What I wish I knew

 

My First Little Monkey

The moment is here, all the excitement and anticipation in the last 9 or months has led you to this point: you are finally handed your squirming bundle of love, yours and yours alone and yours to keep.
I don't know what I expected to feel but I certainly didn't feel that "instant mother bond" that everyone speaks of. My response was more of a "thank God that is over" and a "whose baby is this and when are they coming to take it" sort of thing.
Don't get me wrong, she was beautiful and amazing (and LOUD) but the thought that she was mine and that I should love her was quite foreign to me. As it turns out this is a very common response, especially for first time mothers. All the preparation that had gone on was around the labour and the birth, handling the pain and the unexpected turns of events. Nothing at all on how you were supposed to feel about this squirming pink bundle that you are handed or what you are meant to do next. 
Babies really don't come with a manual, as it turns out there is no manual for a reason - each baby is so different that what works for one will not likely work for your next child. So you find a book or method that works so beautifully for your first baby, so well that you then recommend it to all your new mummy friends. Some of them love it, others try hard and feel like they must be doing something wrong because it works so well for someone else. Or worse, a good friend of yours appears to have that magical "perfect" baby and they kindly (though misguidedly) attribute it all to this wonderful book/method that they are following. You pay far too much for said book (and express delivery), read it cover to cover in a matter of days (thanks to not sleeping any more anyway) and then you dutifully implement it all. Right to the tiniest detail. Only then you find baby is not the angel baby you were promised but a howling over tired and or hungry little mess that is worse then when you started. You figure you must have missed something or are doing some part wrong. Dutifully you re-read the chapter on newborns and sleep, discover actually you were doing it all. Then you give up on "the stupid book" and do what comes so naturally - you pick up your little bundle, snuggle them in to a blanket, hold them tight, rock them swiftly, walk around 'shhhh-ing' them loudly. Would you believe it, it worked! They fall asleep and you very slowly, carefully and cautiously collapse on to the bed, daring not to move once there for fear of waking them. You do however feel like a bit like a  failure because you couldn't get the fancy book technique to work, but really now you are too tired to care and you fall asleep too.
The reality is even very experienced mothers can be baffled by a new human, it takes time to get to know them, their likes, dislikes and their own funny ways of being. Reading a book is very very different than learning to read your baby! Babies take time to settle in to their new environment, this world is so very different from the womb they came from. In there they were constantly warm, fed and moved. It was constantly noisier than a vacuum cleaner running under their cot. It was calm, safe and warm. Out in our world there is bright lights, sharp noises, silence, freedom to move, cold air, hot air, smells, weird bowel feelings like hunger, gas and poop; dog slobber, toddler slobber and pokes and prods from people all around. It is any wonder life takes a bit of getting used to.
In the next post I will look further at replicating the womb environment to help with settling for a newly earth-side baby.