Why You Shouldn't Ask Me For Advice

When I first had S, I thought I was in the worst situation possible. A single mother, alone with a tiny, jaundiced, premature baby. Sounds pretty bleak, doesn't it.

In the nineteen months since, I've realised that actually I am very lucky. As my friends (and my sister!) have had their own babies around me, I've realised just how lucky I am, and have always been, with my little bundle. You should probably never ask me for advice, because the only advice I can give is based on experience - and is therefore not likely to be helpful! Here's why:

• If your baby is constipated, my advice is likely to be "meh, just leave it; it'll be fine in the end." S has never been a prolific poo-er. She was exclusively breastfed until almost 6 months, and during that time she usually only did a poo once a week. She once went 18 days without a poo. I kept checking with health visitors and GPs (and Facebook, of course) as to whether my child was normal, and the resounding response was - if she's not in discomfort with it, it's fine. 

• If your problem is that your changing bag is just too big and heavy and it's such a mission to go out anywhere... my advice is likely to be "ahh, just leave everything home and take yourself and baby out for a bit!" Because S was breastfed and didn't poo much, and I live very close to the city centre, I've never had to worry about taking masses of supplies out with me. If I needed anything from town, I always just shoved her in the sling and made a quick dash for the shops. Also, the fact she wore cloth nappies meant that any poorly-timed poos were well contained; her first proper poonami was a couple of months ago. My sister has not been so lucky with her son; when she comes out of the house she has to bring at least two changes of clothes. He poos after (usually during, actually) every feed, and it usually wrecks every piece of clothing he's wearing.

• If your baby is crying, my advice will probably be "just give him a cuddle." S has never been a great wailer. She cried when she was hungry and that was about it. Yep, she never even cried when her nappy was wet. Still doesn't. She's just getting to the stage where she'll pretend to cry if she thinks it'll get her something she wants, but on the whole, she doesn't scream unless there's a big problem. On those rare nights where she's not settled, I've always just put her in a sling and rocked her to sleep. When she was very small and I couldn't get her to settle after a night feed, I'd just lay her on my chest and we'd sleep like that.

• If your baby doesn't settle to sleep at night, I'm a great advocate of feeding to sleep, and co-sleeping. From a very young age, I fed S to sleep and she shared my bed. Once she started nursery, the only time she was breastfeeding was at nap time or bed time. I was still feeding her to sleep when she was 17 months old. Everyone told me I was mad to be relying on feeding to get her to sleep, and that I should move her out of my bed soon or I'd never have it to myself again. Well, balls to you all. She stopped breastfeeding one week when she had a bad cold and couldn't breathe through her nose, and has never asked for it since (much to my dismay). She started sleeping in the cot one night when I was too tired to stay awake and watch her, and now she sleeps there every night. She started sleeping through the night at 13 months, though I was still waking every few hours to check she was breathing. No fights. No controlled crying. No begging. No pleading. No pain. No fuss. 

• If you can't get your toddler to let you clean her teeth, I'm likely to just say "well, leave it a few days and try again." I had terrible trouble trying to get S to clean her teeth. Proper screaming with the mouth clamped shut business. Eventually I just gave up trying. One evening I couldn't be doing with the fight before bed time, so I just gave her a cuddle instead. The next couple of nights I forgot... and then one evening she was in the shower and made a grab for her tooth brush on the side. I figured it was worth a shot, so I put some toothpaste on the brush, and we went for it. And so began our evening ritual of cleaning S's teeth with absolutely no fuss or bother. At all. Nothing.

• If your toddler has trouble settling at night, I'm likely to suggest you just stick a dvd on and leave em to it. We get by on a combination of Despicable Me and Peppa Pig. I am fairly sure this makes me the worst mother in the world. At the very least, it rules me well and truly out of the running for mum of the year. But we're happy; it works for us. I put a dvd on; S lays down in her cot with her books and her Tigger, and she goes to sleep. For anyone who wants to tell me "oooh, you want to get her out of that habit before it's too late..." - see my point above about the cosleeping and breastfeeding. And then knob off. 

I'd like to take credit for these lazy parenting tips, and to say that S is such a dream because of my amazing parenting skills - but I'd be lying through my teeth. I'm just a bit lazy and cut as many corners as I can legitimately get away with. I have been blessed with possibly the easiest child in the world. She's so easy, she makes me look like I have a clue what I'm doing.

So yeah, don't ask me for advice; I don't have much experience of challenging parenting!

Things They Don't Tell You About Babies

• You can get your baby into a routine; baby will sleep and feed on a set schedule… just long enough for you to rest on your laurels. Then baby will laugh at you, and piss all over your schedule. Often literally. Repeat ad infinitum. S is 9 months old and still playing this game!

• Remember that hilarious meme about preparing for parenthood? Funny, wasn’t it? A lot of it is true. As S gets older, dressing her takes longer, and often needs to be repeated throughout the day, as she manages to pry her socks loose and remove trousers during nappy changes.

• When they are first born, babies are very cute and cuddly and lovely and all of that – but they are also a bit boring. All they do is feed, sleep, poo and cry; they don’t interact much until they are a little older. At that point, parenting becomes a bit more rewarding.

• Sometimes, babies just cry, and you can’t always figure out the reason. You check their nappy, you offer them milk, you rock them, you cuddle and coo, and still they cry. It might not seem like it, but it’s still worth you sticking around to cuddle them a bit more. I am very lucky that S doesn’t cry much at all; but she does still have days where she’s just a bit sensitive, and the slightest thing will set her off.

• You don’t need money or fancy toys to entertain and engage your baby. I keep S’s clean nappies in a wicker basket, and she will sit and stare at it for ages. At the moment her favourite toy is an empty bottle with some cous cous in it.

