letter to a new mama: on the first six months
This is (some of) the advice I actually wish I’d gotten in the first six months, or did get and feel like is worth passing on:
1. Put your own oxygen mask on first.
You will feel guilty doing this, because you have been socialized and told to believe that you must sacrifice your entire being to this tiny, wailing creature whom you have just met. Obviously, you should meet your baby’s needs as much as you’re able. Please remember, though, that you not only count, too, but that your well-being is integral to your baby’s. I had to remind myself of this dozens of times a day, every time I wanted to do anything for myself (including going to the bathroom).
2. People will tell you to enjoy every moment. You won’t.
You will also feel guilty about this, because some Instagram mommy influencer told you life with your baby should be all sunshine and rainbows and cooing and cuddles. Maybe you are somehow a magical unicorn who can enjoy existing on a total of 3 hours of fractured sleep, and alternating between being sucked on and spit up on all day, but probably you are not. Have compassion for yourself.
3. It’s okay if it’s hard.
I’ll say it again: IT’S OKAY IF IT’S HARD. It’s okay to say it’s hard. It is hard. See: enjoying every moment.
4. It really will get better.
People will look at you with your vacant expression and bleary eyes and tell you that it will get better, that it did for them around five, or six, or seven months. In your severely sleep-deprived state, you will not believe them, but it will. It really will. Caveat: my little one is just shy of a year old as I write this. It has been and will be hard again since the first six months, but in different ways.
5. No dogmatic way of doing anything is worth your well-being.
This could go for anything to do with feeding, sleeping, playing, etc. The world is chock-full of dogmas to buy into. I was extremely attached to breastfeeding exclusively, for a few reasons: first, I honestly think breastfeeding is a mundane miracle. I often had (and still do have) the thought that I cannot believe how cool it is that my body makes food for my baby. Second, we’re still in a pandemic and I wanted to pump her full of as many antibodies as I could possibly provide. Third, even though I am a fierce supporter of the idea that “fed is best”, underneath that, I’d still bought into the well-meaning promotion of breastfeeding as the ultimate pinnacle of motherhood that the dogma of being a “natural mama” promotes. All of this combined to mean that I pushed real hard to keep exclusively breastfeeding, when combo feeding likely would have saved me a lot of heartache. Feed your baby in whatever way works for you. Do what you need to in order to maximize sleep quantity and quality for everyone. Do what you need to do to survive.
6. Every tiny thing will seem monumentally important. It isn’t.
You will not realize these things are not actually important until much later, even if you tell yourself now. Real-life example I bought into (momentarily): having to have a sparkling clean bathtub before I bathed my baby in it, every time. This is absolute nonsense. Nonsense!
7. If your love for your newborn isn’t there right away, it will come.
It does not make you any less of a mother/parent if your love for your baby is not instantaneous and all-consuming. I spent a lot of time in therapy discussing how afraid I was that I wouldn’t explode with love the second I laid eyes on my newborn, and in the end, came to terms with the fact that I might not, and it would be perfectly normal if I didn’t. When the time came, I didn’t, and I was a bit sad about it, but the love did come and grow over time. Interestingly, even if my mind hadn’t caught up, my body did love her from the start; I instinctually showered her with kisses and cuddles and sang to her and did all the things I’d imagined.
8. Read Precious Little Sleep.
I’m like a walking infomercial for this book. Seriously. There are many books about baby sleep out there, and most of them will have you believing that you will ruin (ruin!) your child’s entire life if you do not do things exactly as they say (see: dogma). Thank God for my friend who told me to read this book, which is not only not dogmatic, it’s hilarious, and it lays out a bunch of different options for how to teach your child to sleep, so you can choose based on what feels right for you and your parenting values. Also, I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that despite all my pre-baby reading, I didn’t really know that newborns should only be awake around 45mins at a time, and need a lot of help to fall asleep. If I’d read this book earlier, it would have saved me a lot of time, frustration, and sleep.
9. Learn how to ask for and accept help.
I am particularly bad at this (see: Strong Independent Woman™), to the point that neighbours would see me struggling with large heavy loads of things while I was pregnant and say with exasperation “let us help you!”. It’s still hard for me to ask for and accept help, but I’m getting better at it, because there is literally no other way to function as a new parent, let alone a single one in a pandemic.
10. Some people will show up in the way you’d hoped, some won’t. Have compassion.
Almost every parent I’ve met had the realization after they had their first baby that they wished they’d been able to do so much more for their new parent friends than they had. I was no exception. You simply can’t know how vulnerable a time it is, how much every little check-in and meal drop-off matters, until you’ve been through it yourself. Have compassion for yourself for the people in your life for not having known. Everyone is dealing with their own shit and doing the best they can.
