“You’ll just know”
I was an anxious mess when pregnant. Mostly about just getting him here safely. But as we crept into 30 weeks and beyond the worries turned to ‘oh my god I’m going to be bringing a baby home and I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing!’. When I voiced these concerns people’s favourite replies were “You’ll just know what you’re doing” “Your mother’s instinct will just kick in”. Now that Gabriel is here, I can safely say…what a load of bollocks. Although I agree with a mother’s instinct to a certain extent, like when he’s not himself and a bit out of sorts, on the whole, I still had absolutely no idea what I was doing when he made his appearance (still don’t really!).
Perfect example — what to dress them in? Gabs was born in February, when we started taking him out more, around March time, there was some nice spring sunshine, but it was still chilly. How many layers do you put them? Do you use a hat and gloves? What do they wear in bed? Will he get too hot? I don’t want him to be cold in the night. Equally I read that being too hot increases the risk of SIDs. The mind boggles!! We had invested in a Gro Egg which I obsessively checked, then I would google the temperature and what he should be wearing.
I also wasn’t prepared for the noises and facial expressions while sleeping, not mine obviously, although sleep would have been nice. I remember one night, well it was 4am but I feel that still counts as night-time, I looked down at Gabs while he was sleeping, as you do a gazillion times to make sure they’re still breathing, his eyes were half open and flickering and rolling. Obviously the first rational thought is that he’s having some kind of convulsion, so I woke him up. Yep, I woke him up from a sleep at 4am. I soon learnt he was fine and just sleeping. Same with the breathing when they’re asleep. Going from deep peaceful breaths to fast like he was going for a jog in his dream. Again, I woke him up, yeah don’t do that, it’s unnecessary, he was fine again.
Bathing a baby. Another minefield. When they get home from hospital right? Nope, leave it a few weeks. Bath them everyday right? Nope, they’re skin is too sensitive. Use a baby wash or shampoo, right? Nope, it’ll dry their skin out. How on earth does a ‘mother’s instinct’ know these things?! Maybe mine hadn’t quite installed or downloaded yet because I had no clue!
How do you know when the baby needs to sleep? They just sleep when they’re tired right? Nope, look out for their ‘wake windows’ and ‘tired cues’. I remember the health visitor mentioning this to me and pretending I knew exactly what she was talking about. I had no clue. She told me to look out for the signs of an overtired baby: crying, clingy, resisting settling, waking a lot in the night…. Sorry but that’s Gabriel every day! Is he overtired all of the time? How do people know these things?!
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Gabs has never been a good independent sleeper. Would only ever sleep on me. So, when he fell asleep in the car in his car seat, I brought it into the house, and he stayed asleep I felt like I’d finally cracked it. This would be the answer to having an hour or so to myself. Wrong again. ‘Babies should only be in the car seat for a maximum of 20 minutes at a time’. What?! It takes me 20 minutes to get into the car once he’s in the car seat! Now you’re telling me when I’ve had 4 minutes sleep in 4 days, I have to wake him and get him out of the seat?!
I also can’t even tell you how many times I’ve googled pictures of baby poo. It knocked ASOS off my most visited page. It’s too runny. It’s too lumpy. It’s too dark. It’s too pale.
Another good one — ‘you’ll just know when your baby has a temperature’. Now, Gabs is a big boy (8.10 two weeks early!), he’s always pretty hot and sweaty so feeling his head isn’t too helpful. Can I get one of those thermometers in his ear? Can I f**k!
There’s so much reported about being a ‘responsive mother’, just responding to their needs when they cry. This blew my mind at first, how do you know why they’re crying?! I never worked it out. Instead, I just introduced a process of elimination. Crying — does he want the boob? No. Ok. Let’s change his nappy. No still crying. Is he cold or hot? Nope not that one. Ok let’s do the rocking and shh-ing and bum patting. Ahh ok he was tired. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it wasn’t that either and I was out of options. For all of these ‘experts’ who say babies don’t cry for no reason. Please provide us with some more options.
For months I beat myself up because I didn’t ‘just know’. Was all this information in the pregnancy books that I didn’t read? Was I born without the ‘mothers’ instinct’ I was supposed to have? Do I believe all of that now? Hell no. Do you know why people respond, ‘you’ll just know’? Because they have no bloody idea either. Because they were winging it for the first few months too. Because the only reason they learnt what to dress their baby in at night was because they woke up at 3am and thought ‘oh shit he’s chilly’, the only reason they knew their baby makes weird facial expressions and does crazy breathing at night is because it freaked them out at 4am too and they were googling away, they’ve bathed their baby too much or too little, they’ve sent pictures of their babies’ poo to the health visitor because it looked a crazy colour. Whether you’re a real earth mother wearing your baby like a koala 24/7 or someone completely unmaternal who can’t wait to hand the baby over to a family member just to get a break (both completely acceptable!), no one really has a clue what they’re doing when they have a baby. You cannot prepare for the carnage it will create in your life. And there’s absolutely no way you can have all the answers. Maybe some people do have an innate instinct when it comes to their baby, completely in tune with what they need. I didn’t. And that’s ok.
Originally published at http://crazybabymama1.wordpress.com on July 19, 2023.
