Stop Googling about your baby, fam!

Seriously, stop Googling.

Dearest full feedings family,

As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I started Googling about caring for my baby. Once my baby was born, the Googling increased. As my postpartum depression deepened, I kept Googling. What did I Google?  EVERYTHING!! Do you know what I learned from Dr. Google? If I searched for something enough times, using different combinations of words, I found someone, somewhere to reinforce my biggest fears. I thought they were writing about the thing I felt like I was going through. With the benefit of hindsight, I realize they weren’t going through the same thing and their opinions weren’t helpful because what I needed were a set of tools to help myself and my child.

2 month sleep regression? Yes… 3 month sleep regression? Yes… 3 and a half month sleep regression? Yes… What is the best bedtime routine? What is the worst bedtime routine?… How do I avoid starting bad habits?

I Googled it all and in the end, I wound up a thousand times more confused, with a thousand different opinions and nothing changed between me and my baby. What I didn’t gain, was a toolbox of ideas and strategies I could use to help my baby when she needed me. I realized I needed to empower myself to seek out help from people I trusted who could encourage me to trust myself and teach me the things I didn’t know as a first time mom.

Instead of searching ad hoc, when a fear or anxiety cropped up, I decided to:

1. Find a pediatrician I loved and kept a list of questions so I could get the answers I needed during our visits

2. Create a circle of people I trusted and asked them for help too. Between a friend who had a baby a few weeks older, my mom who I could call crying at any hour and a sister who just supported me I found a circle of people who I could rely on

3. Listen to my baby. When problems arise, there’s usually a solution or set of solutions. Does my baby need more daytime sleep? Longer awake windows? More ounces during the day? I decided not to be afraid to play around with these things to find the right answers!

4. Curate a few resources, like Full Feedings, Betches Moms Podcast and Lovevery, that felt right to me and helped me learn more about my baby and being a new mom

Having a support system, aside from just your partner, that can provide support, help, guidance and love is so much more helpful than looking for random answers online at 2am. No one on the internet knows you and your baby and anything you read online, is missing all of the details of what the family is experiencing.

It takes a village to raise a baby but remember, the village should be people you know and not the opinions of random strangers online. Dr. Google means his best, but I needed to move away from Google and into creating a real life support system that provided me with actual help.

Now that I'm part of the Full Feedings Family, I would love to be part of your village. To join Full Feedings or to learn more, click here.

xx,
Sara