Just when she thought she was all grown up...

Okay, time to introduce everyone to one of my favorite bloggers, Amanda!  I think a lot of us can relate to her blog, she's really down to earth and such a wonderful Momma.  Oh, and her daughter is ADORRRR-able.  :)

Hi everyone!  My name is Amanda, author of the blog Raising Miss Mommy.  I'm so excited to be here at Three Peas in My Little Pod!  Lindsay is so sweet and I just love her blog.  Her little family is too cute! I thought I would share some advice for all you parents to be out there, those of you thinking about starting a family and those of you with baby fever. When I first found out I was pregnant I got a little, well... dare I say, crazy?  Ok I admit it, I got a lot crazy.  I became paranoid about the foods I ate, the people I came into contact with {because no one washes their hands as good or as often as I do haha}, the animals I was around, and just about anything and everything.  To give you a better picture of how extreme I was, there was one time I called the "800" number on the back of a carton of milk because I could not for the life of me find where it said pasteurized on it.  So only naturally I deemed it utterly important to bother the milk company to ask my silly question.  The milk was in fact pasteurized, apparently all milk sold in grocery stores has to be {who knew?!}.  Not only was I crazy and paranoid but I was dead set on following a plan.  A plan for everything, the way my pregnancy would go, the way labor would go... I would later come to realize that pregnancy and labor are two of the most unpredictable things.  And this my friends is how I came up with my advice {I thought giving you a pretty good idea of how I was during pregnancy might make you take my advice to heart more ;)} Here are the things I wish I could have told my pregnant self...

Jealous of my extremely awesome polkadot pants???  I pretty much lived in them for 9 months :)

1.  Accept the things you can't change, control, or influence.  I was dead set on not getting an epidural and going into labor naturally.  Well in the end I was induced and ended up getting an epidural.  I buttered my belly up from the day I found out there was a nugget in there and I still got stretch marks.  There were plenty of other things too I had wanted to go a specific way but it didn't happen.  I survived, our daughter is healthy and happy, things still turned out better than ok.


2.  Talk about all things baby before the baby actually arrives.  Everyone talks about how beautiful and wonderful it's going to be once your little bundle of joy arrives, but sometimes we forget to talk about the other side of things.  The poopy, screaming, nocturnal qualities babies bring to our lives.  Like pregnancy you can't predict how your baby is going to be but it's still helpful to talk about things besides how cute they are. 


3.  As the mommy, prepare yourself more for how you are going to feel after the baby arrives.  There's a lot to deal with.  After being the sole protector to your child for over 9 months it's a bit of an adjustment to have anyone else come in and even want to hold your baby.  Also, the first couple of weeks after birth are pretty darn uncomfortable.  It gets better, listen to your body and do yourself a favor... get out, go for a walk, there's no need to keep you and your new little family cooped up inside. 


4.  Another one for mommy, remember that your husband/boyfriend/fiance/partner is there too and is just as capable as you at raising and caring for your child.  Not only that, they want to help.  Let go of some of that control, relax a bit :) 


5.  Remind yourselves that you're doing great.  Really you are, it might seem like you are failing miserably when you can't seem to get your baby to stop crying, to eat, or sleep but you're doing great. 


That's all folks, I tried to keep it short and sweet :) I could go on and on about the subject!  Did you like my advice, want to hear more?  Feel free to contact me and maybe I will have to do a follow up post on my blog!  Or just stop by for a visit :)

Hope everyone enjoyed having Amanda over as much as I did, now go check out her blog!!