• One of the best ways to avoid nappy rash is to just not put a nappy on the baby. I try to have at least half an hour each day where S just lays on her play mat with no nappy on. This also allows her much easier access to her feet, and she finds it easier to move around, roll over etc. She lays on a blanket, so that any little accidents are soaked up and don’t make too much mess.

• In their first few weeks of life, babies usually get acne. They’ve spent 9 months in your uterus in a sterile environment, and now all of a sudden their skin is exposed to the open air and all these germs and things… and they get spots. They don’t look too fantastic, but you can’t (and shouldn’t) do anything about them. Just leave them to clear up on their own, and punch people who make oh-so-hilarious comments about starting puberty early.

• When they are born, babies’ gag reflex is right at the front of their mouths – a clever way Mother Nature devised to ensure newborns don’t swallow anything but milk. As they get older, their gag reflex moves back to allow for foods to be eaten.

• As baby becomes more mobile, there will be at least one face-plant off the bed/sofa/chair. Baby will cry and have a big bruise, and you will feel like the world’s worst parent – but don’t worry, every child does it. Apparently it’s how they learn not to go head first off shit.

• It doesn't matter how often you cut your baby's nails; they will still be razor sharp, baby will still scratch her own face and leave nasty scars, your face/chest/arms will still be shredded by them on a regular basis. And, as an added bonus, often when you attempt to trim said nails, baby will wriggle at the last moment and you will nick their skin, causing a minor cut with a lot of blood and probably tears from both of you.

• Weirdly, though, their toenails hardly ever need cutting.

• When babies are sick on you, it doesn't smell so bad - it's just milk... until they start on solids. Then their sick smells like proper sick. And if you drew the short straw and got a sicky baby, you will smell like sick too.

• They outgrow their clothes like ninjas. There is no warning: one day their clothes fit, the next day you have a fairly urgent shopping trip on your hands. 

• You might think your baby is not able to roll/crawl/walk yet - but never assume anything is safely out of their reach unless it is on a very high shelf. I'm fairly sure ninjas learn their skills from babies: they pretend they can't move, and once your back is turned they're off running around, grabbing at everything they can get until you return. Like that sketch from Little Britain.

• Babies can't see terribly well. Their eyes don't work together very well so they tend to see double, or just blurry lines. That's why we naturally accentuate our expressions when speaking to them, and why they like to look at simple, monochromatic patterns. And faces. They're programmed to like faces.

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Our Week 19-24 Nov

Monday 19 Nov

A night of sleep interrupted by screaming from S to confirm her teeth are indeed still working their way out of her gums. Out for lunch with some dear friends from my gym-going days, including a 2-year-old who was so quiet I forgot she was there! (definitely taking notes from her mother!). Afternoon spent playing; evening spent trying to get S to sleep. Teeth won that battle hands down.

Tuesday 20 Nov

Another night of screaming – way more than Sunday night, and medicine and cuddles made no difference. Up and dressed and out to see the health visitor, which was nice. Asked if there was any help available; answer was no. Afternoon spent trying to get S to drink horrid-tasting medicine.

Wednesday 21 Nov

Teething has combined with snottiness to ensure Macbeth has definitely murdered sleep in this house. Morning spent with D; she played with S long enough for me to tidy a bit, and also rocked her to sleep for me. The woman is a legend. Afternoon spent trying to entertain a rather grumpy baby. Evening spent similarly. Less said about the night, the better.

Thursday 22 Nov

Although there was precious little sleeping involved, S did sleep from 6:30 to 8am laying on my chest, like she used to when she was a lot smaller, which was a nice feeling and almost made up for that being the longest stretch of sleep we had all night. Shopping in the morning, playing in the afternoon with a brief visit from my sister.

Friday 23 Nov

Can’t tell if it was a slightly better night, or after a week of awful sleep, I’m just getting used to it. Went to town to buy the food I forgot/couldn’t be arsed to find in the shop on Thursday. Came home, ate some lunch and made gingerbread men. Afternoon spent waving my hands and pulling faces while S giggled. Every day should be like this.

Saturday 24 Nov
A visit from my sister; normally we would go out for a walk, but the weather was awful so we stayed in. Went to visit a neighbour whose son has a birthday today, while S was napping. Came back to find S had woken up and forced her auntie to play stand-up/sit-down with her. Decided against leaving the house; spent the afternoon napping and trying to do OU coursework. Not entirely successful at either.

Why I Will Never Leave S to Cry.

The other day I posted a status on Facebook that S had gone to bed but cried when I got my dinner, so I had a cold dinner again. It seemed to attract several comments (not on the status itself, but to me personally via texts, emails and in person) telling me I was doing the wrong thing by going to her when she cried. This is my response to those statements.

Babies cry in order to get their carer to help meet their needs. Babies, certainly those under a year of age, do not know how to manipulate, and cannot be spoilt. The can’t say, “so sorry, I’m feeling a bit crap, I’ve woken up suddenly and it’s dark and I’m alone and I don’t like it; could you just give me a quick hug and help me get back to sleep?” They cry instead; it’s their only way of letting us know they need us.

A baby’s cry is supposed to be loud, and grate on your nerves, and make you feel emotional, so that you will want to make it stop – by doing whatever it is the baby is crying for, not by closing the door and turning the TV up. Evolution did not make babies cry in this way so as to make you ignore it until it stops; surely if a baby’s cry was meant to be ignored, it would be easier to do so?

In the 1970s, Mary Ainsworth and Sylvia Bell conducted a study into how mothers responded to their babies’ crying and how this affected the child’s later behaviour. They found that the more quickly a mother responded to her crying infant, even if she wasn’t able to stop the child from crying very quickly, the less the child cried later. They also found that “close maternal contact” was the most effective way of stopping a child from crying. The more responsive I am to S’s crying, the less she will cry in future. For me this is evidenced in the fact that actually, she cries very rarely.

