Today is Harrison’s first birthday. I could write endlessly about our last year, but I’m going to focus on one that stands out worth endorsing – babies aren’t that bad.

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Prior to having a kid I believed babies were generally horrible to have around. They always cry, you never sleep, you’re changing poopy diapers all the time, etc. This leaves out the ‘good‘ stuff like joy, fulfillment, etc. but the good stuff is mostly a delusion parents tell themselves to mask how miserable they really are. I assumed this phase went on for years.

After having Harrison for a year, I want to dispel that rumor and replace it with my reality of – Babies are only really bad for a little bit. Everyone’s experience will be different but once we got past the first 4-6 months, the experience changed pretty significantly and the stereotype about babies didn’t hold any longer.

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Here are the eras of year 1 with Harrison

Months 0 – 1: The Honeymoon Phase

I could not wrap my head around the fact that we had a baby. Every time I thought about it, it blew my mind in a great way. We were both off work and soaking it all in.

Months 2 – 4: This Sucks

Babies this young can’t do much so there’s not much payoff and the effort started to wear us down. The sleep, or lack of it, is unbearable. The days and nights blend together and I felt like zombie half of my waking hours.

Months 5 – 6: Sleep Training… This Doesn’t Suck As Much

At 4 months we sleep trained Harrison. If I were to give one piece of advice to parents, it would be to do sleep training. Some will say sleep training isn’t for them and that’s totally acceptable. For us, it was literally life changing and if you can stomach a bit of crying (I had no issue with this, like it was concerningly easily for me), it is great. Sure he did a lot of cool things at this point, but consistently sleeping through the night was by far the most notable change.

Months 7 – 10: He’s Kind of Becoming a Real Person

At this point he began to say things, move around a lot, and I could tell he actually understood things as opposed to just laying there helpless and crying. The things he did started to become funny and entertaining. Once we got here and I realized the worst was over I had a small feeling of “Really, that was it? That was the hard part?“, as silly as that sounds.

Months 11 – 12: He’s Basically an Adult

He went from a good crawler to an expert crawler to taking a few steps to full on walking. He understands a lot. He’s saying a bunch of nonsense, but it’s real nonsense. And he just makes us laugh a ton. He sleeps through the night every night and I’m excited when I get time to hang out with him.

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Sitting here a year later it’s stunning how fast the time goes by. Before you know it the bad parts are behind you and the good parts only get better. Do I wish I had more time to myself or could do more socially? Sure. But my life has not transformed into suffering day after day which is what I expected 5 years ago when having a kid seemed impossibly far away.

So to my many friends expecting a kid in the next six months, I hope this is comforting. And to those contributing to the fertility crisis, realize it’s not that bad and it goes by fast!