HOW EASILY IS IT TO HURT A NEW MOM?

Oh, newborn! You can laugh and cry with them as much as you want”.

NEW MOM’S SCARS

Recently I watched the struggles of one of our neighbors, who gave birth maybe a week ago. Exhausted, with a crying baby in her arms, she couldn’t get into the elevator with a stroller. I could see in her eyes that it took her a second to feel defeated and broken. That’s when my son and I started reacting quickly. Patrick held the doors, I adjusted the shopping bags under the stroller, which made it difficult to get into the elevator. And together we helped the new mother at least a little.

Then, after all this, I thought about time when my son was born and I don’t know why I still remember how difficult that moment was for me. Now, 7 years after the birth of my first child and 4 years after the birth of my second, I still remember how the opinions of other Moms hurt me deeply and left scars on my psyche forever.

I’m sure every Mom had story like that. Story when I was surprised by strangers on the street offering help. https://littlepuzzlesandme.com/my-new-face/ Close friends could hurt with comments about how well their children were doing, how wonderfully they slept and ate. There were times when the family could make me cry, and the rivalry between mothers made me avoid the places where they met.

WHO HAD IT EASY WITH A NEWBORN?

My time with a baby wasn’t easy, but for which mother is it? That’s why it’s so important for new mothers to support each other. Nothing helps like knowledge supported by experience. Yes, you can read books about newborn development and on the internet you can get some important information about newborn behavior but every child is different. I really remember it like it was yesterday because apparently you remember the unpleasant situations the longest.

My son – Patrick had a terribly poor sleep. He would only sleep at the breast or on me, for 30 minutes. Every attempt to put him in the cradle or stroller ended with him waking up and crying. On walks, he would sleep for 30 minutes in the stroller and cry again. I remember how for the first months I would go everywhere with a crying child.

For the first 3 months I tried to meet with mothers I met at pregnancy yoga classes, but it didn’t work. They sat there relaxed, chatting calmly and drinking coffee because their newborns were asleep in their strollers. All I could do was stick Patrick on my breast, drink my coffee quickly and leave. Because every time I put the child in the stroller, it ended with him crying, but loudly, frighteningly, disturbing my friends and everyone around me in the Café. And the comments that killed me the most were:

Your baby is crying because he is probably hungry.

Have you checked your child’s temperature? Maybe he is sick?

It’s probably colic, you need to massage his tummy.

A lot of unnecessary comments that killed the mother’s feelings and did not lift her spirits.
Of course returning home after such meetings always ended with the question: What am I doing wrong? Am I a good mother? Is my child okay with us?
Questions that hurt every day deeply, and which I never said out loud.
That’s why now, after a long moment of motherhood, I know that beginnings are always hard. The first child is super hard, the second less so, but another thing, most important is that every child is different. And I know for a fact that if my daughter was born first, I would enjoy going out for coffee with friends, Dora slept perfectly and ate perfectly. Forget about crying, unless she was sick.
That’s why after years I understand that there are also children who sleep. I would only refrain from comments like: My daughter sleeps and eats perfectly, with mothers who have a problem putting their child in the stroller for 1 minute.

SILENT ASSIST FOR MOM

In the first phase of motherhood the most needed is the common support of mothers around.Not giving your own opinions based on your own child. Not commenting on situations that have never concerned you. Maybe sometimes it is better to help but in silence, with small gestures. it seems to me that this works better than a thousand spoken words. Because words can hurt, and they remain in our memory for a long time. https://littlepuzzlesandme.com/with-the-witchs-advice-my-coffee-never-tastes-the-same/