5 Things I Didn’t Know Until I had a Baby

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. You must be 21+ years old to try Poise Impressa Bladder Supports. #LifeAfterLeaks #CollectiveBias

Every now and again I look at my oldest child and think how big she’s gotten.  Somehow 6 whole years have passed since I became a mom.  SIX.  The fact that I’ve been doing this thing called motherhood for six whole years blows my mind.  Sometimes it’s hard to remember exactly what it was like before my kids, while other times I sit and laugh at just how silly and naive I was back then…because, I’ll be honest – there were things that I thought I knew before I had kids, but I was wrong.  Completely and totally wrong.  Here are just 5 of the things I didn’t know until I had a baby:

The true definition of the word “tired”.  Everyone tells you that you will lose sleep when your baby is born, but what they don’t tell you is that it practically ceases to exist.  I sit and laugh at how I used to be “so tired” before having a baby, because the reality is, I had no idea what tired was before having kids.  Those first few weeks of motherhood – with a baby who may sleep 20 hours a day but none of those hours happen to be during the nighttime when you actually want to sleep – will redefine the word tired in a way you wish didn’t even exist.

Breastfeeding is hard.  In my head, I thought my baby would be born, she’d latch right away, and I’d breastfeed for at least 6 months.  Cue the choir of angels singing our praises.  Except, it wasn’t like that at all.  About a year before I had my first child, a friend mentioned to me that it could be painful at first, but I never expected that it would be physically difficult.  And I certainly didn’t know that there was an entire category of professionals and support groups dedicated to the cause.

Mommy wars and mommy guilt are real, and they start early.  I thought these were things that only resided in mom’s heads before I became a mom myself, but low and behold, they’re real.  Want to feed your baby store bought baby food instead of making your own?  Someone’s going to have an opinion on that and tell you all about it…so you can doubt yourself and feel guilty.  Same thing goes for returning to work, formula vs. breastfeeding, the type of birth you had, and a myriad of other mom topics.  It’s a vicious cycle, go easy on yourself.

Your body won’t be the same.  Okay, so you might lose all the baby weight.  You might even lose more than just the baby weight and have a rockin’ post-baby bod, but your body will change after birth.  Your feet might get bigger.  You might carry weight differently.  Or, you might leak.  Yes, let me be the bearer of bad news and tell you that it’s very possible that you’ll experience life’s little leaks after giving birth while you sneeze, laugh, work out, or a ton of other inopportune times.  It’s one of those dirty little secrets of motherhood that other moms don’t tell you before you have your child, but you quickly learn after.

So what do you do about it?  Get Poise Impressa Bladder Supports.

I first saw Poise Impressa as I was shopping online at CVS.com and was intrigued because while they look like tampons, they work much differently.  You see, Poise Impressa is designed to prevent leaks rather than absorb them.  It’s a bladder support.

Simply use the sizing kit to find your perfect fit by starting with the size 1 and working your way up through the sizes until you stop experiencing leaks.  And remember, the sizes aren’t dependent on your dress size or the amount you leak, it’s only about what’s comfortable for you and what prevents your leaks.

Just one of them can be used for 8 full hours and doesn’t need to be removed to go to the bathroom (please note, Poise Impressa cannot be worn during your period or while you’re pregnant).

Your body might not be the same, but you can still be confident as you head off to the gym, run to that meeting, or chase your kids around the park.

Spontaneity is dead.  Remember when you would get an idea to go somewhere or do something or eat something and you’d go do it right away?  Yeah, that isn’t going to happen anymore.  Because leaving the house will require diaper bags, travel systems, toys, snacks, multiple changes of clothes, sunscreen, backup toys, backup snacks and so many other things that weren’t even on your radar before the baby arrived.  Trips will require even more.  Date nights will require sitters, finite times, and early wake ups the next day.  So you might want to pass on that third glass of wine because they’ll be up the next day at 6am whether you’re ready or not.  Luckily they’re cute, so you won’t mind giving them the last bite of your dinner…and your entire dessert.    

Is there anything that you feel you were wrong about or didn’t know before you had a baby? Have you noticed your body change since birth? If so, have you tried Poise Impressa Bladder Supports?