You know how it goes: get pregnant, get advice. Bad advice, outdated advice, weird advice.

You MUST know how to swaddle well. My baby acts like you are wrapping her in thorns. Never been swaddled a day in her life.

Make sure you read to her for an hour a day. Her whole library takes approximately 8 minutes to read. Now what?

Never let her fall asleep while breastfeeding. Is there another way?

Someone told me to use my child’s urine as a skin care product. Does it work? Probably. Am I going to try it? Not a chance.

Now I know most people just want to be helpful. I’m sure there are millions of reasons to swaddle and read for an hour a day. Truthfully, most advice went in one ear and out the other during my pregnancy. But one thing stuck: It’s going to be awful at first.

Photo by Molly Ann Photo+Design

I felt so unprepared. I was going to have this baby and she was going to be a ticking time bomb. Surely I was going to damage her for life in the first 24 hours.

And then I had her.

They were right about the sleep deprivation and the spit-up (I mean seriously, it’s everywhere.). But out of all that advice, no one gave me the advice I really needed to prepare myself.

Enjoy it. Every second.

No one thoroughly warned me of the joy that was coming. Sure, she was going to be cute and cuddly but no one warned me that every second feels like my heart is having fireworks internally. Especially when she falls asleep on my breast (gasp!).

I wasn’t told that nine diaper changes a day could be play time instead of punishment. That waking up before Daddy meant I got the morning smiles instead of just less sleep.

Even though I am covered in spit up, I change my shirt and take a big whiff of my baby’s fading newborn smell. I roll my eyes getting out of bed for the third time to feed but stay awake for the extra ten minutes to watch her sleep smiles.

There will be time to wash bottles and spot treat pajamas. To learn how to swaddle if your baby likes it and even exfoliate your face in urine (don’t worry it’s going to get on you anyway). Every mom knows the positives outweigh the negatives.

Let’s make sure moms-to-be know it, too.

Except labor. That was just as bad as they all said. But that’s for another day.