The years fly by, but the minutes crawl. That very accurately describes life with a baby for me. If you watch my weekly Facebook live videos (which I do every Monday!), you will often hear me talk about Baby Standard Time.
Baby Standard Time is a term I use to describe those early months with baby. When one minute feels like one day. One day feels like one month. And one month feels completely overwhelming.
To me, the next three weeks will go by in the blink of an eye. School starts in three weeks and that seems too soon for me! To a mom with a two week old, however, three weeks seems like an eternity! When I say, “Hey, in three weeks, you can let that baby sleep as long as baby will. You don’t have to worry about waking baby up in the night anymore,” it doesn’t sound encouraging. A mom with a newborn doesn’t think, “Oh! Only three weeks?!? Awesome!” A mom with a newborn basically stops thinking when the phrase, “In three weeks, you can…” is uttered. Three WHOLE weeks? Panic. Deep breaths.
When I tell a mom that a phase will only typically last X amount of time, it is not reassuring. The rough days crawl by. Time creeps by. It seems more like a sentence than reassurance.
When you are living Baby Standard Time, know that I get it. I remember how I crossed off each day,
waiting for the time I would feel more normal (newborn weeks are hard for me with the raging hormones!). I remember hanging on until my baby would sleep longer stretches. I remember the exhaustion and sheer loneliness. I remember checking the clock (for the thousandth time) at 9:02 AM and being sure that my husband would never return home from work because five o’clock was never going to come.
But you sweet mamas in those trenches, try to hold on to this bit of truth. The years fly. I know it is so very hard. I know sometimes you want to punch people who say something like that in the face. Enjoy it, they say. You will miss it, they say. It goes by too fast, they say.
Those are easy things to say as you look back with fondness, remembering only the good times.
I am not trying to tell you those things. I am trying to give you a hope to grasp to. It does indeed pass quickly in hindsight. Life gets faster. Your minutes are crawling now, but you won’t be there forever. Baby Standard Time, just like Standard Time changing to Daylight Savings, will one day end. Time will go back to normal and even speed up.
So hang in there. Like the mamas before you, you will overcome. In the meantime, know that Baby Standard Time is real. You aren’t imagining it. Time is crawling. This, too, shall pass.
