, complaining about the Mom work, or truly horrific stories about loss and trauma related to childbearing and young kids. If that avenue works for you, great. But it really wasn’t for me. And changing my relationship with it and replacing it with things that DO SERVE ME (reading, audiobooks, podcasts, etc.) has greatly improved my experience as a new Mom.

So much! Our family motto is “everyone gets their needs met”. While we don’t hit it all the time, it really reinforces that needs are the priority, not simply that children are the priority.

This sounds a lot like my experience and it was tough – I feel your struggles in my bones. I think I ended up anemic after a hemorrhage and iron transfusion, and when I talked about being tired kept being told that it was a normal part of parenting. I knew it was not a sleeping kind of tired but it was COVID and there was essentially no medical care available. When I read my notes to prep for my second baby I found that I should have had my iron levels tested after discharge but the hospital and GP were not joined up so this was never done. Take-away: it can be worth checking your iron levels if this has been a problem through your pregnancy/if you haemorrhage, and being proactive and reading your notes.

I also had a lot of joint pain and just figured that I would be in pain forever. The second time I got a nanny who comes a few times a week and I go to the gym during some of that time, which I started at 8 weeks pp. I found out that the joint pain was due to weak glutes post-pregnancy and it was very easy to address with stretching and exercise. I framed going to the gym as rehab instead of ‘getting my shit together’ or ‘losing weight’. Swimming was great because it is so low impact and my joints were super wobbly still when I started. It seems like such a shame that I months and months of my life in pain when it could have been possible not to.

Ugh, even as I write this I am frustrated that recovery was SO slow and impacted my enjoyment of my daughter when my problems were so solvable. I’m also not a ‘natural mom’ so thought I was just rubbish at everything.

Advice I got and now give to others:

At some point (and maybe several points) in the first year, you will hate your husband. It is normal, it will pass, and it doesn’t mean your relationship is doomed.

I call this “pretend they’re your second baby” (assuming it’s the first). It feels so hard to prioritize yourself for a few min if they’re crying but if you instead imagine they have an older sibling who needs you for five minutes it’s much easier. And little siblings turn out fine all over the world without their moms 100% focused on them all the time.

I would even go farther and say – sometimes having a nicely kept house comes at the expense of time/connection with your kids. After a long day of dealing with tantrums, crying babies, etc I look around my messy house and don’t think “wow I failed today” I try to think “wow I spent all my energy today parenting my kids when they needed me and not doing anything else and that’s exactly right”. Not to sound too judgy of anyone else because we all have different priorities / things that keep us sane / etc but I do feel there is a trade off between “clean house” and “time with kids” and the former is very visible and the latter is more invisible so people can tend to overvalue the clean house.

Yes! I do this to help me not stress about nap schedules. I think about little babies who are in war torn places like Ukraine going into bomb shelters or fleeing troops and think how their moms probably have no clue if they need a 2hr wake window or 2.5hr wake window and they’re getting woken up all the time during naps. And I have such a privilege of worrying that I ruined them by letting them stay up 3hrs straight.

Yes! I think we really underestimate how much of a disservice we do moms by pushing so hard on bassinets as the only safe option. Yes, there is a marginal increase in risk with cosleeping (which can be partially mitigated with appropriate steps) but this comes at a huge cost to a lot of moms. I eventually fell into cosleeping out of desperation and it was such a relief, felt so right, and improved things so so much for us. With my second we started cosleeping from the start and I hardly even noticed the wake ups and was back to sleep right away so it felt like I wasn’t even tired and didn’t need to nap or anything during the day despite many wake ups. But I still feel guilty about it to some extent and only “admit” that to certain people. We still have a bassinet by our bed and it honestly feels like a charade we keep up so people don’t judge.

That not everyone has a village – and that not everyone needs one. We had to do it all alone, and we DID manage. It was tough, sure, but it was beautiful too, and maybe even more special in the early days as it was just us, a tiny new family working it all out and finding our way together. No casseroles, no babysitters, no breaks – but no judgement, opinions or need to do the hoovering either. Not everyone is in a position to enjoy lots of practical help – and we felt quite strange being ok with our sometimes-lonely, sometimes tough reality because of the surprising benefits (no uninvited comments, no visitors when you’re not feeling it, no feeling judged, no defending yourself when others don’t agree with your parenting style).

My friend told me that if I DIDN’T have second thoughts and/or fantasies about returning the baby, he’d be worried. That was probably the most helpful advice while everyone was telling me to enjoy the newborn snuggles and I was in anxiety hell.
Also that babies are resilient so it’s important to take care of the mom.
Just generally people telling me they hated the newborn stage and that it made them feel fatalistic (“this is my life now”) but in reality it does get better and they become more human.

Currently 6 weeks post partum. And even though it’s my 3rd and I know we will adjust and it will get easier. All of the words below from fellow mamas are so refreshing and encouraging, and just what I need right now. So thank you.