You made it - welcome to motherhood.

All those months of preparation, angst, and worry are over, and now it’s time to adjust to this new way of life. The newborn stage is a time when your needs are overshadowed by your newborn’s, and you have to find a new way to survive and thrive. The sleep exhaustion will push you to places you never knew existed within you and make you question and wonder if you were cut out for this.

You are likely staring at this tiny miracle, and wondering how such a sweet little thing carries such a powerful cry. Especially in the middle of the night, when you are startled from the peaceful night sounds by the shrill screams. You have no idea what the cries mean, and you may be crying too as you just want to sleep. You need to sleep. You are desperate for sleep.

You may be saying to yourself all those negative thoughts that creep in like, “I can’t do this.” “When will it ever end?” Or “What am I doing wrong?”

From one mom to another, I need you to know something.

You were MADE for this.

You CAN and WILL do this.

The love that created that beautiful baby in your arms, it’s inside you, along with a brilliant light.

I know you don’t want to hear this. I know you just want this phase to end so you can get back to sleeping, watching TV, working out, binging on social media, and doing all the things you love. But I need you to hear and really process this.

THIS TOO SHALL PASS.

Tattoo in on your wrists if you need to as a daily reminder, but in the really hard moments, when you want to leave and never come back. Or feel so desperate and maybe thought "I don't know if I can go on like this", I need you to say to yourself:

THIS TOO SHALL PASS.

Because in every phase of parenting, this will be your mantra. In a blink of an eye, your baby will be 3-4 months old and be sleeping through the night when teething starts. And then you’ll say, “THIS TOO SHALL PASS.”

Then in the toddler years when the “No’s” and tantrum’s start, or the threenager years, you’ll need to remember, that “THIS TOO SHALL PASS.”

When you are awoken when your child has nightmares or wets the bed at age five, and you are seriously so tired of getting up in the middle of the night, again. Say to yourself, “THIS TO SHALL PASS.”

Later in the tween and teen years, when the eye rolling begins, the attitude, and the fighting with you gets worse. And more than ever you’ll need this mantra.

I know it’s hard to savor this time of instability when your world is shifting to a scary and new place. But look at your baby. Smell the sweet scent of her after a bath. Feel how soft and squishy his skin is. Feel how perfectly she fits into your arms, and what a joy it is to hold her as she sleeps. Memorize that sweet face when he’s calm because even when he’s eight or 18 when he’s sleeping, he’ll look exactly the same.

In this mess of your life right now, please try to find the magic. Seek it out, even if it’s just one moment of quiet, try to see and honor the gift.

Because unfortunately this too shall pass.

Good luck mama, you’ve got this. We can do hard things.

Please follow Kristen Hewitt on Facebook for more encouragement. This post originally appeared on kristenhewitt.me.

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