There have been numerous studies into attachment theory (different from attachment parenting, which is an approach to parenting; attachment theory is the study of relationships between humans), and the overwhelming finding is that the more responsive a parent is during the first year of a child’s life, the more securely attached the child will be, and therefore the better the relationship between parent and child going forward.

These are the specific references to back up what I am saying here:

• Bell SM & Ainsworth MSD. Infant crying and maternal responsiveness.  Child Development (1972); 43: 1171-1190.
• Ainsworth MDS. The development of infant-mother attachment. In BM Caldwell & HN Ricciutti (Eds.), Review of child development research (1973) (Volume 3, pp 1-94); Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Egeland B & Farber EA. Infant-mother attachment: Factors related to its development and changes over time.Child Development (1984); 55: 753-771.
• Isabella RA & Belsky J. Interactional synchrony and the origins of infant-mother attachment: A replication study.  Child Development (1991); 62: 373-384.
• Isabella RA, Belsky J, & von Eye A. The origins of infant-mother attachment: An examination of interactional synchrony during the infant’s first year. Developmental Psychology (1989); 25: 12-21.

Many will say that the “cry it out” technique works – after a few torturous hours of screaming the baby “learns” and no longer cries. But what has the baby learned? Most probably, the baby has learned that crying does not work, and nobody will come to help them. If you view a baby as a creature trying to manipulate and trick you, then you would see this as a success. But it has serious implications. This is a psychological term called learned helplessness. Once infants have learned that they do not have control over their surroundings, they stop trying to affect them in any way; they stop interacting. Acting as if a child is trying to manipulate us when it’s crying removes the child’s control over their situation and risks their losing interest in interacting with the world. Studies by Dr Kevin Nugent of Boston Children’s Hospital have found that babies whose cries are routinely ignored show symptoms of depression. There is also evidence that leaving a baby to cry can impede their development. I don’t know about you, but if I’m stressed out, I’m not really able to concentrate on learning new things.

This Guardian article discusses how leaving a baby to cry can result in developmental damage. And here is another post about how excessive crying is harmful to infants.

I am not telling you that what you are doing/have done for your child/children is wrong. What you do is your own business. But stop telling me to leave my child to cry, because you are wasting your time. I know that when I am crying and need some support, I don’t like to be ignored. I know that if I feel shitty, I can ask a friend for help. My baby can’t speak yet; her only way of communicating that need is by crying. And yes, sometimes it is tiring and draining, and I’d rather be sitting downstairs eating a hot meal than spending my evening running up and down the stairs to console a crying baby – but that doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore her for the sake of a hot meal. What I do now affects what will happen tomorrow, and I’m happy to have a few cold meals if it means my child will be happy, both now and in the future.

Short version of this post: don't tell me I'm doing the wrong thing and expect me not to answer you with facts and studies. 

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Counting my Blessings

As my recent blog posts may have hinted, I’m having a pretty rough time at the moment. Whenever I am awake in the wee small hours, I often find myself getting pretty angry that I’m doing this on my own. This is not what I signed up for. When I got pregnant I was in a relationship. When I gave birth I was in a relationship. I assumed that when my baby was 6 months old and having trouble sleeping, I would still be in that relationship, and would therefore have a bit of help and support in dealing with extreme stress and sleep deprivation. I also assumed that my family would be there to rally round, that I would have a whole hoard of people I could call upon to come and lighten the load, either by helping with housework, or looking after S while I had a break. The reality is that I assumed wrong. And when I’m so tired and so  fed up I can barely see, and I’m walking into door frames and pleading my child to please just go to sleep, I find myself pretty cross about that. Where are all these people who are supposed to rally around a new mum? Aren’t they supposed to be helping me? I’m not meant to feel this alone and isolated.

It’s times like this that I think I just need to take a step backwards and look at the facts, reminding myself why I prefer my current position to any possible alternatives. Count my blessings, as it were.

• I may be the only person having to deal with S’s grumpy moods, but I’m also the only one who gets her regular cuddles, smiles and giggles. All her love is just for me and I don’t have to share.
• As pointed out by numerous friends on numerous occasions, I’m actually doing pretty bloody well on my own. The whole “look how far you’ve come” argument really is valid, as evidenced by the “diary entries from early motherhood” posts I’ve put up lately.
• I know from bitter experience that sadly we really are better off without S’s father – and that even when he was here, he didn’t help out with anything I would find useful at 3am. He bought us a cooker and then he buggered off, and it was the best thing for all concerned.
• Most of my family might not be banging down the door to offer their help, but lots of other people are. My Home Start lady is truly amazing, and I have some of the best friends a girl could wish for, who I know will help if I ask.
• Despite the current blip, and even for fleeting moments during the blip, S is a happy, healthy baby. I’d rather have this situation than one where she is less happy, less healthy, or perhaps in an unsafe situation.
• I might be tired, but other mothers are dealing with much worse, more worrying and stressful situations than just a baby who is not sleeping well.
• From what I’ve been told/reading lately, all babies go through an unsettled stage at 6 months. And at the moment a lot of babies are not sleeping well. There are a lot of sleep-deprived mamas on my Facebook; I’m not alone in this!
• Despite having a hard time, I have not compromised my beliefs with regard to how I want to care for S. I have resisted the urge to dump her in the cot and run away! She has a slightly more frazzled, grumpy mummy, but she still has a mummy who gives her lots of cuddles and kisses.
• As per yesterday’s post, this is a lesson in patience and acceptance. I’m doing my best to learn to just sit with it, take a deep breath and do what needs to be done – a life lesson that will no doubt come in very useful a few more times before S is old enough to fend for herself!
• I’m knackered and fed up, but at least I’m not sleep deprived and having to get up and go to work in the mornings! If S keeps me up all night, I can always share her nap later in the day, or go to bed earlier the next night.
• Because I’m alone in this, I don’t have to make an effort to maintain other relationships while I’m this tired and fed up. I would imagine couples going through this end up having an awful lot of arguments about nothing even vaguely important, because their fuse is too short to do otherwise! If I feel crappy I can cancel my plans with friends or family, and therefore avoid sniping at them over nothing.
• There is nothing in this world more awesome right now, than the look on S’s face when she’s pulled a blanket over her face to play Peekaboo with me. And it’s just for me.

