I remember logging on to Facebook one night to distract myself from my shattered identity. As if by a merciful act of fate, an article from a page I didn’t even follow popped up in my newsfeed. It talked about co-sleeping, feeding on demand and carrying your baby with you in a sling. These are the things I had long pronounced as ‘just a bit indulgent’, but since I wasn’t even a shadow of my former self, those beliefs no longer held.
With nothing to lose, I did it. I fed my baby when she showed hunger signs. I bounced, walked and nursed her to sleep. I picked her up when she cried and I wept.
With nothing to lose, I did it. I fed my baby when she showed hunger signs. I bounced, walked and nursed her to sleep. I picked her up when she cried and I wept.
I wept with relief that what I was doing was OK. I wept with pure joy when I looked at my baby finally asleep on the breast, face relaxed with contentment, and I felt the first tiny twinge of love. It was as if I was seeing her, and myself, for the first time and it changed my life.
I didn’t write this to belittle those who have a working routine with their baby or who successfully help their baby learn to sleep. I just want you to know, Mama, that in the midst of the madness, if you focus on your baby and yourself, you will find your way.
Damn the rules.
Hello! My name’s Laura and I hail from a small, straight-laced town in Queensland with barely a hill in sight. Motherhood has changed every single belief I previously held about child raising and my little girl and I are benefiting from learning more about Attachment Parenting and Natural Living. We love to be outside watching the bugs and birds go about life and spend an inordinate amount of time reviving dying plants.
