Joy-Anna Duggar's Worries As A New Mom Are All Too Relatable For First-Time Parents

Bringing home a newborn is an exciting time for new parents — but it can also be an anxiety-ridden one. After all, it's not like they've done this before. So those first few weeks are likely to be filled with trial and error, as well as constant second-guessing. Is he eating enough? Should I wake up the baby to feed him? Should his poop look like this? Should I be concerned if he hasn't pooped in two days? It can definitely take a while to become confident in caring for a newborn. That's why Joy-Anna Duggar's worries as a new mom are all too relatable for first-time parents.

Joy-Anna and Austin Forsyth welcomed their first child — a baby boy they named Gideon — on Feb. 23, as Us Weekly reported at the time. Although Joy-Anna had tried for a home birth, her midwife determined the baby was breech after 20 hours of labor, Country Living reported. And so, the laboring mom was rushed to the nearest hospital, where it was determined that she needed an emergency C-section. Although things may not have gone according to plan, their baby boy — who weighed in at 10 pounds, 3 ounces, and 22 inches long — arrived safe and sound.

Ahead of Monday's episode of Counting On on TLC, People offered an exclusive sneak peek into the Forsyths' lives as new parents.

“I have to wake Gideon up at least twice a night to feed him to make sure that he’s gaining weight because he’ll just sleep and won’t eat,” Joy-Anna explains in the upcoming episode. Yeah, this was pretty much the opposite of the problem I've had with my babies so far; they were up and ready to eat every two hours. Still, as Joy-Anna pointed out, worrying about your extra-sleepy baby not eating often enough seems like it would be stressful, too.

Joy-Anna also touched on how she's adjusted to new motherhood as a whole, according to People. “Being a mom is in a lot of ways easier than I thought and then in a lot of ways, harder than I thought," she said. "I knew that my mom had gone through a lot with all of us kids, but I didn’t think it was that hard just because I had always taken care of kids myself. But it’s given me a whole new appreciation for moms out there that have kids.”

Austin's new dad worries, meanwhile, caused him to wake up multiple times at night to make sure his baby was breathing. (Yep, I've definitely been there, too.) In the newest Counting On episode, according to People, Austin also explained how he made the transformation from never having changed a diaper in his life to becoming a diaper-changing machine in the wake of Joy-Anna's C-section recovery.

“Austin really stepped up, especially since I had a C-section, I couldn’t really hardly get up at all by myself, he had to help me up and, I mean, do all the dirty work for me and for the baby. He’s amazing,” Joy-Anna said of her husband, according to People. “I haven’t ever seen a guy give so much of himself for his wife.”

From experience — and from comparing notes with other parents — both Joy-Anna and Austin's fears as new parents are pretty typical. Making sure your baby is eating properly (even if that means waking him up to eat), mastering those diapering skills, and frequently checking that your newborn is breathing — it's all part of the gig. Eventually, though, new parents and their babies fall into a routine, and parents slowly gain confidence in their abilities. Now that baby Gideon is coming up on 7 months, I'm sure Joy-Anna and Austin's concerns have shifted from making sure the basics are covered to baby-proofing their home.

Because just once you think you've got this whole parenting thing under control, your little one hits a new stage and throws you yet another curveball...