New mothers - trust your instincts

My eldest child recently turned nineteen. I don't know where those years went as I remember her babyhood so well. I read with great interest and an abnormal fascination, articles and blog posts about parenting. I may sound old but there was very little information about what to do with babies when I first became a mother - a few books and the 'clinic sisters', this strange breed of nurse funded by the government, who weighed your baby and gave gratuitous advice from time to time.

Of course the generation before mine had even less information. I feel sorry for new mothers today with what i think is information overload about what is 'best' for baby, with very little consideration for what is 'best' for their mothers. A happy mother AND baby is what is best.

I have been described as 'feisty'. Whether it is intended or not I always take this as a compliment. I like being decisive, particularly when it comes to decisions that affect me and my children, and sticking up for myself And instinct is a wonderful thing. Mums need to learn to trust this.

I chose to have c- sections for my first two children and was pretty much told I had no choice for the third. Fine with me. I have a pathological fear of pain and loss of control. Shoot me. They were all fine, I was fine and I clearly remember recognising their cries each time they were being wheeled down the corridor from the nursery. YES - the nursery. I had my babies taken away at night time so I could get some rest. On being told imperiously by some nurse that 'we encourage our new mothers to bond with their babies by rooming in' I made it very clear that I expected that over the next few days, weeks, months and years I fully expected to bond with my child. I was tsked tsked but remained firm. Sleep was needed. God knows I would get precious little of it once at home. And of course I bonded with each of them.

I was very lucky in that breast feeding was easy. No cracked nipples or mastitis for me. Babies latched on easily. Yet the longest I breast fed any of my children was 12 weeks.

Unlike this woman





My first baby, now 19, was 'perfect' in terms of her behaviour. She started sleeping through the night, 12 hours a night, at 6 weeks old. Of course I thought she was dead the first night I woke up with my boobs exploding. People, friends, were incredulous and frankly jealous, and looking back I was awfully smug. But this has a downside. Being so little she had to fit 6 feeds into 12 hours not 24. It was exhausting as all I seemed able to do during the day was feed her, change her, settle her, collapse exhausted while she slept for 30 minutes before it all started again.

Inevitably after a few weeks I found that by the end of the day there was not much milk left so I went and bought some bottles and formula to 'top up' at the end if the day. The clinic sister was horrified when i took baby in to be weighed and told her what was happening First, I hadn't consulted her. Bad mummy! Secondly, it was more important to breast feed my baby than sleep - she wanted me to either wake my healthy sleeping baby up to feed her in the middle of the night, or wake myself up to express milk to keep my supply coming in.

I was not about to start doing either of those things. Instinct. Trusted it and went with it. And she ended up fully bottle fed at 12 weeks. She is now at university.

There are many more examples but at the end of the day happy baby and happy mother are what's important. If your baby is hungry, it is ok to give them solids before 6 months. My last was having rice cereal at 12 weeks.

They all turned out ok and my sanity remained as intact as is possible with newborns

Trust your instincts mums - it will be worth it






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