I've been doing a lot of work stuff on my blog lately. That's fine but work is really not all of my life and being a mummy is the most important thing I've ever done and will ever do. A friend of mine has recently had a baby and I've been trying to offer some help and words of encouragement (whilst acknowledging I'm no expert). It got me thinking back to the early days with my first baby and how utterly bewildering it was. So I decided to do a top 10 things that everyone seems to think or do in the early days with their first newborn.
1. Wonder at how the hospital have allowed you to take this fragile and tiny person home. I mean surely you shouldn't be left alone with the baby. You haven't got a clue.
2. Become completely confused by how complicated breastfeeding is. In the antenatal class there was a doll and you put it to your breast and surely that's all there is to it? No it turns out it's quite complicated getting the baby latched on correctly. Then it gets a million times toucher when the baby is screaming and there are thrashing limbs everywhere.
3. Decide that you will have a little outing and go shopping or something. Baby screams almost continually. People stare. Old ladies ask you if the baby is hungry. You have no idea. You fed him/her about 1.5 hours ago so surely not. You feel useless and inadquate. You go home vowing not to leave the house again until the baby is 2 or something.
4. You retch and nearly vomit when the cord drops off.
5. You sit wondering how on earth you can bath a baby with only 2 hands. I mean you need at least 2 hands to hold the baby and make sure they don't drown. So how on earth can you get cloths, or wash the baby or get a towel.
6. Take picture of baby to use as your new mobile screensaver.
7. Marvel at how something so tiny can produce such a massive amount of poo as you change clothes, bedding and wash baby's back, legs, bottom and change your own clothes.
8. Decide that there's really no point washing your clothes just because there's a bit of posset or sick on you. You won't have enough clothes and it will generate more washing. This is it people. This is when the standards start to slip ;) I discovered baby poo on my knee mid way through a legs, bums and tums class that had got missed. Could not believe I hadn't noticed this. I was mortified.
9. Vow that you will not lose touch with your friends that haven't had babies yet. But decide you can't really ring them because they're at work in the day and in the evening you're dealing with a screaming baby/asleep/lost the power of speech. Decide you'll e-mail them instead. A week later think you must finish/write that e-mail. I'm convinced the invention of smart phones came from a mother wanting to keep in touch with friends, not from someone wanting to keep in touch with work!
10. Find yourself reduced to tears over the most minute things. Nappy won't go on straight = tears. Baby has been crying for over 30 minutes = tears. When my daughter was born OH put our son to bed and came downstairs to find me in tears saying "I can't go back to work, I just can't leave her". OK, he said. She is only 4 days old - maybe let's talk about it in 6 months?
It really is an amazing, mystical, frustrating, soul destroying, joyous, heart lifting experience and I wouldn't change for it the world. In fact I'd do it again tomorrow............
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