Teach Me to be Kind...... To Myself!

Teach Me to be Kind...... To Myself! 

I'm six months in.  I'm almost sure I could write in the header of my curriculum vitae "Parenting Pro, Mother Extrondinaire".  I'm totally chill and at ease with runny shit, inaccessible baby buggers, and dolphin like wailing at three in the morning.  Basically, in a nutshell, embracing this parenting malarky is just one more magnificent achievement I can call my own.

Or so I'm allowing myself to believe.  My methods may not match your methods.  My baby might not  do the things your baby does, and I vow never to brag about the things my baby can achieve, be they premature developments, or not.  We each embark upon this journey in our own way.  Some of us have planned, some of us have not.  And just as our pregnancies are all different, (I for one had one of those "can't I just die already" first trimesters), so too are our babies.  It's so difficult not to succumb to the internet and ask, ask, ask!  The internet cannot tell me if my baby is happy.  Yet, I still find myself typing the letters and hitting the search button.  This is society.  This is how we define ourselves, and now too, our offspring.  During the first two months post partum, I co-slept with my baby.  Despite all the warnings from health visitors and, yes, SOCIETY,  I  defied the majority of the internet and decided that I didn't need to wake up every morning berating myself for making my baby feel comforted, for allowing her to feed from my breast whenever she desired or for encouraging an inseparable bond between us.  She needed me, and I needed her.   Of course, health and safety first,  I would never put my baby at harm and truth be told, while we co-slept, I don't think I ever fell into a deep enough sleep to not hear her breathing.  And so, I made the decision to overcome "peer pressure" and sleep with my darling girl.  Yes, internet trolls, come at me!


Becoming a new mother is daunting.  It is filled with fear and worry.  We are learning a life skill, it may already be implanted within us as we are such incredible beings, but we take on a whole new life, quite literally.  Life was once about looking after the drinks at the bar while your friends popped to the loo, and suddenly life becomes looking after a baby and hoping that if a friend pops by you can grab a chance at actually going to the loo.  As with everything however, life is a turning circle, and the time to be selfish and caress that bottle of vino will come around again.  For now, be brave enough to say you need to sit in the bath and relax.  Be brave enough to say your baby is being a real little shit today, it doesn't mean you love them any less.  Don't be scared to look at your partner with loathing in your eyes and cuss him for not being the one who had to have your insides pulled and stretched to the world while you popped out a tiny pink ball of flesh.  It's okay, Mama.

I found it so easy to feel guilty for sitting on my ass in my pyjamas for twelve hours a day.  Yes, I may have had my pulsating nipples out for about six hours while my baby just latched on, not feeding, just latching.  Yes, I may have had to deal with three explosive shits that particular day.  Yet part of me would feel guilty for not "being productive".  Jesus, I kept my baby alive, surely that's an achievement.

I am just in the process of learning to say, yes mama! You deserve this.  You deserve this because even though you don't don a work suit each morning, you work your bloody ass off!

Welcome to my world, a freight train of emotions and  a shit load of reality.