Thriving New Mama

I hear often, amongst my peers and in my own head, “my life revolves around the child. The child dictates my entire schedule, my entire life.”

It took me a while to realize that it’s not true.

For one, there are predispositions from the child’s prenatal experience. Your stress levels throughout pregnancy, your diet, and the environment you live in do influence your child’s development. This is not to blame you for whatever your child is going through now. It’s to remind you that we are predisposed to certain things that a result of genetics and prenatal experiences that are out of your child’s control.

In the postpartum period, the massive life changes externally and internally can be disorienting.

I’d be the first one to put up my hand.

Inconsistent napping and nursing schedules drove me crazy in the first month. I was freshly postpartum and felt like a stranger in my own skin. Too small for my maternity clothes and too large and clumsy for my pre-pregnancy clothes. The surfaces in my home that used to be clean, ready for a journal and book, are now scattered with used and unused diapers, and half-opened wet wipes.

I also lost count of the times my well-stitched plan for a family outing or personal errands day have been thrown out of the window by a sick child sent home from school. Or an unexplained meltdown.

Frustrated? 100% yes!

But I also discovered that in the early days, a lot of the child’s reactions are involuntary. The movements of his arms and legs are involuntary. The sucking is instinctive and nature’s way of providing for your newborn. The crying is also their only way of communicating with you.

Knowing that the child’s not in conscious control is such an important reframe for me.

Now the child is not giving me a hard time. He is genuinely having a hard time.