I promise...

Today I was the very person I was cursing a year ago. It's the second most heard new-parent cliche, right after "it goes by so fast!". Yes, it's "It gets better, I promise."

I can remember about this time last year (though I use the term "remember" loosely...more like vaguely recall in a kind of hazy, sleep-deprived, Tylenol-popping, caffeine-sucking fog), I couldn't walk out of the apartment without someone saying it, and usually both together. They would take one look at my tiny little bundle, all 6lbs, 2oz of him, wrapped in a sweet fuzzy sweater with an adorable little hat, and they'd ooh and aah and say, "Oh, enjoy this...it goes by so fast." Then they'd take one look at me - baggy sweats, red-rimmed, baggy eyes, who hadn't seen the inside of the shower in the better part of the week - and they'd smile encouragingly and say it..."It gets better, I promise." I can remember the pitying looks from other moms as I shuffled through the park, and knew exactly what they were thinking..."oh yes, I know exactly how you feel, and I am so sorry for you. Ecstatic it's not me, but so sorry for you."

And then today, a mere 16 months later, I ran into a mom in the wine store. I was picking up a bottle or two for the weekend...she was buying a half a dozen. Ah yes, I remember it well. She asked Cameron's age, and I did the same...her response, "3 months...and I'm exhausted." As we're checking out she said, "when did he start sleeping through the night?" I said, "Mmmm, about 5 1/2 months." (Brutal, right?) You should have seen the sheer panic on her face. When you haven't slept in 3 months and someone tells you there is another 2 to go, it might as well be eternity. Then again, if I had said 2 1/2 months, she might have stepped in front of a bus right there thinking she was NEVER going to sleep again.

We walked out of the wine store and headed down the block together. She asked a hundred questions that are impossible to answer in a few minutes on a busy Manhattan street with a complete stranger. "How often did he eat? How many times was he waking up at this age? Did you do Ferber? Cry it out? I don't think I can handle that. How did you handle that? Did he sleep in your room? How did you know for sure if he was hungry or not? Did you let him cry even in the middle of the night?" The one question under it all that is never asked, but is all you really want to know...will I ever sleep again?

I tried to answer as best I could, given the short amount of time and knowing nothing about her or her "baby politics" - and, trust me, baby politics are everything to some moms. I tried to offer hope, and any tip I could think of from my own experience. I wracked my brain trying to remember what exactly I did right or wrong when Cameron was 3 months old (again, using "remember" loosely). I wanted to say, "every child is different, so I can't really tell you exactly what will work for your son, when he'll start sleeping through the night, whether or not you'll scar him for life if you let him cry longer than 4 minutes, exactly what order the bedtime routine should be, or any one of a thousand other things you'd love to have an answer to." So, all I could say as we parted on the corner of Central Park West and 96th was, "I gets better, I promise."

Aaaaugh.

Is there any phrase that engenders more desperate hope and, simultaneously, more sheer loathing to an exhausted new mom? Half of you clings to that promise desperately with both hands and the last little bit of your sanity, while the other half of you grits your teeth, because clearly these well-meaning morons have no idea what the @#%$& they're talking about.

But as a slightly-less-new-mom on the corner of a busy street with my own sweet boy on the verge of his own sleep-deprived meltdown (short naps suck), all I could offer from my 16 month perspective was platitudes. And what I didn't have time to explain, but what she'll soon realize (though it will hardly seem soon enough), is that one day she'll wake up and realize she's getting quite a bit more sleep, all night in fact...who knew she'd ever get there again? And while the sleep is definitely better, in it's place she's struggling with naps. And then it's food issues. And then it's temper tantrums. And then it's "no!". And then it's potty training. And then it's...

And all you can do is look down at your latest challenge, your current struggle, take a deep breath and remind yourself...

...it gets better, I promise.