PSA for new mamas

It's bloody hectic this time of year, and I'm discovering that it's twice as bad...and twice as fun...with a baby. However several things seem to keep coming up in my parenting groups that are really starting to get on my tits & I've decided to address them. As I tell anyone before I offer advice, feel free to ignore me and scroll on, I won't get butthurt over it. This is just intended to hopefully hold a candle...(or flame thrower, pick your poison) to those first 100 days of darkness of the fourth trimester.

1. "My partner sleeps in the spare room cos they need to get some sleep for work" 

Are you frigging kidding me? Being a parent is a full time job and one which requires boatloads of energy. They need to help with the night tasks, end of. I know it can be hard. We breastsleep, so the husbeast can't really help with feeds, but if all the kid needs is a bum change I hand him over and go right back to sleep. Look at it this way. If you were putting your child in a daycare type place, would you be happy if the staff were running on sometimes less than an hour's sleep and no food or drink? I sure as hell wouldn't be, so why expect it of yourself? Work out a routine that makes sure they pull their weight. For us, the husbeast gets up 30 minutes earlier than he used to and takes the boy downstairs for a bum change and a play, while I starfish across the bed and snore my head off. After an hour he dumps the baby back in beside me and I give the lil dude another feed. The baby goes back to sleep and I can get up and start getting ready for the day in peace and quiet...except I can't shower. The kid totally has a radar for that thing and loses his shit the second my toe touches the water...which leads me onto my next point. 

2. "I know it's ungrateful/terrible but I just want to feel like me again/pee in peace/shower alone"

Why is that so bad? Does your partner get to do these things? Then why the hell shouldn't you? Look, being mum is hard. 9 times out of 10 the kid will want you, and while your partner is at work it'll be nigh on impossible to do anything alone, but when they get home all bets are off. You deserve the chance to wallow in a bath or shower once in a while.

And talking about wallowing, or feeling yourself again, will you cut yourself some slack? You just created life and that shit does not come easy. Not to mention the fact that that wee life's mission is to break you. You will have changed. In so many ways for the better, but I can understand that some people will struggle with their new body. You have to live with that body though, so try to find ways to love it, or change it. I chose to love mine. I try to have one nice long shower on a Sunday morning, where I leisurely wash my hair and shave my legs (ok, so I don't always manage those) and spend at least 30 minutes without being covered in pee, snot, poop or puke. It doesn't always happen, and these last few weeks have been hectic so it's been snatched chances to wash here and there and my poor legs haven't seen the light of day in forever. If it makes you feel better, before the shower I just had, I could measure my leg hair with a ruler and it took an entire tube of hair removal cream to defuzz them. Uh huh, that's right...A WHOLE TUBE OF VEET! I'm petty sure that new civilisations were forming in the rainforests on my legs 😳 

3. "You've got everything together, how do you do it all?" 

I don't. Basically, something has to slide. I pick my battles each day and decide what has to be done and what can get put off. I'm incredibly lucky. The husbeast has no expectations of a clean and tidy house, or food on the table when he gets home. He fully understands that some days it's all I can do to get the kid and I dressed, let alone tidy or even leave the house. God bless the man, he never, but never, leaves work without asking if I need him to pick up dinner and I won't tell you how often I say yes. We have a joint cleaning blitz at the weekend. I do the kitchen, he does the bathroom and we both hit the lounges/bedrooms/laundry. I've started laying out clothes for the baby and me the night before, so I'm not faffing about in the morning and I no longer waste a trip. If I'm heading upstairs to pee, I take up laundry, or bring it down to the machine.

But most of all, I try to keep my expectations of myself fairly low. Is the kid alive? Has he been fed? Is he clean and warm? If the answer is yes, then I give myself a pat on the back and a choccie biccie. Go team me! 

You have to stop thinking that what you see on social media is real cos it's really not. We only show our best to the world, so of course we look like we've got it all together. We are terrified that if we show our true selves, child services will show up at the door to take our kids away. 

It does get easier, I promise, but nothing will change until you make the changes. You have to be the driving force. Whether that is accepting your mumtum (or taking steps to get rid of it), or telling your partner to suit up and be a parent too, nothing will get better until you set it in motion. 

Good luck and Merry Christmas! Now excuse me while I continue to frantically pack for our first ever flight with a baby...or pray for me, that works too! 

