5 Lessons from a Weekend with Baby Mila

I just spent a weekend taking care of my niece and wanted to share 5 things I reflected on!

1. We pile our plates too full! What's thing we can spit out?
2. Change of scenery works wonders for our mindsets
3. Remember - what do you want MOST rather than what do you want NOW?
4. Movement is medicine!
5. Routines are EVERYTHING!

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Transcript

Speaker 0:40

Hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. I am so glad that you're here today. If you're watching on Y- YouTube, you can kinda see I'm like... This is the messiest I feel like I've looked on a podcast episode in a long time, 'cause I usually try to... You know, I like to get myself ready, I like to kinda put my makeup on and do my hair and maybe get an outfit on and just, I really think that there's something that is true about when you get yourself ready, you feel better and you have g- better energy. I almost said gooder. That's where my brain's at right now. But you have better energy and all that, and I just love to bring my best energy to the podcast, and I still think I'm bringing the best energy that I have today to the podcast. But I just decided I did not have it in me to get ready. And if you are click- tuning into this episode, then you've seen the title about things I've learned from a baby, essentially. And I am coming off of a weekend of babysitting my niece, and it was so fun. Overall, a very positive weekend. There were some moments that I think I've mentioned on the podcast before that I can get high stress sometimes, and mostly when it comes to feeling like I'm doing something wrong or I'm not doing something right. I guess that's the same as doing something wrong. But... Or I feel like I'm failing or, like, letting someone down. And especially with my niece, she's eight months. Her name's Mila Rose, and she can't communicate with me if I'm doing something that's bothering her. You know what I mean? So I noticed that a couple times throughout the weekend I would get overwhelmed or stressed if I didn't know exactly what to do, and I'm not her mom, so I can't read her cues, and I've never been a mom, so just in general, baby cues are not second nature to me. But overall, the weekend went really, really well. So really, really happy with that. She was a very smiley, happy baby most of the weekend. She was pumped to see Mom and Dad after they got home for the weekend, and they were really only gone, like, two and a half days. It wasn't a long time. It wasn't even... Actually, yeah, not even two full days, I guess. Whatever. You do the math. They left Friday night, or Friday afternoon, and they came back Sunday morning. Well, it was afternoon, just barely. But yeah, so you do the math. But I'm gonna talk about some lessons. I know I'm really metaphor heavy lately, but I just feel like everyday things that happen in real life we can all really relate to, but then when I start to sit and really think about what, what's a lesson I can learn from this? What's something that I can learn from this? I find that there are lots of things to be learned in just the very mundane, everyday s- scenarios, such as watching your niece, which can be a really mundane thing, and it wasn't for me because I was very alert all weekend to her. I wanted to make sure I was, like I said, doing a good job. But so I wouldn't necessarily say it was mundane because it's not something that I do all the time every day. But we didn't do anything crazy. There wasn't anything super exciting that we did necessarily. But Finding lessons to be learned or Things that might make you think about something just a little bit differently, those are the things that I really like to come on here and talk about. And they're the things that I always say when I come on here, I like to think about it as though I'm sitting down chatting with a girlfriend. And these are the kinds of things that I like to sit down when I ha- when I'm sitting down for a happy hour with a glass of wine with a girlfriend, or I'm sitting down having coffee with a girlfriend and just talking about like, "Yeah, it's so crazy. I was realizing that this is something that I'm learning right now," or, "Isn't it crazy that ABC happened?" And so I'm gonna talk about five things that I feel like I learned over the weekend or that I was reminded of through my baby niece, Mila. And bonus one, because it is Sunday and this podcast is coming out Monday, a bonus one that I did not expect Is that something, sometimes things don't go to plan, and I had planned, I usually record the podcast on Saturdays, and then I edit on Sundays, and then it comes out Monday. I was like, "Oh yeah, I'm gonna have so much time while she's napping or while she's in bed," and blah blah blah. But then, all the times that she was asleep, I actually was kind of, not recuperating necessarily, but there were just other things on my mind. It was not a really great time to be recording a podcast episode. And so I didn't do it yesterday, and so I'm doing it, I'm doing the recording and editing today. So bonus thing that sometimes things don't always go according to plan, but you can always adjust and