Leading up to having a baby, people would tell me a lot of things. Acquaintances who were parents would smile, congratulate me, and tell me becoming a parent was the best thing that ever happened to them. The genuine smiles I saw when people told me that were my favorite.
Closer friends and family would say the same thing too, but would pepper in some more reality. People told me the newborn phase was hard and don’t be afraid to ask for help. I heard themes that becoming a mother would be the hardest thing I had ever done, but it would also be the best.
And social media, oof. Mommy and parenting instagrams are filled with “real” posts of what it’s really like postpartum and as a mother. Selfies with messy hair after a sleepless night, dishes not done, a poem starting with “you will cry more than you laugh.” Once I saw a post encouraging mothers to comment why it’s not so easy to “sleep when the baby sleeps.” Comments were filled with talk of chores and “what if my house gets messy” and “well I need to shower.” Social media would have me believe being a mom of a newborn was the hardest thing I would EVER do. And that scared the shit out of me.
At my baby shower, people wrote in advice on little cards. “Just remember, some day you WILL sleep again… when they go off to college”
When I struggled to sleep in the last trimester, getting up to pee 3-10 times a night, feeling like I might pass out if I laid down flat, the insomnia was real… people told me to enjoy my sleep now cause once the baby comes all bets are off.
My OB, while she encouraged me to try, also warned me breastfeeding is hard, I would need a ton of support from my husband if I planned to exclusively breastfeed, she said it’s ok if you can’t do it. Fed is best. It took the pressure off.
My psychiatrist taught me how to recognize the signs of post-partum depression and mood disorders that I’m at a higher risk for.
I had so much anxiety leading up to the birth of my son because of all of this. I unpacked it in therapy almost weekly, prepared to lose myself, prepared to sacrifice my body, wondering how I would exist on no sleep and round the clock feeding, how my relationship would be impacted. I anticipated this massive upheaval in my life that everyone assured me would not be easy.
My therapist reminded me “just because those are their experiences, that doesn’t mean they’re going to be yours.” She pointed out my resourcefulness and ability to adapt to difficulties in my life.
I was so worried about this new transition that I did everything I could to prepare... To feel some semblance of control over the situation: I took a course on baby sleep, maybe my baby would be a good sleeper so I wouldn’t have to worry about sleep deprivation. I took two courses on breastfeeding, so that maybe it wouldn’t be hard for me… or at least when problems came up I would have resources to support me. I read so much. I read a whole book about how to soothe a crying baby and learned about the fourth trimester and recreating the womb because human babies are born too soon thanks to our giant homosapien brains. I joked that I was studying for my PhD in babies, that’s how prepared I wanted to be. I joined online groups of moms for support, I made friends with people having babies around the same time as me. I followed people with advice about raising babies and read articles almost every day.
And then…. It was easy? I don’t know if I was blessed with an easy baby, if all the techniques I was learning in those courses and books were working well, or if the love I feel for him just overshadowed all of that, but none of the warnings everyone gave me came true.
Breastfeeding wasn’t hard, my milk came in just fine, my baby loved eating, he wasn’t gassy or fussy and burped when he was supposed to. When problems did come up, I was lucky that my insurance covered lactation consultants to come to my home and troubleshoot. And with all the time during the day I spent breastfeeding him, I started reading interesting articles on my phone and getting in touch with my writing again. I was my happiest, most productive self. I didn’t feel like I’d lost myself, I felt a newfound sense of purpose and meaning in my life. I got teary thinking about how resilient and strong I was as a mother.
Sleeping wasn’t terrible. Sure we woke up multiple times at night the first couple weeks, but I didn’t feel completely sleep deprived. And once he was back to his birth weight, our pediatrician said let him sleep at night. So we did, and he did, waking up just once a night. I looked in astonishment at my sleep from my Apple Watch, pleased I was getting over 7 hours of sleep every night. He napped wonderfully, falling asleep in his bassinet all by himself when we used all the techniques we learned from my pseudo-PhD in baby soothing and teaching him to fall asleep independently. When we needed to sleep when the baby sleeps, we did. The chores weren’t overwhelming us- some laundry, some dishes, big deal. The house was mildly messy some days but I didn’t sweat it. My husband helped immensely as I recovered from a c section (which- surprise surprise, wasn’t so bad for me either).