There are a million other blessings I could, and probably should, count, but I’m too tired to think of them. It helps to think of the positives though, and remind myself that right now I’m in exactly the right place, doing the right thing, with the right people around me. Everything happens for a reason, and I’m learning a lot from this experience. You learn a lot more, a lot more quickly, from uncomfortable situations.

I’m trying to keep telling myself this.

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Buddhism for Mothers?

You know when you have an argument with someone, or they’ve irritated you in some way, and you just don’t feel like talking to them? So you don’t. Because you don’t have to.

Having a baby is a whole different kettle of fish. The other night, S was clearly knackered, but would (could) not sleep. I was also knackered so in the end, tired of the draft coming from her flapping her gro-bagged feet in her bouncy chair, I took us both to bed. I would have fallen asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow… but S had other ideas. I tried begging, I tried pleading, I tried rocking her, cuddling her, feeding her. I even tried putting her in the cot I’ve finally installed at the end of my bed (whatever made me think that might work, I cannot tell you – sleep deprivation causing dereliction of mental capacity probably). This sort of situation tends to make me panic. Not in the way you might think, though. My panic has more to do with the fact I have no control over this situation. Usually, if I do not like the situation I am in, I can get up and walk away – and I normally do. When I can’t just remove myself from something that I don’t like, it makes me quite agitated. When you are a single parent, you are often stuck in situations you have no control over, and no immediate way to resolve. There’s nobody to take over the rocking and cooing so that you can go to sleep; you just have to suck it up, pretend you’re not mortally tired, and get on with the rocking.

This is yet another of those things nobody warns you about. I don’t mean the tiredness (though really, no amount of explaining can prepare you for that); I mean the whole idea that you are no longer your own person, you can’t just go to sleep when you want to, or go for a walk when you feel like it, spend all day in bed, whatever. Obviously, single parent or not, your life changes dramatically when you have a child. But when it’s just you looking after them, the change is that much more noticeable. If the baby is crying but you need the toilet, you have to make a decision: do I comfort the baby, and hope she calms down before I get to the dangerous stage of needing the toilet, or do I leave the baby to cry and hope she doesn’t get to the house-screaming-down stage of crying before I flush, wash and return? S spends a lot of time sitting in her Bumbo seat in the bathroom doorway.

As I’ve jokingly lamented in a previous post, you can’t reason with a baby. You can tell them, “I’m just going to get a drink, and then I will feed you” but they won’t understand; all they see is that you are walking away, while they are very hungry. Similarly, the other night when S was clearly very tired but not sleeping, it was very frustrating for me not to be able to explain to her that if she just went to sleep we would both feel a lot better. I couldn’t say to her, “fine; you stay awake and play with your toys, but I’m going to sleep.” I also couldn’t say “for the love of God would you just close your damn eyes, I’m dying here!!” – tempted as I was. Also the next day, when my eyelids felt like sandpaper and I was far from on top form, there was little point in my saying to S, "sorry mummy is not moving quickly enough for you; perhaps if you had let mummy sleep last night..."

Every evening, I put S to bed upstairs and then creep quietly back down. Lately she has taken to waking again within an hour, and I have to go back up to her. Sometimes she takes 10 minutes to settle back down; other times it can be an hour, or she doesn’t settle at all, and bang goes my evening. It’s hard to do, but I find that if I just go back up and lay there with her, and don’t look at the clock or think about the dinner I could be eating or the TV show I could be watching, or the mountain of washing up that’s waiting, or the clothes I need to put away or the million other things I could be doing – it doesn’t feel so bad to be stuck there. I sometimes even enjoy laying there quietly for half an hour in silence, with no distractions. It’s an exercise in just accepting things as they are, without fighting against something I am powerless to change.

When I first had S, I downloaded a lot of parenting books onto my Kindle. One of them was called “Buddhism forMothers.” I think perhaps I should read that one.

Hooray for Home Start!

Tomorrow is Wednesday, which means my Home Start lady is coming round. As I sit here on a Tuesday evening, I’m surprised to find that I’m really looking forward to her visit.

You know when you have a week off work, and you get to Thursday and suddenly think, oh bugger, I have fewer days off in front of me than behind, my week off is almost over, I’d better Do Something? I’ve had that feeling periodically since having S: the feeling that I’m wasting my spare time, and it will be at an end soon and I should be doing more, appreciating it more. Of course, I know that eventually I will go back to work, S will go back to school, we will have less time together, and this time will seem like a far-off utopia of days gone by – but I tend to get a more urgent feeling, akin to the sort you’d get if you were going back to work after the weekend. Just lately, it has occurred to me that this is it: this is how my life just is now, and it’s not going to change any time soon. We have very little to fill our days with, and often spend large chunks of time wandering aimlessly around Sainsbury’s. I’m not going back to real life on Monday; this is real life.