recover afterwards. So five things that I learned from my baby, baby niece. The first one, I think this is so fascinating. If you guys have seen people doing baby-led weaning, it, I, m- it's newer in the last, I don't know, 10, 20 years, maybe even less than that. I'm not sure. I just know that my mom, who watches Mila regularly, she said that it was not a thing when she was raising us. Like none of her babies ate whole foods when we were babies. We ate baby food or we ate, you know, the pouches, which Mila eats some of those too. But the whole like giving them a whole strawberry or something like that. There is, I guess, research or support for this idea of baby-led weaning, which if you're not, if all of your friends aren't, aren't having children like mine are, you may not realize it's like giving them whole foods in, in safe amounts or safe sizes for them to consume, but they're, like, larger... I, I, I don't know exactly what the rule is for them, but the pieces of food are, too big for them to be chokeable or, like, a choking hazard, but they kinda gnaw on them and get them really, really soft, and then they're able to swallow them. And their, apparently, their gag reflexes are just so good that if a too big of a piece does get down their throat, they do cough it up. And I have seen her do it, and it is kinda freaky at first, but she did it with an apple. I s- I gave her some sliced apples. Really, just one. She just likes to hold two at a time. I don't know. But anyway, I gave her some sliced apples, and she was really good at, like, gnawing them. She even was scraping them. She has got two bottom teeth coming in on the bottom. She was, like, scraping them a bit. And what it was reminding me of is I feel like sometimes we over, we overdo it, right? Like, and we need that gag reflex to kick in. Not literally. But sometimes we overdo it whenever it comes to the things that we have on our plate. And we really pile things in there, and we really, we busy up our calendars, and we busy up our workload, and we tell ourselves, "I have one Sunday off. I'm gonna do 14 things." And then it turns out that you really can't handle that, you know? Just the same way that a baby is like, "I'm gonna shove everything I possibly can into my mouth," and then realizes, "Oh, I can't handle that," and then their gag reflex forces them to kinda spit it back up. We do that to ourselves. We overwhelm ourselves with how much we put on our plate sometimes, and we really need to release some things. So this was a good reminder for me because I think I've been, I've been really trying to be intentional. The only reason I could babysit this weekend is because I didn't busy up my weekend before they asked me. But I've been trying to be really intentional about not busying up, cluttering up my calendar too early on, so that when those days come by, I can do what feels best and feels most aligned in that time. Because you never know, like, oh, maybe I'm gonna sleep poorly, or maybe I'm gonna be... have just had an argument with my husband, or maybe I'm not gonna be feeling up to getting out of the house or whatever it may be. I think that sometimes we can really busy up our calendars and clutter our schedules, and then it can make us feel really overwhelmed. Or sometimes this can happen with just kinda your to-do list, I would say, or your commitments that you have to people, things that you say that you're going to do, and you overdo it, and then you become overwhelmed. Think right now, like, what is something that I can take off my calendar, or what is something that I can take off my to-do list that really is not necessary, not something I need to be stressing about, not something I need to be busying myself up with? What is something that you can let go, like basically that you can spit out of your mouth while you are consuming everything else that you need to consume? Because there are some things, sometimes you are consuming so much or committing to so much, and you're overdoing it, and you really need to spit some things out. You need to limit your consumption there. The second thing I learned, and probably those of you that are parents know this or have had infants know this. I learned this this weekend, that when Mila got fussy, a lot of the time a change of scenery was just perfect for her. If she was a little whiny, she was probably just bored. And so we would go down in the basement and hang out in there, or we would go out on the patio and hang out in there, as long as it's not raining, or we would go in the living room, or we would go in her bedroom, or we... I had some, enrichment activities that she could do in her high chair, except I feel like she was also kinda confused 'cause she was like, "Hey, I'm supposed to be eating in my high chair. Why am I, playing with tape and Post-It notes and sparkly stuff?" So, it was still really fun. But that just a change of scenery can make such a difference, and I think that's true for us, too. Especially say that it's, the workday, you're having a really stressful workday or you're even having a really boring workday. Is there somewhere that you can move to? Can you change up the scenery somewhat? Can you change up the lighting