It’s well worth celebrating your baby’s milestones and smilestones, even if you have to give up the luxury of regular sleep in that eventful first year.
The first year of a baby’s life is filled with lessons and experiences for new parents. It’s also the time when you get to understand why sleep deprivation has been regarded as an effective form of torture for centuries.
I recall nearly falling off the side of the bed, as I dozed off while breastfeeding my little champ. It was then that I knew my hopes for decent sleep in the coming months would be nothing but a distant dream.
It wasn’t the lack of sleep that threw me off during this time, though. A few weeks into adapting to baby’s sleep and feeding routine, I was blindsided by growth spurts that I must have missed in our pregnancy bible. I found myself completely unprepared for the process.
I was fortunate that my partner would spend his waking hours reading up on baby’s development, because he was able to explain the intricacies of growth spurts to me.
There are many other experiences in the first year of our baby’s life that overwhelmed us as new parents, but this never stopped us from celebrating each milestone we encountered.
My partner and I were concerned when a week passed without our baby fully opening his eyes. Around day 10, his mother and my aunt, both former midwives, put our minds at ease by telling us that his eyes were merely swollen, and that the swelling would subside in a few days. When he finally opened his eyes on day 14, we bought ourselves a bag of chocolate to celebrate.
Making a fuss about every milestone, including the first smile, first time baby sits upright, first tummy time, first crawl, first wave, first word and first step, was all part of the joy of early parenthood for us.
And then came the inevitable first birthday. I have heard people saying that the first birthday celebration is not actually about the baby, because the baby will never remember it. I agree.
Growing up in the township, I witnessed many first birthday parties where the parents shared in the joy of their babies’ milestones with family and friends, not all of whom were parents.
They would splurge on food and sometimes alcohol for the festivities, with very little entertainment for the poor tiny tots who were dragged along. Unfortunately, we were guilty of the latter.
We celebrated Leano’s birthday with a Batman-themed party – dad’s idea. We immersed ourselves so much in what we wanted, that we forgot to hire a jumping castle for the little guests. You can only imagine how bored those children must have been after the third round of pin the tail on the donkey.
Parents who celebrate their children’s first birthday do so because they have endured and overcame countless challenges in their quest to raise a child, while trying to remain sane doing so.
But you don’t need to max out your credit card in order to make it a meaningful event. Whether you are having a cake smash photoshoot, an intimate picnic with close loved ones, or an elaborate party with jumping castles and Boo Boo The Clown, you should never feel guilty about celebrating the first year that you managed to keep your baby alive.
You are allowed to take pride in having taken each day a step at a time, and to bask in the glory of fairly successful parenting, because one day you will wake up and ask yourself how the years went by, when your now-toddler insists on doing things their way.
Leave a Reply