If we are totally honest about the early weeks of parenting, how many of us would say we enjoyed it all? It’s easy to look back fondly at the new baby days from the safe distance of time. For anyone still in the trenches, the struggle is real — and it’s ok to be honest about that. Let’s talk about the common myths and preconceptions of the newborn phase.
Myth 1: You should immediately feel a rush of love for your baby
When I was pregnant, I read everything I could to get ready for my baby. Every article spoke of the immediate rush of love at birth, a feeling like no other. That wasn’t my experience. I felt overwhelmed and shocked and a bit numb as his little wet body was placed on me, and I carried a lot of guilt and shame for how I felt at the birth. In truth my experience was common, with up to a third of new mothers reporting “delayed bonding”. My love for him was there; I couldn’t access it while I processed his birth. Over the days and weeks that followed, in the hushed 2am feeds with just us two and the countless hours of holding him and caring for him, my love for him slipped in quietly and grew. If you get that immediate overwhelming love for your baby, that’s great. If it doesn’t happen for you, know that it doesn’t define you as a mother. I can say that now that I’m over 20 years down the line. Don’t judge yourself harshly, and please reach out for help if you are struggling in the postpartum.
Myth 2: Everyone knows more than you
When you first join the mother club, it seems that everyone you meet can’t wait to impart their unsolicited knowledge on how to fix your baby, like they are broken (spoiler: they are not). The truth is they don’t know your baby. If you haven’t asked for their advice, meet their suggestions with grace, smile and nod politely, and take your sleep-deprived emotional self back to the unpaid 24/7 post of chief comforter, nappy changer and milk provider — aka mother. It can be a lonely place.
Of course, it is not always that bad. Some days you will be living your best new-parent life. You will have showered and eaten before lunch, left the house in clothes without puke on them, and made it to a baby massage class where your baby was not the one mid-meltdown or permanently glued to your nipple. You will have coffee, a cupcake, and a conversation that is not about infant bowel habits. Welcome those days when they come.
Myth 3: Sleep when the baby sleeps… fold laundry when the baby folds laundry
Prior to motherhood sleep was a given. Now you’re being held hostage by this little sleep thief with no circadian rhythm and no concern for your exhaustion. Babies’ sleep cycles are 45 minutes and ours are four hours, and they don’t know day from night when they are born. To survive these times, use all the help you can to rest when it is possible. You will not sleep every time the baby sleeps, and your new normal for now may be tired and wired. Take shifts with your partner where you can, get help with housework and meals, and offload every task that someone else can do. Finally, accept that broken sleep will be a reality for now and that it will pass. Don’t waste energy trying to fix it. It’s not broken.
Myth 4: Effort equals reward in parenting a newborn
One of the hardest lessons I learned when I became a mother is that my work in those early days didn’t ever guarantee me the outcome I wanted. You may have stayed home all day and logged the pees and poops into the app that helpfully told you when your baby should be sleeping, feeding and staring at monochrome patterns, and still find that your little darling has no interest in your plan for a quiet evening. No matter what the baby books promised you, no swaddle, white noise machine or military-style, iron-clad routine will deliver you the unicorn newborn who eats, sleeps on the regular and never cries. There will come a time when you and your baby find a rhythm to all this, but in the early weeks focus on responding to them and surviving each day. The happy place for your baby in the first few months is in arms, so make good friends with your baby carrier and know that this season will pass.
Sleep when the baby sleeps is not the problem. Waking when the baby wakes is the killer.
Myth 5: Everyone is better at this than me
Motherhood is often accompanied by that nagging little internal voice, and it’s rarely kind. It can seem that everyone else has got it together and is bossing this motherhood gig, especially if your Instagram algorithm is full of willowy, white-cotton-clad mothers with their little sleeping cherubs. Comparison is the thief of joy, and the truth is that everyone in the early months of motherhood is in the same boat, even if they are not willing to admit it. We all feel a little bit lost and lack confidence while getting to know our new little human. Remember that the goal of the influencers is to drive clicks and engagement and generate revenue, selling an aspiration, so take all that with a massive pinch of salt. Be kind to yourself: we don’t download and install Mother 1.0 as we deliver our placenta! In no other new job are you expected to be perfect from day one. Finding like-minded mums who just get it and can keep it real without judgement can make all the difference to you in your postpartum. You will likely find some who become friends for life.
Myth 6: I think my baby hates me
In my sleep-deprived fugue, as my baby’s colic showed up right on time at 7pm, I took personal offence to his crying, like he was judging my rubbish mothering. It didn’t help that he seemed to me to settle better for everyone else who held him. The truth is that babies have basic but constant needs — food, sleep and comfort — and only their senses and reflexes for survival. He experienced the world as a kind of sensory soup, generally good or generally bad, and crying was how he communicated. He wasn’t doing anything to me, and his little newborn brain certainly wasn’t sophisticated enough to be doing anything with intent. So I held him and fed him, calmed him and walked the floors with him, and without knowing it, it was in those hard moments that I bonded with him deeply and came to realise that I was his favourite person in the whole wide world.
What “winning” looks like this week
Hold them. Feed them. Change them. When you have done that for as long as you can, hand them over to someone else and take a breath. Many families in Bangkok have extra help at home. Use them without the guilt soundtrack. If today you kept your baby fed, safe and alive, you are winning at parenting.
New parenthood is hard and wonderful and frustrating and delightful. We should be able to say that, warts and all. This too shall pass. A new balance will emerge. Until then there is coffee, chocolate, dry shampoo, and people who will sit with you in the mess.