 

It takes a village...to save our sanity

I'm going to preface this post with a disclaimer: before I had a kid I was a judgemental tool. 

I'm also going to add that in the immortal words from one of my favourite movies (home for the holidays ) "opinions are like assholes: everyone has one and everybody thinks everyone else's stinks." 

Basically, feel free to take or leave what you read...no judgement here anymore. 

There's a huge amount of advice out there for parents, new or old, & most of it is unsolicited. There are so many different methods and schemes, books and dvds, all claiming to be the best way to raise your child. I'm not quite sure what I'd call my method. I guess it's a little like gentle or attachment parenting, but mostly I like to call it lazy. 

See here's the thing. Babies are exhausting. You know this going in, hell people tell you constantly during pregnancy. Every idiot you meet, particularly strangers who have clearly never been pregnant, will tell you to enjoy your sleep now cos you'll get none when the kid arrives (like that's even possible during pregnancy!) But nothing prepares you for it. The tiredness seems endless and gaping and like it will eat you whole. You suddenly discover that you can manage on four hours sleep after all and that you can all asleep almost any time or place.

My parenting choices came about to optimise my chances of getting anything like actual sleep. So yes, after years of swearing that I never would (it's sooo dangerous, don't you know) we co-sleep. As a breastfeeding mama, learning how to feed lying down was my proudest achievement. Screw the feeding in public thing, that was relatively easy! Feeding on your side, especially with ginormous boobages, not easy at all, particularly when your baby is wee, with a tiny wee mouth to boot. Now I find that The Minibeast is less windy after those feeds, sleeps better too as when he's starting to fuss in his sleep, I can just roll towards him, unclip my nightie and let him help himself to the buffet before he wakes enough to wail himself into a frenzy. BETTER SLEEP FOR EVERYONE! That being said, I understand that it isn't for everyone. We just know that it's working for us, and we were lucky enough to have a health visitor with some common sense who supports us. She's fantastic...a rare beast, I know. 

I also swore I'd never babywear. I told you, judgemental arsehole, right? Not only is it useful for getting shit done, it's actually really nice to have the kid close to you while still having hands free for snacking or knitting or setting your flying monkeys on that judgemental bitch who tried to give you advice. 

But here's my problem with some of the other mothers who also do these gentle/attachment approaches. They can't seem to understand that they don't work for everyone. Yes, in my house if I'm in doubt I whip a boob out. Yes, I co-sleep and yes slings were useful...but they don't always work for everyone. I swear that on some of the parenting forums I'm in, some poor people are vilified for mentioning a bottle or a buggy, instead of boob and sling! 

Hell yes, I can clean a kitchen with my kid strapped to me. Hell yes, I can cook and tidy or dance and rock with him dangling from my front. I am mama and I'm a badass who can do anything (shh, don't disillusion me, this teething thing is hard yo). But I don't WANT to have to clean with the kid strapped to me. I don't WANT to have to resort to pushing the buggy for three hours & god knows how many miles to keep my teething baby calm. Side note, that day was 

I love that I can breastfeed my son. We have a wonderful bond and I feel like a bloody superhero when I think of my body nourishing my kid. But we've had our rocky moments, though I'm saving them for another post. Breastfeeding isn't easy and it isn't for everyone. There are some days when I'd love to hand over my bottle refusing cherub & go to the movies, or for a cocktail with my friends. 

What a lot of people seem to have forgotten is that it takes a village to raise a child. I understand that gentle/attachment parenting is just going back to what has been the norm for hundreds of years, but we don't live like we did in those days. In those days people lived cheek by jowl and everyone mucked in to help out. Not these days. Not everyone has family or friends nearby, and not everyone is lucky enough to have supportive families. Some people are new to an area and are struggling to make friends. Some people have families or friends that are rather vocal and want to rule the roost, so they give in for some peace & quiet. Lives are fast & furious and some days feel like you don't even have time to breathe. 

You breastfeed? Whoopie for you, now go warm that bottle for your pal whose kid just shat everywhere for the second time today. 

You prefer bottles? That's nice dear, now fetch that boobyfeeding mama a glass of water, cos even if she hasn't said, she's probably parched as she hasn't been able to feed herself yet today. 

Being a parent is fucking hard work so can we please stop judging each other & dragging each other down? How about lending a hand or a listening ear instead?