As Seasons Change: The Many Phases of Parenting

When Did I Last Sleep? The Newborn Season

Remember those blissful days before children when you'd casually say things like, "I'm so tired" after staying up until 11pm watching Netflix? Oh, sweet summer child.

The newborn phase hits like a sleep-deprived tornado. You find yourself standing in front of an open refrigerator at 3am, bottle in hand, genuinely unsure if you've already prepared formula or if you're just holding an empty bottle while staring at the leftover pizza. Days and nights blur together into one long stretch of feeding, changing, brief sleeping, and questioning whether humans are supposed to function on such minimal rest.

But there's magic in this chaos too. Those tiny fingers wrapped around yours, the milk-drunk smiles, and the way your baby's entire body rises and falls with each breath as they sleep on your chest. This season is impossibly long and shockingly brief all at once.

The Mobile Menace: Crawling and Walking

Just when you've mastered the art of feeding a baby while simultaneously scrolling through your phone and eating cold toast, they start moving. First, it's the army crawl—a surprisingly efficient belly-drag across your previously clean floors. Then comes proper crawling, followed by furniture cruising, and finally, those wobbly first steps.

Suddenly, your home becomes an obstacle course of potential disasters. You'll develop lightning-fast reflexes to catch falling objects, retrieve non-food items from determined little mouths, and prevent your little explorer from treating the dog's water bowl like a personal splash pad.

This phase requires baby-proofing not just your home but your expectations. Your pristine living room? Now a play zone. Your ability to use the bathroom alone? A distant memory. Your heart? Completely full as you witness those triumphant first steps and the proud smile that follows.

The "Why" Phase: Questions Upon Questions

Around age three, your child discovers the most powerful word in their expanding vocabulary: "Why?"

"Time for bed!"

"Why?"

"Because it's nighttime."

"Why is it nighttime?"

"Because the Earth rotates around the sun."

"Why does the Earth rotate?"

"Um... physics."

"What's physics?"

"Something you'll learn when you're older."

"Why?"

This season tests both your knowledge and your patience. You'll find yourself Googling questions like "why is the sky blue?" at midnight just so you can provide a marginally accurate answer. You'll rediscover wonder through their eyes, even as you're explaining for the fifteenth time why we can't have ice cream for breakfast.

The Independent But Not Really Phase

Preschoolers are fascinating contradictions. "I do it myself!" they proclaim, while attempting to pour milk with hands too small for the gallon jug. They insist on choosing their own clothes, resulting in polka dots with stripes and winter boots on summer days. They want independence but still need you close by—just not too close.

This season is a dance between stepping back and stepping in. You'll learn to bite your tongue as they put their shirt on backward (again), knowing that the confidence they build matters more than clothing orientation. You'll celebrate small victories: the first time they put away toys without being asked, the successful potty trips, the sweet moments when they decide, unprompted, to share a toy with a friend.

Embracing the Seasons

The truth about parenting is that just when you think you've figured out a phase, it changes. The baby who finally sleeps through the night starts teething. The toddler who mastered walking decides that running toward danger is more exciting. The preschooler who spoke in full sentences yesterday only answers "no" today.

But here's the secret: you're changing too. With each season, you're growing as a parent. That overwhelming newborn phase that once had you questioning your life choices? You'd handle it with relative ease now. The toddler tantrums that left you frazzled? You've developed strategies (and possibly a higher tolerance for public embarrassment).

So as the seasons change, remember to be gentle with yourself. Take photos, not just of your children but of your home in its lived-in glory. Write down the funny things they say. Forgive yourself for the days when you're just surviving.

Because one day, you'll look back on even the hardest seasons with a strange nostalgia. And you'll realize that through frozen pizza dinners, sticky fingerprints on everything, and bedtime battles, you were creating something beautiful—a childhood.