Showing all posts tagged older mothers

In Blog

Faith is 4 Months Old Today ♥

Author SherryPosted on

Here is what she looked like at 3 months, 2 months, and 1 month.

An entire 4 months have passed since our baby girl came into the world.  I still can’t believe how fast the time is flying by.  Becoming a mommy for the first time was such a huge moment in my life that Faith’s birth still seems so fresh in my mind.  I still think about my time with her in the hospital.  The beeps from the monitor, the buttons at my bedside, the nurses, the hospital room smell, etc.  It seems like yesterday I was resting in my hospital bed, with tiny little Faith swaddled in her hospital blanket, laying in my arms.   Time is just passing too quickly.  I was looking at newborn pictures and videos of her just the other day.  So small.  So new.

Everyday feels brand new with her.  She is constantly changing, and learning new things every single day.  New noises.  New facial expressions.  New movements.   There is so much I want to hang on to!  I know that in the blink of an eye she will be walking, and talking.   Soon, she will no longer cry for milk… she will ask for it.

Here is what Babycenter says about the developmental milestones of four month olds, “Researchers believe that your baby can now understand all the basic sounds that make up her native language. Between this time and 6 months of age, your baby will develop the ability to make some vocal sounds, which means you may hear the words you’ve been dreaming about, namely “ma-ma” or “da-da.”

Just a couple days ago Faith was testing out some new sounds.  She was going, “Hmmmmmmmmm!   Hmmmmm!”  Real loud.   And then I heard, “Mmmmmmaaaah!”    I guess that’s as close to “mama” as she can get for now :)   I wonder if she will say “mama” or “dada” first? :)   She LOVES talking.  She loves making tiny high-pitched gurgling noises in the back of her throat.  She sounds like she’s purring.  She knows how to use her voice in such a way that makes her ultra-cute!  And she knows it.

She is becoming less frustrated with tummy-time.  However, she still can only tolerate being on her stomach for a little while.  She still MUST be on her feet, standing.  That is what she likes best.  She doesn’t like sitting up.  She would rather hold our hands and stand.

She is now starting to talk contentedly to herself when she wakes up in the morning. She doesn’t belt out a hunger cry immediately after waking up.  Just this morning, Aaron and I were in bed listening to her sweet sounds.  When I looked over the edge of her bassinet, she saw my face, and she smiled a big gummy grin.   She is such a happy girl.  I picked her up, and put her between us in our bed.  She was reaching out with one hand to feel daddy’s whiskers, and the other hand grasping my shirt.  I love these moments.

She is almost ready to roll over.  She is SO close!  Take a look at this …

She will be having her 4 months immunizations on Monday afternoon.  I am praying it goes a bit smoother than her first round of immunizations.  I hate to see her so upset. Her teary eyes looked like she felt betrayed by her mommy.  Even after the pain was gone, she still sobbed like she had a broken heart :(   I really really hope things go a little bit better on Monday.

Four months old :)  Wow.

In Blog

The Benefits of Being an Older Mom

Author SherryPosted on 2 Comments

This is a wonderful article from Elizabeth Heath that I wanted to share with all of you older moms out there ♥

 

“I had my first child last year, a few months after I’d turned 45. I gave birth at an age when many of my friends were sending their first-borns off to college. Admittedly, for some of them, their first-borns may have been the result of poor planning or an “oops!” moment. Still, my husband and I (though he is six years younger than me) are taking on new parenthood at a time when most parents our age are looking ahead to diapering their first grandchild, not their own newborn.

I’m sure that when I was 25, if someone had told me that a 45-year-old woman maybe, just maybe, was wiser than me as a result of age and experience, I would have told that person to stuff it—except I would have used a less-polite term. But now, through benefit of that same age and experience that I didn’t used to think mattered, I now see that we older moms do offer certain advantages to our kids.

We’re better prepared for pregnancy. I’d never suggest that younger moms don’t want and love their babies. But we older moms are far less likely to have an unexpected or unplanned pregnancy so we have plenty of time and focus to get our lives ready for baby. I confess: I bought my daughter her first stuffed animal before I was even pregnant and we bought, and renovated, our home with a baby’s room in mind long before I saw two solid blue lines on the pee test!

We’re more likely to stay with Daddy. Of course there are no guarantees, but a new mom in her 40s isn’t likely to be in a “starter” marriage.Whether she’s in a more long-term marriage relationship or, like me, in a newish marriage with all the shenanigans of her 20s and 30s well (and thankfully) behind her, the fact of the matter is that the kids of older moms are more likely to be raised in a two-parent household. (I am 100% certain that if I’d married and had a baby with any of my boyfriends from my 20s and 30s, I’d be a single mom to some angry Goth teenager right now.)