I made the decision to stay on my medication for my mental health which I’m sure helped to ward off postpartum depression.
Was I just adapting wonderfully to parenthood? Was the preparation that I did the key to get my baby to sleep, to stop fussing, to eat like he needed to? Or more than likely was I just lucky?
After only a month into it, I didn’t know the answers to these questions, 2 months in I still didn’t, and 3 months in I’m still waiting for the ball to drop as he’s started sleeping through the night and making our life even easier. I don’t know if I ever will know why it’s been so easy on me. And since I haven’t walked in those moms shoes, I don’t know what’s so different about my experience over theirs. Do I think they did something wrong? No. Do I think I’m doing something better or “right”-er? Not at all. I truly don’t know what the secret is only that our experiences are just different- like anything in life.
One thing that I know may has helped though, are the lessons having cf has taught me and how I’ve applied those to my new mom life.
For example, I’ve continued to prioritize my own (physical and mental) health, this time equally or at least at a very close second to my baby’s. After years of having to make sacrifices to stay healthy, it’s something I refuse to give up.
I’ve learned which advice to ignore to protect my sleep, my self care, my mental health.
When they said not to introduce a bottle or a pacifier too soon for fear of “nipple confusion.” Day two in the hospital he got a bottle. Our first night home he got a bottle, and every night after that. And he breastfed just fine.
He got a binky pretty quickly too, and his cries were soothed like a snooze button.
I let my milk supply regulate to his feedings. If ancient women were able to survive without breast pumps and building a freezer supply, I could too.
I didn’t over engineer breastfeeding and pumping and timing every little nap and wink of sleep. I went with his rhythms, got things done when I could, let the house get messy some days.
If I couldn’t get a break from breastfeeding to get some extra sleep, then I would get overwhelmed, I would be more tired, and an overtired mom isn’t good for baby. So my husband gave him a bottle at night so I could go to bed early.
When someone asked what I needed— I told them.
It was hard to publish this because I don’t want to invalidate anyones experience, I’m sure when people see those “real” posts on Instagram they feel something, seen, heard, maybe less alone. Im not discounting that things like post partum depression and anxiety are very real and important issues, and I feel for any mom who has to go through it. I acknowledge that just as my easy time is a luck of the draw, others aren’t as lucky and are dealt a different hand— one with a colicky baby or a baby with reflux or a baby who just refuses to sleep. Just because my experience is one way, doesn’t mean it isn’t possible for someone else’s to be another.
I’m sure the ones who told me how hard it would be were just trying to prepare me, to feel a connection with someone who will soon understand what their experience was like. To say, I’ve been there, I know it’s hard, reach out to me and I’ll be there for you. It wasn’t with cruel intentions or meant to scare me. And I actually feel incredibly blessed to have supportive moms in my life who I can talk to on the hard days, and who will celebrate the easy days with me.
What I’m grappling with is this: there seems to be this assumption that parenting a newborn is inherently hard. Not one person told me it would be this easy. Not one. They told me I would experience a love like I never had before, sure. They said it would all be worth it. But there were always undertones about the sleepless nights, the not showering, the losing time for yourself, how life would never be the same.
And this message is scary for anyone even thinking about becoming a mother, let alone someone who is actively carrying a child and whose life this will be very soon. Why is there this universal understanding and assumption that this hardness will be everyone’s story? And that perhaps we have no control over it?
Weirdly, I feel as if something’s wrong, something is amiss. I worry that the hard days are ahead, I’m just stuck waiting for disaster to strike, to sneak up on me like a clown hiding behind a wall in a haunted house.
