Motherhood Mondays | 5 months in already
I know this topic of the blog being dedicated to Mondays only is a little predictable, but as someone who’s brain is in a chaotic jumble a lot of the time, having some sort of structure or routine helps with consistency..so here is starting off strong! I won’t have a post up every single monday, but if I’ve had time to type up some musings over the weekend, then we’ll start the week off strong.
This week I wanted to do a five month check-in, without talking about the much discussed but little prepared for, fourth trimester, because that portion of my life deserves it’s very own post haha. 5 months in, almost half a year, in fact 2 weeks away from being half a year which is incredible. It is at this stage of motherhood where I’m saying, ‘well they did all tell me it would fly by, but I didn’t believe it would go this quick’. And yet SOME parts have felt incredibly long lasting, exhausting, challenging beyond belief and honestly I’m in awe of myself that I got through them looking back. Overall though, I have to agree that it does go by extremely quickly and I couldn’t believe it when I was photographing a newborn session, whilst my own daughter had just turned 3 months and I started to feel…broody?! The human brain is a strange and wonderful thing, however I firmly brought myself back to reality and the fact that I had more than enough on my plate for the time being Alhamdulillah haha. Let’s talk about 2 under 2 and age gaps in another post, there’s so much to think about, plan for, PRAY for etc.
So back to the topic of 5 months, Amaani is just an absolute delight Allahumabarik, the interactiveness of this stage is enough to make the coldest of hearts melt. My favourite things about this age:
- All the random giggles
- Her face when she catches sight of her reflections anywhere
- The various cooing noises that are showing communication
- The fact that she recognises all the core people in our lives now – even over facetime!
- Trying her best to sit up, but leaning on her elbow anyway haha
- Her gorgeous hair thickening out m’a
- Still using ‘mouthing’ to explore everything, (no she’s not hungry lol)
- How ready she is getting for food, the interest whilst we’re eating and drinking
- The fact that she still has fomo if we’re at a table, she wants to be part of the conversation
- Waking up to the biggest smile and realising every single morning how blessed I am
This is an age and stage where generally we as mothers are close to fully healed, feeling more like ourselves and getting into somewhat of a routine. Now don’t get me wrong, the fact that I’m reading on other blogs that by 5 months babies should be sleeping at 7pm and waking at 7am – and now relating at all is very much a reality. Amaani’s sleeptime is still much later than I’d like, but I’m grateful that for a good couple of weeks she was ‘sleeping through’ – AKA: 6-8 hour stretches. This past week she has been waking up every 3 hours again and when I tell you it took me right back to that newborn stage, except this time without the aches and pains of post-delivery, I’m not kidding. Being a mother is not for the weak, or in fact being an active parent. However, I’m sure the majority of mamas reading this will relate, naturally the looking after baby does fall mostly on our shoulders…it would be wonderful if our husbands could take off a 6 month paternity leave, but for 99% of us, that isn’t happening. One half needs to make the bread and in my case, we have a lot more going on than I can explain in this one post, so Waqaar is busy a lot.
The imaginary village
On that note, the idea of having a whole village of support around is just so far-fetched in this day and age. The harsh reality is, everyone is too busy with their own lives, something I knew for a very long time and something that made me think long and hard about if I was ready for babies. Of course as long as Allah swt allowed it, I was making dua when I felt ready to embrace this brand new chapter. 5 months in and I can confidently say, having a baby is the biggest life change I think I’ll ever experience, because there has never been 5 months of my life before this where a tiny human’s survival was so dependent upon ME. And whenever I put it like that, I get a bit of a shock that she really is just mine and my husband’s responsibility. I knew that if we were blessed with a child, it would be a beautiful gift and test at the same time. Parents of toddlers and definitely parents of teens who are reading this, will probably be thinking, ‘test??? you’ve not seen tests yet, just you wait!’ bur please, I know each stage comes with it’s highs and lows and those just you wait comments are never very helpful or positive. The test imo of having a new baby in the first 6 months, is more about us as parents and our adaptability, than it is on raising this small human. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you can still absolutely be setting up habits and small things that’ll go a long way for your baby, (like reading every single day to them, taking them for a walk, making sure they’re being stimulated without screentime at this age, etc.), but the real challenge is finding your feet again after you exit the newborn bubble/4th trimester.
I’m reading a brilliant book at the moment called, Motherhood your way, and I love how the author describes leaving the 4th trimester as feeling ready to rejoin the world. Waqaar and I went headfirst back into the world with out baby, when we decided at 3.5 months to take her to Umrah with us – for which I’ll dedicate a whole separate post too because I have so much to share about that. If you’d told me at 23 that one day I’d be taking my smol baby abroad, I’d have laughed and said no way, not possible! Actually, even if you’d told me during my pregnancy I wouldn’t have believed you, my anxiety was at the highest it’d ever been during that time and I wouldn’t have dreamt of flying with a baby, yet it was the perfect trip for a multitude of reasons. And it certainly got the end of the 4th trimester off to a great start, because I had more confidence than ever before.
Present day update! Not me coming back to see what’s happening on my blog and realising I didn’t publish this 5 month update…my baby is now 1 year old! Crazy how fast 2024 galloped by for me, I’ll trrrrry and be a lot more consistent on here this year i’a.
Thankyou for reading 💞
Iqra | The Blushing Giraffe