Thriving New Mama

Ask a breastfeeding mother.

Have you stained your clothes and needed yet another change?

Have you also sprayed milk all over your bra, your new bed covers and your newborn’s entire face?

Have you struggled with the nursing cover while trying to keep your wailing newborn from falling?

Have you skipped a pump because you forgot a particular pump part?

Have you forgotten a nursing cover?

Truth be told, I’m just naming all my messy, first-time mother experiences. Some of these still happen after almost 3 years breastfeeding.

I was really discouraged when that happened.

Two kids on, I am now better at:

1. Nursing in a carrier
2. Nursing while walking
3. Managing a nursing cover, nursing top and wailing newborn as if I’ve three hands
4. Managing all that while walking
5. Know where the nursing rooms are
6. The most recent addition would be tandem nursing

Yet to tandem nurse in public, and I’m sure the opportunity would arise.

I started seeing these successes as challenges to overcome. Much like a game, I’d declare to my husband, “achievement unlocked!”

Achievement Unlocked!

That’s a mindset shift for new moms out there. It’s not about hitting a benchmark or standard. You’re messy. You make mistakes. Because you’re new at it.

If you want more reframes, I talk about my favourite ones in this post.

Instead of seeing it as a standard that you’re falling short on, see it as a challenge you are working to overcome or an achievement to unlock.

Not doing so doesn’t make you any less than you are now. In fact, if you’re a new mother, you got by just fine without these new skills just a couple of weeks earlier.

Circumstances change and we grow. We evolve.

Learning and being able to do these skills can be exciting and empowering. Work towards becoming more skilled and confident, rather than worry about how you’re not mastering skills you just learned.