This last couple of weeks has been really tough. I’ve realised just how much I need S to sleep well, even if that’s just so that I can have an hour watching TV or doing housework without having to try and simultaneously entertain her. It’s physically and mentally exhausting for her to be awake constantly, especially when her lack of sleep means she is usually grumpy as well. I’ve been doing this on my own for six months now, without a day off or more than an hour to myself here and there. On the one hand, there have been several times lately when I’ve been desperate for someone – anyone – to take S off my hands for a couple of hours so that I could have a break. On the other hand, the minute she is away from me, I miss her terribly, and feel horribly guilty for being apart from her.

There’s an episode of How I Met Your Mother where a little girl brings Lilly a picture of a rainbow several times, and each time she says “oh wow, what a beautiful rainbow!” and then, the last time she brings one up Lilly loses her cool and says “seriously, are you kidding me? Another rainbow? Aren’t you sick of them?” This is what I feel like sometimes. S cries or gets grouchy over something, and most of the time I’ll go to her and calm her and chat baby talk at her and play with her toys or cuddle her or do whatever it takes, for however long it takes, until she’s ok… and then there’ll be an evening where I’ve been up and down the stairs to her five times, and I’m starving and about to bite into what is now a barely lukewarm dinner, and she cries… and the words I utter as I trudge up the stairs are a little more along the lines of “Another rainbow?”

I was talking to a friend yesterday about having a night out. The difference between us is that she is married, so if she goes out her kids are with their dad: they love him, they feel safe with him. She knows they will be looked after and she has nothing to worry about, and that they probably won’t notice much of difference than if she were there. For me, if I wanted a night out I would have to consider leaving S with someone largely unfamiliar. She has aunties and uncles, and I have several amazing friends, all of whom I know would do a good job of looking after her, but she only knows any of them as someone who’s danced around the living room with her for a couple of hours here and there. There’s nobody completely constant in her life with whom I could leave her and know she wouldn’t be upset by the disruption. And, of course, there is still the massive guilt at leaving here anywhere, with anyone – as if I don’t want her around.

I was toying with the idea of going to the health visitor to see if she would look into getting me some funding for a nursery place a couple of mornings a week, just to allow me a bit of a break and some breathing space from time to time. But this is largely unrealistic, since S is still mostly breastfed and won’t take a bottle (even if I could work the ridiculous pump I have enough to get a bottle full of milk for her). And I know that I would probably spend the entire time she was in a nursery, sitting at home pining for her and feeling guilty that I’d left her.

Wednesdays are my salvation at the moment. D only spends a couple of hours here, but during that time she will largely take over looking after S. She bounces her on her knee, plays on her play mat with her, pulls faces, sings songs and sometimes spends half an hour rocking her back and forth until she falls asleep. I do things like catch up on phone calls to the electricity company or sorting through paperwork. We have a cup of coffee together and I tell her about my week, and we chat about whatever comes up. She’s like a therapist and a babysitter in one! Plus, she always brings milk for coffee, and usually cake or biscuits too.

Things They Don't Tell You About Motherhood.

Following on from my last two posts on things you’re not told about pregnancy and childbirth, this post is all about the things they don’t warn you about afterwards: both immediately after the birth, and generally in motherhood.

This is what "utterly shell shocked" looks like.

In the hospital:

• Babies tend to sleep a lot for their first 24 hours, and don’t really need any feeding or much of anything else. Take advantage and get your head down.
• One major thing a few people said to me was that you don’t automatically feel a heady rush of love for your baby as soon as it is born. That can take days, weeks, even months. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad mother. Rachel Cusk wrote a good book about this sort of thing called A Life's Work.
• Something nobody can ever prepare you for, and a lot of people don’t mention, is the complete and utter shock. Personally, I was shell-shocked for a good couple of months after S was born, and thought I must have something wrong with me. Turns out, the only thing wrong was that I’d just given birth five weeks early and was in shock. Who knew. Certainly not her father, but that’s a whole other blog post.
• The longer you spend on the postnatal ward, the more different opinions you will hear presented to you as fact. It is worth remembering here that midwives and health visitors are mere mortals the same as everyone else and ultimately in the end, it’s your baby, and you know best. Unless you’re planning to hang baby out the window by his toes, in which case listen to the midwives.
• The postnatal ward is often very busy and horribly understaffed. This can mean that if you need help with something, you need to assert yourself to get it. Don’t be afraid to push your buzzer to get a maternity assistant or midwife to help you with something.
• When you go to the ward, you hear all the babies screaming and think there is no chance you will get any rest here. My experience, and that of several people I've spoken to, is that you suddenly develop an ability to fall asleep very quickly, and to sleep through all the noise and the lights being on, but the minute your baby stirs, you wake up.
• While you are on the ward, don’t feel that your baby must spend all non-feeding or changing time in its little plastic fish bowl. Certainly when I was in hospital, I initially felt a bit like “you’ve played with it, now put it away.” It took me a while to realise S was my baby, and I could just sit and hold her if I wanted to. In fact, after one of the NICU nurses told me it would be beneficial for S to be stripped to her nappy and put down my top, I had her like that as much as possible for as long as possible. I’m sure that did a lot to help both of us through a fairly difficult time. (Also it’s pretty funny when the ward staff come in to check on you and look down into the fish bowl before squeaking, “where’s your baby?!”)