somewhat? Can you s- burn a candle? Can you just do something to change up the scenery? Or maybe you get up from your desk, you walk outside for a bit. You circle arou- you take a walk around your building, or if you work from home, you can go out. Like, I like to go out on the deck. I know my husband likes to do that sometimes, too. Change of scenery really, really helps, and it really helps just to get you into a different mind space. It was so obvious with Mila 'cause she's an infant. So sh- we'd get to a new space, and she's just like, "Ah," you know, and sticking her tongue out and all that thing. And a- adults don't really do that. They don't really go get into a new room and then go, "Ah," and stick out their tongue. But when you have a little bit of a change of scenery, sometimes it really can elevate your mood, or it can clear up your thinking if you've kind of had a roadblock with something, or it can just put you in a different mind space, and it's really, really helpful. The third thing, oh my gosh, this one is one I really, really had to take to heart and learn because, again, like 95% of the weekend was smooth sailing, wonderful. But putting Mila down for her naps is usually not something that she really has a hard time with with mom and dad. But with me, she was having kind of a hard time, and she was making herself upset for longer than she would for mom and dad. So, there would be times that I would lay her down and she'd be crying, and I would want to... I, I wanted to so bad, you guys. Like, if you're a parent, I do not know how you do this. But I wanted to so badly go in the room, soothe her, just let her stay awake and, you know, like she just wouldn't calm down. She wouldn't stop crying. But if I left her for like five to seven minutes She kind of started to get softer cries. Like at first she might be really upset. But then when she would get softer cries and then she was just kind of like, "Oh, ah," or like rolling around or something. Like she's obviously not asleep, But she's not so upset that she is crying and screaming bloody murder or anything like that, which she really doesn't do really very much. She just, when she goes to bed, she gets major FOMO. I totally get it. I've-- I was like that most of my 20s. I, I think that she just feels like, "Oh my gosh, I'm gonna miss something," like... Or maybe, who knows? She's a baby. Who has any clue? I don't know. But the, the thing that this truly taught me was the power of prioritizing what you want most rather than what you want now, because there were so many times I was so tempted to go into her room and pick her up and bounce her and try to, like, rock her to sleep or sing her to sleep or something like that, and I just knew that it would just keep her awake longer. And what she need-- what we needed most was for her to get sleep, because without sleep, she was gonna be really unhappy. Like, it w-- she was gonna be really unhappy, I was gonna be really unhappy, her parents were gonna be really unhappy whenever they got home and I was like, "Yeah, she's been up for 48 hours." Not really. She's a great sleeper. But I had to think about what I wanted most instead of w- instead of what I wanted now, and I learned this lesson because one night she really did, or one, like, late afternoon, she really did need a nap, and I put her down, and she was really, really restless. And I did go in there, and then I tried to put her down again, and she was really, really restless. And then I, like, brought her out to make her happy, and I prioritized what I wanted most in the moment, which was for her to be a happy baby and not cry. But what actually ended up happening was that she had to stay up for, like, two hours longer than normal and, like, without a nap, and she was pretty, pretty tired by the time bedtime rolled around. And we had a good time. There was, nothing crazy. It wasn't really... It wasn't... It... We had a good time for the evening. It was just one of those things where neither of us really got a break, and I... seriously, I applaud you mothers out there, because it is not easy to know what your baby needs most or now. And so I, I had a good evening with her. I'm really glad that she wasn't overtired, so she didn't, like, fuss through the night. She slept through the night. But that was a good reminder that, hey, in the moment, you may be feeling this way, but In the long term, what do you want most? And I know I just described her nap time really at length, but you get the idea. In your life, is there a relationship where you are putting off a hard conversation because what you want most now is to be comfortable and not have to talk about something hard and not have conflict? But is this something that, in the long run, is gonna cause you to, have resentment or cause you to be in a relationship that you're not happy with or to engage with someone that is hurting your feelings and they just have no idea? Or in your workplace, sometimes I think about that with the first, full-time job that I had out of college, there were a lot of days where I really procrastinated. The biggest thing on my plate, if you've ever heard of the eat the frog thing, that was something that I learned