Judgements: “Just be flexible with his naps!”

I am a prisoner to this child’s nap time. He is almost 8 months old and still has 3 naps per day. Typically they are from 9am-10:15, 12:30pm-2 and 4:30pm-5:15. My life revolves around these precious sleep periods because if he is late for one or skips one, all hell breaks loose! I just wrote a post called “not helpful” https://lovingheartsroughstarts.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/not-helpful/ and in it I described what unhelpful feedback I received from people during my rough start. Well, another unhelpful comment I often get is “can’t you be more flexible with his sleep?”. Now don’t misunderstand me, I completely respect parents who are flexible when it does not have a negative impact on their child. Some kids adapt very well and it probably makes life easy to just go with the flow. My child, however, isn’t that easy-going. He enters a major state of fussiness when he is overtired. He is very much by the clock and practically welcomes his crib when it’s time to go to sleep.

So here’s the problem, I have a hard time finding programs to join such as music and swimming because the times don’t usually work with his naps. I also have trouble making play dates and attending family functions. We had a family dinner the other night and I decided, as an experiment, to try being “flexible” by having baby stay out late and pushing his bedtime an hour later……………for those of you who are major sleep schedulers, you’re probably gasping! So how did it go? REALLY BAD! Poor child was so tired, rubbing his eyes and whining. My husband drove him home so I could stay and enjoy the rest of the evening. Baby was hysterical the whole drive home and had difficulty settling down for the night. The only positive to this experience is that my family got to see firsthand the effects of being “flexible”. I’m hoping that they will now think twice before making suggestions around his sleep. When I weigh out the pros and cons I feel strongly that I need to continue with a rigid sleep schedule. It’s actually nice to have structure and some predictability. During our rough start, I never knew when my baby was going to fall asleep and he only slept in my arms, so I did not have any time to myself. Now I can put him down and then eat or check emails or write a quick post (naps don’t allow a lot of time to write so excuse any grammatical errors!).

I suppose I worry about people’s judgements about me as a mother otherwise I wouldn’t care what they thought of my rigidity. Being a mom is my most important role in life, so I desperately want to feel like I am doing a good job at it. I always thought of myself as having a “thick skin” but motherhood has really exposed a vulnerability that I didn’t know I had. 7 months ago when I was feeling very down, my cousin asked me how I was doing and I broke down. I tried using every ounce of energy I had left to not cry, but it was impossible to fight. My cousin said “you’re doing a good job, you’re a good mom”. I really needed to hear that and even though there was a part of me that didn’t believe it, I held on to it for dear life and tried to take it in. Amazing how one’s thoughts can spiral from “why don’t you try pushing back his bedtime” to “you’re a bad mom”. If any of you are familiar with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), you’ll know a bit about working through negative thinking and finding your core beliefs. I have worked with clients on thought records to challenge unhelpful thoughts on many occasions and yet in the moment I still struggle to use this skill. It’s a work in progress for me. If you are interested in learning more about CBT I would be happy to do a post about it.

Thanks for reading….

Not Helpful

When you go through a difficult time and people offer words of wisdom, their intention is good. However, when I was in the depths of my rough start, more often than not I found the feedback unhelpful. Sometimes it actually made me feel worse about myself and the situation. I think the most frustrating statement that people made was “he (the baby) won’t remember this when he’s older”. This was the response I would often get when I expressed my sadness about the apparent pain and fear the baby was experiencing in the NICU. I talked to friends about how he had blood drawn from his heel every 3 hours around the clock to check his levels and how painful and scary that must be. I cried about how frightened and distraught he appeared screaming and reaching his arms in the air while alone in the incubator….80% of the time the response was “he won’t remember this when he’s older….”.

While it’s true that he won’t remember the horrible experiences of his first week of life, I hated that in the moment he had to experience pain. I tried to come up with an analogy to explain to my father why this statement did not make me feel better. I asked him “if I were to hit you over the head with a hammer and tomorrow you were fine and didn’t feel or remember anything, would that be okay?”. Of course the answer is no because you don’t want to experience any pain in the moment even if you don’t feel it or remember it the next day. It still breaks my heart that baby had to experience minutes, hours and days of fear and pain as soon as he left the comfort of the womb.

So what did I need to hear at the time?

I’m so sorry that you are going through such a horrible time right now. You must be so scared and upset seeing your baby in such a terrible state. It’s okay if you need time to yourself, but know that I’m here for you if you want to talk or if you need anything. It makes sense that you don’t feel like leaving the house, or even getting dressed in the morning given the stress you are experiencing. It might make you feel better to get out for an hour, but if you’re not ready that’s fine too.