Your body:

• When you are pregnant, your abdominal muscles can sometimes split in order to allow your belly to expand. You know sometimes you see women with a little lump above their belly button? That's a little hernia. A lot of the time, you give birth and your muscles knit themselves back together and everything is peachy. Sometimes they don't knit back together quite so quickly, and you can find yourself in a position, 3 months post partum, with a gap as wide as 4 fingers between your muscles. That tends to hurt when you lift things. You will probably need physio to sort it out, otherwise it will just get worse and worse. There are some truly horrific photos on the internet of women who can fit their entire fist between their abdominals. Not pretty.
• Once you've given birth, your uterus sets about shrinking itself back down to how it used to be before. It feels like period pains. If you breastfeed, the first few times you feed your baby will cause your uterus to contract more and it will hurt. It hurts for some more than for others. For me, the first few times I fed S I wondered whether perhaps part of the placenta was still in there and needed to come out.
• Listen to the midwives. Do your pelvic floor exercises. You can never do too many.
• Even if you have had a C-section rather than natural birth, you will still get lochia. What is lochia, I hear you ask (I heard myself ask it in the hospital) – it’s another thing nobody tells you about beforehand. It’s bleeding. There will be a lot of it, and it will go on for a long time. You can buy maternity pads specifically for this job; they are big and unattractive, but they do the job and are more heavy duty than your standard pad. Also, one thing I wish I’d thought of in hospital – in an emergency, a nappy can double as a maternity pad (obviously not done up!)
• Remember in the pregnancy post, where I said your pelvis can go a bit squiffy? Well sometimes after you've given birth, it sticks itself back together a bit crookedly, and you get a pain between your legs when you do random things like take a step to the left too quickly or kick something. You can go to a physio and get it put right, though - but while they're fixing it, it can feel a lot like they're just trying to break your pelvis.
• When your milk comes in, it feels like someone has sneaked in and injected concrete into your boobs. They swell about 6 cup sizes, and feel solid, hot and painful. It eases eventually. Also one very important point here: even if you have decided not to breastfeed, your milk will still come in. It’s important that you don’t try to express any off in an attempt to alleviate the pain, as that will just make your body think someone is drinking the milk, and it needs to produce more.
• Be prepared for your hair to start falling out. Not going bald, just all the hair your body kept hold of while you were pregnant will start to deposit itself all over your house. And wrap itself around your baby’s fingers. It’s normal. Don’t worry about it unless you genuinely do start to look a bit thin on top. And try to check baby’s fingers for a build-up every day or so.
• While you were pregnant your body had to amend your metabolic rate to allow for the fact you needed more calories. Once the baby is born, your body resets itself, and tries to figure out how many calories you need to live on a day to day basis. In some people, this can change dramatically. I am one of the lucky ones, and when my body reset itself I ended up losing weight. For a lot of people, it can go the other way, and they find it very hard to lose their pregnancy weight.
• Related to the previous point: your body might well go back to the same weight it was before, but it will most probably never be the same shape. Your fat redistributes itself in different places, and a lot of women find they are never again comfortable in their pre-pregnancy clothes. A few people have commented that their body didn’t go back to feeling like their own for quite some time, especially if they were breastfeeding.
• When it comes to losing pregnancy weight, try not to bend under pressure. One mantra I learned from a Davina McCall dvd is: “9 months on, 9 months off.” Don’t even go near your pre-pregnancy clothes before your baby is 9 months old. It will just depress you.
• Whether you breastfeed or not, it’s the pregnancy hormones that will ruin your boobs. And when I say ruin… imagine two battered Tesco carrier bags, half-filled with wet sand.

Other stuff:

• If you decide not to breastfeed, be prepared to feel judged. If not in hospital, certainly when you are out and about. There is a lot of pressure to breastfeed these days, and people do seem to sit in judgement of a woman producing a bottle of formula from her changing bag. I’ve known people who would avoid feeding their baby a bottle in public because they felt they were being stared at. Then again, if you flop your boobs out to feed your baby, they also stare – you can’t really win with this one I’m afraid.
• People you don’t know will stop in the street and chat to you about your child as if they’ve known you for years. They will also offer advice. Lots of it. You will be judged for everything you do, everything you don’t do, and everything you consider doing. People who don’t even know you will tell you exactly what you are doing wrong.
• Once you have your baby, and have gotten over the initial trauma, you find you have a ridiculous level of empathy you never realised existed, for all other women going through pregnancy and childbirth.
• Motherhood also makes you stupidly paranoid. You’ve probably sat and watched TV shows about women who worry too much about their children and wrap them in cotton wool and thought, “oh how terrible, I’d never do that” – but when you have your own, it’s really, really difficult not to. I check S to ensure she is breathing approximately 50 times every single night. And then there’s the paranoia over whether they are warm enough, cool enough, crying because they’re in pain or just because they’re a baby, are you giving them too much medicine or not enough, should you call the doctor or is it just a little cold. When your baby is actually ill – even if it’s only a bit of a temperature or a cold, it is terrifying in a way you cannot imagine until it happens. Nothing prepares you for the horrible thoughts that rush through your brain when your baby does something as simple as sleep a little longer or a little deeper than you expected.
• Always check the back of your top (and your shoulders, and your sides, and your knees) for milky sick before leaving the house. Similarly, try to avoid wearing black. Your best option is a top with a pattern that will disguise the sick patches because by day 3, you will be so over changing your clothes every time you get puked on.
• It sounds strange, but for me becoming a mother has given me a mental strength I didn’t think was possible. I push myself more when exercising now; where previously I might have stopped because it hurt, now I know it really doesn’t hurt, and I can deal with a lot more. This also transfers into everyday life: things that would have stopped me in my tracks and ground me down don’t tend to bother me so much. Don’t get me wrong, I still get upset, but I bounce back a lot more quickly and have a much stronger faith in myself and my abilities. After all, I have successfully grown and given birth to a human being with arms and legs and eyes and a head and everything. Turns out I’m pretty awesome. (I am aware that sounds really daft, but just you wait until you are staring your progeny in the face. You’ll understand it then)
• Think you’re tired now? Pah! You do not know what tired is. Come back when your baby is 2 months old and we’ll discuss it then. You will get to a point where you are able to function almost perfectly normally on as little as 2 disjointed hours of sleep a night. You will consider it a “good” night if you only wake up four times. You will become intimately familiar with the overnight TV schedules, and you will forget the word for “cheese.” Try to think of it as character building. Once you just accept that a good, 8-hour night’s sleep is a thing of the past, you will feel better. And you will still be capable of playing peek-a-boo and laughing with your baby as if you’re perfectly well rested.
• Are you squeamish? Not any more, you’re not. Once your baby has been sick on you a few hundred times, and you’ve dealt with your first couple of poonamis, you just sort of become immune to it.
• Babies get baby acne. Your baby has been in your belly, a sterile environment, for 9 months. Now all of a sudden she’s out here in the big wide world and exposed to all these germs and air and things. As far as I know, all babies go through a week or so where they get lots of little spots on their faces. I didn’t know this though, until it happened to S and the health visitor told me not to worry about it. Don’t be tempted to pick the spots though (who would?) as babies’ skin scars very easily and it could cause lasting damage. They clear up on their own after a week or so.
• You will have at least one moment in your child’s first few months where you just want to scream at them, “what is the matter! Why are you crying! Tell me how to fix this damn you!!” it doesn’t make you a terrible person, it makes you a human. Just so long as you don’t actually scream at them. Usually just having the thought is enough to make you check yourself, and then they invariably look at you or smile, or do something cute, and you forget there was ever a problem.
• Before you have a child, you know in a sort of abstract way that your life will change, but nothing prepares you for the utter carnage that is your first few weeks at home with a newborn. There is no point in my even trying to tell you how different things will be, because you will not comprehend it until it happens. When it does, think back to this post and remember how I tried to warn you.