in that workplace, was... I think it's a book, but I've never read it. I just heard it at some point. But it's the idea of doing the hardest thing first, because then the rest of the day you've already done your hardest thing first. And it's the same idea as what do I want most versus what do I want now? Well, right now I don't wanna do the hardest thing, but what I want most is that the rest of the day I feel like, wow, I already took care of that, so everything on top of that is gravy or everything on top of that is just extra. So you can really apply this to a lot of places. Hopefully you get that The fourth thing, and I feel like this kind of goes with the change of scenery thing, because I just discovered that Mila and Scout, their dog, Mi- they love walks. We all love walks. Honestly, like, my husband's out on a walk with our dog right now. I only didn't go 'cause I'm really, really tired. But I normally do go with them. But really, movement is medicine. If you are feeling down in the dumps, or you're feeling bored, or you're feeling stressed, or something like that, just get up and go on a walk. Seriously. It doesn't even have to be a walk. You could get up and wash the dishes, or you could get up and play with your dog, Or I always hear that, intermittently, if you have a desk job, getting up and doing, like, 10 squats or something is really good. But ultimately, movement is medicine. It's just such a cure for so many feelings that we have, because a feeling is just a feeling. Feelings aren't real. Okay, wait. Feelings are real I'm getting this mixed up, but I think it's like thoughts are just thoughts, feelings are just feelings, emotions are just emotions. Like, you might have that come up, but you're in con- like, it's just an arbitrary thing. It's not like a real thing in real life I feel like this is not making sense, so I'm gonna move on 'cause I feel like my brain is a little bit fuzzy on that. but what I'm really trying to say is that a lot of feelings and emotions that you have can, can be helped with movement. Like, you can get clarity just from getting up and going on a walk, or you can get into a new head space. It's really, really super helpful. Similar to the change of scenery, and I guess I did kinda think of it because whenever we had that longer evening, me and Mila Rose, one of the things that I did was go on a walk, 'cause that kills, like, 20 minutes, so it's great. And then the last thing I will say, which you will not be shocked by because I talk about habits and routines all the time on this episode, but routines are everything. Routines are so helpful. Routines are not restrictive. Habits are not restrictive. Doing something the same way each time is so helpful, and it's never been so obvious to me than with a baby because When babies get into their rhythm, it is so helpful for them and so helpful for their parents. And I saw that a lot with Mila because her parents have her in a really, really good routine. But this is so true for all of us, you guys. Like, when we have a regular s- especially, sleep rhythm, that's really helpful. But when we have a regular rhythm of life or just routine, like we have a regular morning routine or a nighttime routine or a lunch routine or a meal prep routine or a grocery store routine, those things just help us. They don't hold us back. I feel like a lot of people think mistakenly that routines and habits hold them back because it, like, restricts you to just that one thing. But what it actually does is gives you so much freedom for everything else. It gives you so much energy for other things because once that routine is established or that habit is established, then you have so much room and energy for other things. Like it becomes a mindless thing, And so you have way more thought and energy that you can put into other things. I don't know if that makes sense, but routine is everything. That would be the fifth thing. And yeah, it was such a good weekend. Let's recap real quick. So sometimes we take in too much, and we need to get rid of something. So think about first, what's something that you need to get rid of right now or take off your calendar, take off your schedule, take off your to-do list, take off your commitments? Two, change of scenery, scenery really, really helps. So as you're going through the week, if there is a time when you're feeling like just a little down, down in the dumps, you're not really doing great, you're feeling real stressed, overwhelmed, how can you change your setting real quick and see if that helps? Three, what do you want most over what do you want now? So in the next week when you're in the workplace or you're thinking, or you're trying to get into your gym routine and you're like, "What I want now is to snooze my alarm, but what I want most is to get into this fitness routine." Think about that Four, movement is medicine. So the next time you're feeling really antsy, again, this kinda goes with the change of scenery, so I guess it's more like four lessons. But movement is medicine. And then five, routines are everything. So think about an area of your life that you need to improve your routine, and I encourage you to do that. I love you. Thank you