If I Could Do it All Over: A Letter to my 24-Year-Old Self
Brought to you in partnership with Pampers
If I could do it all over again—Start over having each of my babies, I wouldn’t change a thing. That is, unless I knew what I know now. In that case, I’d change so much. I’m pretty confident time travel will be invented someday… Or has been already–You know, in the future. Well, in case my future self happens upon this post, I thought I’d write a letter to send to myself. My past-self, that is from 6 years ago. —The hopeful, yet clueless pregnant mom-to-be.
Dear 24-year-old self,
I know you’ve been waiting a long time to have children. You’ve been married to the love of your life for five years now, and you’re so excited to have the girl you’ve always dreamed of. I just wanted to send you a little note from the future with some advice.
I’ve been there. I know how it feels. I get all of the anticipation, and anxiety about not knowing what’s ahead. I’m going to give you a hint: everything is going to be ok.
I know right now it seems like the most important decision you are going to make in your daughter’s life is whether or not to get an epidural and what effect the decision you make will have on her development. I can promise you that you’re worrying your sweet little head for nothing. It may seem like that’s the biggest decision of your life, but it’s not even close. You’ll see soon enough.
Then, after she’s born, you’ll be on to worrying about breastfeeding. Are you producing enough? Pumping enough? And before you know it a year and a half later, WILL SHE EVER STOP?
You’ll worry about which brands to choose. We’re a very indecisive person. You give cloth diapers a try but (spoiler alert!) you go back to Pampers. It’s what your mom loved, and what you have found to be most absorbent when your heavy wetter goes in the middle of the night.
Let me give you some more advice. Don’t compare yourself or your baby to other mothers and babies. You’re all different. There’s no perfect formula for raising the perfect child, and no matter how hard you try your little girl is going to someday turn into her own little person who can walk and talk and give her own opinions. Don’t worry, you’ll be proud.
Oh, and don’t think you’re off the hook with just one kid. Though you can’t possibly imagine loving another child as much as your first, you will. And though some of the worrying will start over again with another baby, you’ll feel much more confident.
I’m not going to say it’s all going to be easy, because it’s not. There will be many hard days. Days you cry and some nights you don’t sleep at all. But I promise you; it’s all worth it.
And when your babies turn three you’ll smile because you’re so proud to see the little people they are turning into. But you’ll be aching inside, wishing you could just go back and do it all over again.
I know because I’m you.
With love,
A mom from the future
What would you tell your pre-parent self?
Use this as a fun journal prompt and write your past-self a letter.
Tags: journal prompt, letter to myself
awww, tear! so true
<3 Thank you!
Ah! You and your babies are so beautiful.
Wow… This got me a little choked up. So heartfelt!
I really enjoyed your blog. You have a gift for writing and photography and a beautiful family!
Resign at the end of my second trimester to stay home and never look back at my career until the child is much older – perhaps off to college, military, etc. Time passes too quickly to try to “balance” it all.
wow! very nice post. Thanks for sharing such an informative and helpful posts. I’ve a newborn and I can really see how some of your advice really work.
My 7 month old still falls asleep while nursing even if she’s slept! We are finally fixing her nap schedule and that’s definitely helping, but most of the time she falls asleep nursing. She’s eating every 3.5-4 hours during the day (and then closer together in the early afternoon and evening before bed) but only naps an hour to an hour and a half (up from 20 minutes!) so sometimes food comes at an odd time. Hard to keep her awake!
If I could do it all over again it’s worth baby I’d do it different Maybe I wouldn’t be here, in this position best of luck