This post is very long, and I’ve probably still missed off an awful lot of things that would be useful for a new mum to know. If you have anything to add, please feel free to do so.

While I was writing these posts, I came across a lot of information about breastfeeding. So much, in fact, that there will be another post tomorrow about all the things they don’t tell you about breastfeeding.


This post is part of a group of Things They Don't Tell You About... posts. The others are:

Things They Don't Tell You About Pregnancy
Things They Don't Tell You About Childbirth
Things They Don't Tell You About Breastfeeding
Things They Don't Tell You About Babies

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Who Are We To Judge?

Why do mothers judge each other's parenting so harshly?

I seem to have had variations on the same conversation a few times this week, about motherhood and how women tend to give themselves, and each other, a hard time. We tend to forget that every person, every pregnancy, every birth, and every baby are different, and because of that nobody is really qualified to comment on another’s experiences. But we all do it, even if we don’t say it out loud, in our heads we all think we would be able to stop that baby from crying, could stop that toddler having its tantrum, could prevent both and many more things besides. 

It’s a habit I’m trying to get out of, because I know that I don’t know the best way to look after someone else’s child, any more than someone else knows the best way to look after mine.

Before I had a baby, a screaming infant in a supermarket would make me do the “tut, shut that thing up” that everyone else does when they’re stuck in a queue and can’t escape the noise. Nowadays when I hear that scream my first thought is, Poor little baby. My second thought is, That poor mother, she must be so stressed, trying to do her shopping while we all stand here and silently judge her for not being able to get her baby to shut up. When you have a baby everyone says, Ooh, sleepless nights! As if it’s some hilarious joke that babies scream all the time. And then when they encounter a screaming baby in public they are surprised, as if the screaming should be confined to the house. When I see that mother trying to placate her screaming baby while she’s also trying to make sure she doesn’t forget to buy nappies, I want to go and stand next to her and eyeball all the passersby, shouting, What’s your problem, never heard a baby crying before?

My idea of motherhood before I got pregnant changed the minute I fount out I was expecting. It changed even more drastically when S was born. I was planning on being a yummy mummy: motherhood would not stop me from going out and enjoying myself; the baby would stay with a sitter while I went to the gym and wherever else I felt like going; this child would not rule my life! 

And then S was born, and I found that I didn’t want to leave her anywhere, with anyone, ever. And I didn’t much care how I looked, either. (Some might say I never really did) I have to say my propensity to judge was… encouraged, shall we say, by S’s father. He was very into my taking supplements, taking care of myself (strangely, this did not include keeping my stress levels down) in order to produce some sort of super-baby that would be so much better than all these children of mothers who didn’t take Pregnacare Max or continue to walk everywhere until they literally popped. All of his babies had been at least 8lbs, and mine would be even bigger because I’d looked after myself better than his wife had with any of her pregnancies. His babies were all very alert and strong from the get-go, and this one would be as well, not like all those other, floppy babies who are disinterested in their surroundings. 

There was a lot of pressure for this baby to be a child-prodigy of gargantuan proportions.

The whole world has an opinion on the best way to raise a child

- and most of them will not hesitate to stop you in the street and tell you what you should be doing. People you barely know give you random, unsolicited advice. Some of it is useful; some of it is more a question of choice, and some of it leaves you wondering how the hell that person’s child has survived thus far. I read somewhere that the best thing to do is to nod and say thank you, act like you’ve taken it on board and you’re going to do exactly as they say, and then walk away and do what you were going to do any way. 

People don’t like to feel their advice is not being heeded, you see. They love to tell you your baby is too hot, too cold, should be wearing a hat, shouldn’t be wearing that coat. Having S in the sling so much, I get a lot of people telling me she should be in the push chair instead, where she can see more (at knee level, so… she can see a lot of knees). That said, if someone looks like they are having a hard time, I’m apt these days to offer them some advice. I try to always remember that my experience is just that: one experience. Not a universal truth. My advice, when I give it, tends to start with I found that...  or Someone told me... rather than you should...

