What I've learnt from my baby

My baby is getting so big!!! I've been a little bit preoccupied of late, hence the not posting anything for a while. Isabella is on the verge of crawling and has a wide vocabulary of babbling. What I've noticed about Isabella is that I can actually learn some life lessons from her. Mainly because babies are so instinctive and just do what feels right for them. Here are some things that I have learnt from Isabella so far.

1. Do things in your own time, not when people think you should do them. Babies do things when they are ready themselves, not when the books say they should. For example, Isabella was ready for solids at 4 months, some people were telling me from when she was 3 months to give her some because she was feeding so much, some people told me to start at 5 months. With our babies, we let them do things in their own time, but we don't allow ourselves that same flexibility. There's so much pressure to lose our baby weight as soon as possible or be ready to leave our baby with a relative quickly to get our social lives back on track, but where did all this rush come from?! I still don't feel ready to leave my baby with somebody during the day or more than a few hours in the evening, but then again why should I try to push myself? Some people feel ready to go back to work when their babies are as young as 4 months, some don't feel ready until they're over a year. Let's cut ourselves a bit of slack!
2. It's OK to show a bit of emotion! You wouldn't dream of telling a baby not to cry when they feel stressed out or to calm down when they're so excited that they give themselves hiccups, so why is there so much pressure for us adults to keep a stiff upper lip?! Agreed, being upset or stressed around your baby isn't good for them, but the rest of the time, if we want to express how frustrated or happy or perplexed we are, maybe it would do us good to share it a bit more.
3. If at first you don't succeed, try and try again. Imagine how useless we'd be if we gave up everything at the first attempt. I mean, everything that we've tried in our lives; walking, talking, co-ordinating our hands and mouths. We literally would not be able to do anything! Isabella has been trying to crawl for ages now and she's got to the point where she pushes her bum up and either goes backwards or flips over, but she's showing no signs of quitting! I'm horrifically guilty of being a quitter. I hurt myself trying to ride a bike, so I gave up. I quit quitting smoking dozens and dozens of times before I succeeded. So, I've decided to, for once in my life, just do something! I've been meaning to start my own business making bath products for nearly 2 years then put it on the back burner or delayed it because I feel like I've got more research and work to do, but now I'm just going to take a dive and do it! As they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
4. Life is too short to do something that you don't want to. My baby will not do anything she doesn't want to, she's already got a mind of her own. If you offer her a toy and she doesn't like the look of it or doesn't feel like playing, she just won't take it. She's the same with food; she doesn't like avocado or plain baby rice, so she won't eat it, simples! I'm not suggesting that we should take this too literally, if you refused to do a task at work because you didn't enjoy it, you'd probably get a disciplinary, but how many times in our lives do we do something simply to please somebody else? Maybe we should grow down a bit and explain (nicely) that we don't want to eat something we don't like the look or smell of or would rather do or go somewhere else. After all, isn't life a bit too short to not enjoy what you're doing?
5. Sometimes we just need a hug. I'm not sure why, but once we reach adulthood, a lot of us have a lot less human contact with each other. How many times has your baby stopped crying as soon as you picked them up and gave them a cuddle? Even through the toddling stage and childhood, a hug can make everything better, but many grown-ups suffer from hug-deprivation in their lives.  Hugs increase the level of oxytocin and release serotonin and dopamine, which are all important for making you feel calmer and happier. Studies have shown that regular cuddles can also decrease your stress levels, which can reduce your risk of high blood pressure. There are absolutely dozens of reasons to hug somebody, so aim for at least 3 hugs a day (even if they're with the same person) to keep the blues away!

I'm sure my baby has a lot more to teach me, like the importance of being nakey nakey as often as possible, she's an extremely wise little girl.