As some of you may know, I just had my first baby in December. My step-daughter came into my life when she was 3 years old (she is now 14 years old – a whole new ball park), so although I had to learn how to deal with picky eating, bed wetting, dance competitions, and the like, I had never had to care for a baby until very recently.
First, let me start off by acknowledging how incredibly challenging it is to be a new mom with a newborn babe. People always talk about sleep deprivation, but that’s only a drop in the bucket. Let’s start with the physical and emotional healing that is required after birth, and add on being dropped head first into caring for a new baby for the first time – figuring out everything from feeding to diapers, it’s a very steep learning curve. Oh right, and you don’t get to sleep… in any more than an hour at a time if you’re lucky.
What no one talks about is how bonding with your baby can take time. Moms expect it to be like the movies – the baby comes out and they are instantly in love. And so we feel bad when those loving feelings aren’t immediately there. How can we even think about love when we are in pain, exhausted, and pushing the limits on our stress levels while trying to figure out how to keep this little human alive? I was told about this, I was prepared for it. And yet it was incredibly emotional for me to admit that I was not in love with my baby. But it was true – I was not.
But now, I am incredibly, deeply in love with my baby. My strong bond with my baby was very much influenced by something I dubbed “baby meditating”.
The most important life lesson I learned during those incredibly trying first 6 weeks with a newborn baby was how to be kind to myself. As a constantly-busy, type-A-personality, over-achieving-super-mom-who-owns-two-businesses, even though I was on mat leave, I felt the need to continue to do my regular mom/wife duties while taking care of the baby – dinners, dishes, homework, school council meetings, sweeping, mopping, the works. And when the end of the day would come and I had nothing done, I would feel terrible. Then I came across this article.
http://bigcitymoms.com/blog/archive/2014/01/new-mamas-get-nothing-done-and-other-untruths.html
I read this article multiple times a day for days. It reminded me that my job was to take care of this baby. That years from now, I won’t remember the dishes, the dinners, the mopping, but I will remember the smiles, the cuddles, the coos.
So I started to be more kind to myself. To be satisfied with caring for my baby, and knowing that anything else I may have gotten done that day was a bonus. And to put my ego aside and ask for help – from anyone and everyone – friends, parents, husband, step-daughter. My only job was the baby.
And so instead of spending time with the baby while half my mind was thinking about what I needed to get done, I spent my time just enjoying the baby. This is what I called “baby meditating”. I learned how to become fully present in the moment with my baby. To look on her beautiful face, to feel the weight of her in my arms. To take a breath and just be here with her.
It changed my life. It made every day, every moment a joy. Through the sleepless nights, the painful breastfeeding episodes, the crying – it all became a joy. Living in each moment, tuning in to every second, allowed me to fully understand her cues and respond to them in a loving, patient way. And we bonded in a way I never thought I could bond with another human being. And it’s been amazing.
And I know this is a philosophy that I can use to guide me through every stage of her life.
