Some advice about motherhood (and why it's wrong)

One of my best friends in the world became a mommy for the first time yesterday! In honor of her delicious daughter, here is some advice you'll hear from well-meaning moms about new motherhood. And why that advice stinks and what you really need to know instead.

1. "Sleep when the baby sleeps."
This should really be "Worry when the baby sleeps," or "Pump breastmilk when the baby sleeps" or my personal favorite, "Bleakly contemplate the ravages of your postpartum life when the baby sleeps." Everybody trots out this gem of advice like it's the solution to all newborn problems, like if only you and the baby jive on the same whacked-up circadian rhythm you'll be riding the train to easy parenthood. This advice conveniently presumes you can get the baby to sleep at all in the first place and ignores the fact that by the time you ascertain that the baby is, in fact, sleeping and then fall asleep yourself, it will be time to wake up with the baby again. Forget sleeping when the baby sleeps. You'll sleep when the baby's 18.

2. "It goes so fast! Enjoy every minute!"
As the mom of a toddler who is starting to say things like, "Don't talk to me!" (forget about the terrible 2s, he is now a two-nager), I can affirm that it does, in fact, go so fast. However, nothing made me weepier as a new mom than frantically shhhing a screaming infant while wiping smeared spit-up off my shoulder while simultaneously reminding myself that I should be ENJOYING EVERY MINUTE. Or looming over the crib silently willing my child to please, please fall asleep while also being sure to remember to ENJOY THIS VERY MINUTE. New moms are under enough pressure keeping their tiny humans alive. They can't be expected to enjoy every single minute, too.

3. "Trust your instincts."
I'm going to be brutally honest. When Eli was a newborn, I had no maternal instincts. None. The only instincts I had were screaming, "You're doing this wrong!" I vividly remember a moment after Eli's bris when he started crying and I froze, paralyzed. My baby is going to cry with all these people in my house ohmygodwhatdoIdo. My friend Marissa, Eli's godmother, soothingly suggested that maybe he was gassy from all the sugar water he'd inhaled during the bris and needed to be burped; she was right. For weeks I held on to that moment as some sort of talisman that I was completely lacking in maternal competence. Sometimes your instincts will tell you that you haven't heard the baby breathing in a minute and therefore she must be dead. Sometimes your instincts will tell you your baby can't possibly need to nurse for that many minutes at a time (pro tip: your baby can potentially need to nurse forever, if you're cool with that). In other words: sometimes your instincts are wrong. That doesn't make you a bad mom. It just makes you a new one.

Here are four pieces of advice I'd give to new moms instead:

1. Every day you keep the baby alive without dropping her on her head is a good day.
Be gentle with yourself and set the bar low.You don't have to entertain your newborn. At the end of the day, you may have gotten poop on yourself, you may have an infant wearing a misbuttoned onesie, you may have every single dish you own piled precariously in your sink. But is the baby still alive? Then it's been a good day.

2. Now and forever, you are your child's parent.
There is a lot - a lot - of advice for parents out there. I know this because when Eli was a newborn, I Googled it all. (Compulsively, even though I was repeatedly told to stop Googling.) If you can't trust your instincts, trust your husband's, or Dr. Karp's, or your baby's, and put them all in a blender to help you make up your mind. Worse things have happened than starting your baby on rice cereal instead of avocado or inadvertently causing the dreaded "nipple confusion." You -- you -- are your baby's parent. You may not be able to trust your instincts now, but that day will come. And guess what? You got this.

3. You don't just have a baby. You have a human being. 

You are your baby's parent for the rest of both your lives. I find this totally overwhelming but also comforting in a "This too shall pass" kind of way. Like, in 20 years it's not going to matter whether your baby was breastfed or formula-fed (well, unless he turns out intellectually inferior and chronically sick, then we'll know it's because he was formula-fed. Kidding!). It's not going to matter that she screamed in the bath when water got in her eyes or that you once accidentally clipped his finger instead of his nail. Sometimes it helps to focus on the short term and just getting through the day. But sometimes you have to remind yourself that you're playing the long game.

4. Motherhood is a wild ride. You're not going to enjoy every minute - but you should embrace the adventure. 
A week ago or a month ago, this human being didn't exist on Earth, and now she's here. You grew a human being inside your own body. Everything you say she hears for the first time. Every smile and coo from you is like a beacon that guides her toward humanity. Every sweet touch from you is like a welcome mat: You are safe, you are loved, you are home. You've got a lot of living to do, so let's get busy.