I decided early on that I would breastfeed S on demand, exclusively. I have friends who have bottle-fed since day one, others who tried breastfeeding but could not get on with it, some do a mixture of breast and bottle; others give their baby a bottle at night to allow him to sleep through. Some mothers know they will be going back to work soon and so move from breast to bottle fairly quickly to make things easier. When I was in hospital, a lady in the bed opposite was unable to breastfeed because of the medication she was on, and felt that she needed to explain this all the time. 

All of these babies are perfectly healthy and thriving. As far as I’ve seen, none has any limbs missing or any issue related to having two heads. I do feel that if women were given more support to breastfeed earlier on, they might stick with it a bit longer; many give up in despair (and a lot of pain) after a few weeks, not realising that it takes at least 6 weeks to establish properly (and for the pain to settle down). But that assumes they want to breastfeed in the first place. The fact I wanted to doesn’t mean anyone else does or should. And yet, the first question anyone asks you when they see your shiny new baby is, “are you breastfeeding?” I’ve done it myself, and then realised that actually, I don’t give a shit what you’re feeding your baby. It is of no consequence to me. It’s your baby and your choice, and feeling like I’m judging you because you didn’t choose the same thing as me is not going to make your day any better.

The other question they always ask you is, “does she sleep through the night?” S is five months old now; when I say no, she still wakes once or twice to feed, they look at me with a face that says both “oh poor you” and “that’s because you’re doing something wrong.” Everyone wants their baby to sleep through, apparently, and if yours doesn’t, then you must be doing something terribly wrong. One friend with a 3-year-old son mentioned recently that she felt a complete failure when her son was a baby and not sleeping through, but that a lot of her friends had since admitted that they weren’t telling the whole truth when they boasted that their child slept soundly from dusk till dawn. The fact is that if a baby is exclusively breastfed, you can’t really expect them to sleep through the night until they’re a lot older. S wakes anything from once to five or six times in the night, depending on what sort of a mood she’s in. Sometimes, yes, it would be nice to be able to sleep a bit more, and if I’m tired I have been known to groan when she pokes me in the ribs to feed yet again. But it’s not like I have to get up and go to work in the morning, and once you just sigh and accept that you’re not going to get that magical 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep, things are easier. Still though, we judge each other based on our babies’ sleeping habits. It’s ridiculous when you think about it; if your child sleeps for 2 hours or 10 hours, it will make not one iota of difference to what mine does. And really, when it comes to sleep deprivation, nobody needs to be judged for not getting enough sleep, do they.

One thing I know tends to raise eyebrows and cause people to do “that look” is the fact that S shares my bed. I commented the other day that although I have bumpers in the bed to stop her rolling out, once S is a bit more mobile I’m not sure what I’ll do to ensure she doesn’t just face plant the floor when she decides she doesn’t want to be in bed. The response was, Well you really should put her in the cot. My issue is with how to make my bed safer; it hadn’t occurred to me that I should just stick her in the cot to make things more convenient. As it is, I will probably take my bed off its frame fairly soon, and cover the floor with spare duvets and padded play mats, until S is old enough to learn how to climb down from the bed safely. I have no idea why S should be in her cot. What purpose would it serve? Why does that person care where my daughter sleeps? Yes, it would be a problem if S was sleeping in my bed, under my duvet, while I was knocked out on sleeping pills and unaware of what was going on. But that is not the case. As long as she is safe, I see no problem with keeping her in my bed. For one thing, while she’s still breastfeeding and waking in the night, it’s 100% easier to just roll over and feed her without either of us waking up too much, than to get up, get her out of the cot, feed her, and try to settler her back into the cot before I can go to sleep. They call it “dream feeding,” and I literally could not survive without it.

Becoming a mother has made me more sympathetic to the problems other mothers face.

Once you’ve been through these things for yourself, you care more for other people who are struggling as you have, and perhaps still are. I was chatting to a friend today, and she started to complain that her partner never took his turn doing night feeds. She stopped herself half way through, saying, Sorry; I know you never get a night off. But I understand what she means. I’m here on my own, so I know I’m on night duty all night, every night. If there was someone snoring in the bed next to me, I would be seething if they didn’t get up to help from time to time and give me a rest. Quite often I start to get jealous of my friends, having a partner or husband there to help them with the baby duties (not to mention the washing up!), but from what my friends have told me, their partners are not that helpful. Before S’s father left, I complained to a friend that he had not changed her nappy more than 5 times in her life. She responded, That’s just men; they don’t help out much.

It’s natural to compare ourselves and our babies with those around us. I have a terrible tendency to look at babies born around the same time as S and think, S doesn’t do that yet… and then I have to remind myself that she was 5 weeks premature and will take a while to catch up developmentally. 

If you put a group of mothers into a room together things can quickly descend into a discreet but bitchy game of one-upmanship. My baby has 3 teeth, mine had his first tooth at 2 months, mine can sit by herself, mine can stand already. We judge ourselves, and each other, by this invisible yardstick of what’s supposedly normal, as proscribed by… what? Who says what’s normal, what your baby should or should not be able to do? Is it that bloody What To Expect book? A TV show? Gina Ford? 

Perhaps we should just do away with the comparisons and the judgement, and give ourselves and each other a break. Yes, your baby is adorable and very bright and clever. So is mine, and so is that baby over there. They’re all perfect and normal and their mothers are doing the absolute best they can on very little sleep. Nobody tells you what a massive shock to the system it is when you go from being just yourself to you-and-the-baby. Everything changes and it all feels very strange and confusing. The last thing you need when you’re trying to find your feet, and keep them where they are, is a bunch of busybodies telling you (or implying) you’re doing it wrong.