From me to you – 3 mom tips for a new or expecting mommy!

Becoming a parent by far has was and is my biggest accomplishment. It has brought so meaning, fulfillment, joy, sadness, excitement, frustrations – the scale of emotions has been limitless. All I know is that ever since being a little girl the one thing I KNEW I wanted in life was to be a mom – and it has been even greater than I could ever imagine.

Now that does not mean there have not been trials and frustrations along the way. As an imperfect mom of four absolutely NOT perfect kids I have learned a few things along the way!

1.  Celebrate the small victories. Seriously sometimes the tiniest accomplishments can mean so much. Like the first time you successfully change your babies diaper without getting poop on your hand or on the blanket under them. Or the first time you are able to take a shower without any interruptions. (Ok maybe that one is a BIG victory!)

2. Enjoy the unenjoyable. When this season of life is over and your babies are all grown up you will miss the middle of the night mama-baby feeding times. Try and remind yourself this when you are feeling overwhelmed and EXHAUSTED! This is only a season and it can be a sweet season if you allow yourself to enjoy it – even just a little bit.

3. Enforce that paci! With four kids we have tried not using a pacifier and using a pacifier. Let me tell you – with my first daughter after a TON of struggle we finally got her to take a pacifier and keep her fingers out of her mouth. With my second, third and fourth children I didn’t enforce the pacifier so my two kiddos became finger suckers. Oh man am I regretting that now. It is easy to take a pacifier away from your toddler when they are 2 years old and move on. But how to you take your kids fingers away?!?! It is so cute when your little baby starts sucking their fingers but it is NOT CUTE anymore when they are 6 years old and you are having to constantly tell them to get their fingers out of their mouths! We have found that our most favorite pacifiers are the Tommee Tippee pacifiers. Even though my little guy is approaching toddler age, we are in the stage of transitioning him from thumb sucking to pacifier. The transition is actually going pretty well – as long as we have all of his favorite Tommee Tippee pacifiers close by!

No matter what works for you and your babies – I can tell you that mommy-hood is hard! It’s not nearly as easy as we imagined it would be when we were little girls playing with your babies. Mistakes will happen, things that work for one parent will not work for you – but not matter what becoming a parent by far has been my biggest accomplishment (and I am sure it will be yours too!)