Basically I needed validation that what I felt was okay and understandable. I also needed to be heard, I didn’t want advice. So now I would like to offer you support. Whether you had a medical complication in the beginning, or you just find the whole parenting experience overwhelming. If your mood is low or your anxiety is high, if you’re feeling sad or alone or frustrated….. I am truly sorry for your pain. We don’t know each other and our stories are probably different on many levels, but I’m sure we can relate in some ways. Know that you are not alone and that it is okay to have all the feelings you are experiencing. If you don’t feel comfortable talking to a friend or family member share your thoughts here anonymously or consider reaching out to a counsellor for support. In North America there are many services offering postpartum support. I hope this is true for other parts of the world as well. 

What have been the most helpful and unhelpful statements people have made to you during your rough start?

Thanks for reading……

Full “Exposure” and My Breakthrough

When baby was born, people wanted me to be over the moon excited and thrilled. They would say “are you having the best time?”, “Isn’t motherhood amazing?” etc etc. They would look at me with big bright eyes and great big beaming smiles, as if they wanted me to mirror their facial expressions. I found it exhausting because initially I tried to look as animated and excited as they did. I must have looked ridiculous trying to smile from ear to ear and force out a beautiful glow when what I really felt was exhausted, guilty and quite simply- just sad. My breakthrough happened when I was visiting with my parents. I was sitting in the kitchen eating a piece of toast, tired from being up all night with 3 month old baby and defeated from trying to soothe him during his long day of fussiness. My dad came in the kitchen and tried to start a conversation with me…..and I broke down crying. Sounds pretty simple huh? Not for me. I wanted to be superwoman (such a joke as I reflect back). My mom came in the room and she started to cry because she was upset to see me in such a state. So what came out of my tears? Relief, support, validation and nurturing. How nice it was to be the kid and feel nurtured by my parents. How nice to not have to wear that happy mask.

So I started telling people how it really was for me. When I went to Starbucks and the smiley, beaming woman came up to me to look at my baby and asked “Isn’t motherhood the best?” I answered “it’s really hard. I love my baby more than anything, but it’s been really hard”. I can think of about 5 occasions when I responded this way with random strangers and each one of them agreed with me and shared a bit of their story. I think that is what inspired me to start a site like this. Maybe I should have titled it “let’s be real!”.

I would like to post pictures of me and my family, but it feels so exposing. I’m going through the pros and cons of why I should go ahead and take this site to the next level. Part of my healing however, has been to open up about my true feelings and be authentic with those close to me. I’m going to continue sharing bits and pieces of my experiences and if it seems this site interests more and more people, I will post some pictures as part of my “full exposure” and a way to feel more connected with all of you. Thanks for reading……

How do you deal with people’s assumptions and expectations about motherhood?

What to expect….

*revision: you don’t have to sign in to post a comment!*

Hi everyone,

If you’re checking out this site and contemplating if it will be of any interest to you, I’ll fill you in on some ideas I have for upcoming posts…..

• Q & A- As a therapist and a mom who has been through more than she expected, I would be happy to gather some questions and post them with my own thoughts and suggestions. I would also post questions for you so that you could offer the community your thoughts.
• Community “words of wisdom”– it’s inevitable that people are going to tell us how we should feel, how we should think or what we should do. It would be interesting to gather the most helpful words of wisdom you received. There’s bound to be at least 1 helpful piece of advice out of 20 or so that are unhelpful!
• Focusing on relationships: In my experience providing couples therapy and even in my own marriage, it is interesting how a baby can really shake things up. I think this topic would make for some good discussions.
• Self-care challenges and giveaways: After I had my baby I felt like it wasn’t important anymore to put on lotion, dye my hair or buy myself new clothes. It was almost as if I thought that giving to myself would be like taking from my child (I’m not sure how this way of thinking set in!). I can’t stress enough the importance of self-care and I would like to set up challenges for you to try and then hear how they went. I would also like to give away self-care packages to people in this community.
• A bit about my day to day life. I’m actually quite a private person (weird for a blogger huh?), so this would be an interesting challenge for me, but it might be interesting to see if you have the same day to day struggles or joyful experiences. I’m on my maternity leave right now, anticipating my return back to work and debating between daycare or nanny, so it might be nice to share my thoughts and feelings…

…….so this is just the beginning of brainstorming some ideas. Please comment below what topics interest you and if you have any other ideas. After all, I consider this our community, so I really value your feedback.

Question: good rest can improve your mood. What baby sleep books have helped you with baby’s sleep habits?