And also weirdly— something I hesitate to say for fear of it coming across the wrong way… I don’t want to chalk it all up to just being lucky. I want credit for my resilience, for my flexibility, for my resourcefulness and preparedness, for my skill in calming a crying baby, for understanding his hungry and sleepy cues. But to get credit for these things feels like blaming everyone else who has it hard. So I don’t celebrate it. Especially because giving myself credit now could set the stage for blaming myself in the future when the cycle shifts and it isn’t as naturally easy.
Now, when people ask me how I’m doing, I feel guilty telling them I’m doing great, thriving really. My baby is eating well, we are all sleeping well. Yet, I still feel like my experience is somehow invalidating theirs, just by virtue of admitting the ease of raising a newborn. Moms with easy babies are annoying when someone is really struggling. On a podcast I recently listened to they talked about how posts celebrating how beautiful and joyful motherhood is are “bullshit.” We throw around the words toxic positivity so much these days, like anything positive might cast a shadow over anything “real,” so I’m quiet about the good stuff.
I feel as if they won’t believe me, or that I need to say things like “it’s going well… for now” or “any day now he will stop being an angel baby so trying to enjoy it!” For fear of being toxically positive, to convince them, or really myself, that I’m not deluded into thinking it could actually be this easy.
What I’ve found too is that I’m not some unicorn. I’ve come across countless people who have admitted it was easy for them too, but they don’t offer that up for the same reasons I hesitate to. So maybe that’s why we only hear one story.
Then my primary care doctor told me parenthood will give you both the hardest and the best moments of your life and sometimes they’re 10 minutes apart. Maybe that’s why this feels “easy,” I don’t define my days by the hard moments: the inconsolable cries, the interrupted naps, the diaper blow outs, the spit up on my shirt. I see each day as a collection of moments— the good, the absolutely wonderful and joyful, the hard times, but mostly just as days with ups and downs like we all have. It’s not so black and white that it’s either ALL hard or ALL easy— it’s just that collectively it’s not so bad.
Some days are harder, others are easier, life with a newborn comes in phases and each one doesn’t last.
The point is, each person’s experience is so different, so varied. Heck, the day to day the week to week, month to month, is so varied. We can’t simply accept one universal parenting story as the one true gospel. We must recognize that these experiences are diverse, nuanced, overwhelmingly so. As are our reactions to them.
So wouldn’t it be great if there were a balance? I would have loved to read a story like mine when I was pregnant, and most importantly I would have loved to recognize that just as the “highlight reels” on social media are only a snapshot of a moment in time, so are those “scary” posts. Life comes in cycles, ups and downs.
In the meantime though, I won’t let mom guilt stop me from enjoying this phase, nor the easy moments. And at the same time, it is possible to offer compassion and support to those struggling without having gone through the same experience…to say I hear you, I believe you, I’m listening.
My experience is uniquely my own, and while I feel blessed, I also know that I don’t need to feel gratitude nor do I need to feel guilt, nor do I need to stay quiet just because I’m “one of the lucky ones”— I can just simply be with my newborn, love him, and take pleasure in my life with him now — and add my story to the range of experiences out there.
This is really beautiful. I love your honesty and your grace in handling a newly taboo topic. I had severe post-partum depression and anxiety after I had my daughter, and I cringe now when I think about how many hours I wasted reading things that encouraged me to feel like motherhood was impossibly hard. It's catchy to call your kids "Satan's spawn" and brag about how few hours of sleep you got or how many days it's been since you last peed without someone else in the bathroom. But now I find myself in a similar situation you are in- my daughter is now four years old and I am just generally delighted with her. I have so much joy because of her and am really getting the hang of parenting, and am actually wanting to have another baby soon! I want to tell people how amazed I am that I get to be her mother, but they are always complaining about how difficult parenting is and how they never get time away from their kids, and just always seem like they are desperate to be anywhere else than around their kids. So I keep silent and nod my head.
It's so refreshing to see a point of view that helps close the divide between Mary Cassatt's baby and mother paintings and people who call their children "demons." Really looking forward to reading more from you, this was a really unique and much-needed piece for me.