We’re more financially stable. Women who have a successful career before becoming pregnant, or who are half of a two-income family, can obviously provide better for their children. Babies are expensive! And if I’d had one in my hardscrabble 20s, I’m pretty sure my daughter would be wearing a dishtowel as a diaper, while the spare one was hanging out to dry. For single moms who have babies in their 40s, they’re not likely to plan a pregnancy unless they’re sure they have the financial means to provide for a baby.

We’re more chill. I remember a young co-worker who brought her newborn to a business conference, yet freaked out anytime any of her colleagues touched the baby. (Hint: If you don’t want people touching your baby, don’t bring her to an event attended by hundreds of people!) I think that had she been older, she might have been less phobic about germs, dirt, and dog kisses. You want to hold my daughter? She’s all yours. Please hang onto her until I’ve finished dessert. I also don’t pack three changes of outfits and 10 diapers plus a sack full of toys every time we leave the house. And if the dog licks her on the face and then steals her cookie? Sorry folks, but I’m really, really ok with that.

We’ve got our sh*t together. Honestly, I’d feel sorry for any kid of mine born to me when I was in my 20’s. I lacked self-esteem and self-awareness. I was obsessed with finding The One instead of focused on my career and inner happiness. I drank too much, though I like to think I would have kept a lid on that for a baby’s sake. But how many crappy boyfriends and crying fits and Mommy being too depressed to get out of bed would my child have been exposed to? I’m just talking about myself now—I know not all 20-somethings are the disaster I was at that age. But a lot of my friends were hot messes just like me, and none of us were ready to be moms. Now we can look back and laugh, and say, “That was a lot of fun, but thank God those days are behind us.”

There will always be a part of me that wishes I’d had children when I was younger, so that I’d have more decades to spend with them and (hopefully) my grandchildren. But I had my daughter at the right time and place in my life and, thankfully, with the right man. And I know that for me, at least, that means she’ll grow up more secure, healthy and happier than she might have if I’d had her 10 or 20 years ago.

Having said all that, I can think of one huge advantage younger moms have over us older moms: the energy of youth. My daughter is going into her fourth month of not sleeping through the night. And I’m sure a perky, 25-year-old new mom who hasn’t gotten a good night’s sleep for four months can’t possibly feel as worn out and irritable as I do right about now.”

 

Elizabeth said, “I had my daughter at the right time and place in my life and, thankfully, with the right man.”  Me too.  I am very blessed ♥

 

My husband, Aaron, left me a sticky note on my textbook early this morning before he went to work.  Faith and I were still asleep …

 

In Blog

Yay for Older Mommies!

Author SherryPosted on

 

Older mothers take a bow: study finds your children get better start

Helen Perks with her two children Max 7 and Eva 4Helen Perks with four-year-old Eva and seven-year-old Max. Photo: Ben Rushton

“HELEN PERKS has heard all the negatives about being an older mother. But she isn’t buying them.

”Some people say you’re going to be old and exhausted, but it works in the opposite way,” said Ms Perks, a web designer who had her first child, Max, when she was 40, and her second, Eva, when she was 43.

”In fact, it encourages you. You think, ”Well, I’m going to be older when I have my kids, so I have to keep myself healthy’.”

According to a major study, the children of older mothers are getting a better start in life in a variety of ways.

The British study said children born to women over 40 benefited from improved health and language development up to the age of five. It also found increasing maternal age was associated with children having fewer hospital admissions and accidents, a higher likelihood of having their immunisations by the time they were nine months old and fewer social and emotional difficulties.

Older mothers tend to be more educated, have higher incomes and be married – all factors associated with greater child wellbeing, said the study from University College London’s Institute of Child Health, which looked at data covering more than 78,000 children, and was published in the British Medical Journal.

In Australia, 4 per cent of the almost 300,000 women who gave birth in 2009 were aged 40-plus. Gino Pecoraro, a spokesman for the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said older mothers tended to be more established, educated, mature and financially settled, helping with language development and the potentially improved supervision of children.

”At least, for a change, the headlines are pointing out something good about being older as it is usually all so dismal,” said Hannah Dahlen, the associate professor of midwifery at the University of Western Sydney and national spokeswoman for the Australian College of Midwives.

Ms Dahlen gave birth to her daughter a few weeks before her 40th birthday.

”It is well known that this phenomenon exists with children born to older mothers but most of the association is due to higher education and social advantage,” she said.

”The higher educated a mother in particular is the more financially stable she is and the more likely you will see children with better linguistic skills.”

Ms Perks said she was a more grounded person in her 40s than earlier in her life.”

Sandy Smith