In a week where I’ve been struggling to balance work and life, a week where I’ve not had a moment to sit down, a week where I’ve worried that my depression is coming back, I’m grateful for days like this.
Days with toy cars.
Days warn emough for David to run around in a nappy and a t-shirt. (Mostly because, well, have you ever TRIED to put trousers and socks on my wriggly fifteen-month-old without a screaming fit?)
Days with zebra-print Blueberry Side Snap nappies.
Days with startled cats.
Days when fifteen-month-olds decide they’d like to sleep in the carrycot they outgrew nine months ago, when they climb in, snuggle down, and fall asleep without any parental input.
Days with striped trousers.
Days with trips to the park.
Days with curls like these.
Days with blue skies and bright sunshine, when it’s warm enough to not need a coat for the first time this year.
Days with lots and lots of cuddles.
Apologies for the photo post again, there will be a proper written one at some point. Maybe. If the world doesn’t end before I finish this project.
Photos of me are about as rare as hens’ teeth: there’s a reason I prefer to be behind the camera! But this is me, right here.
I still don’t know exactly who I am. My Facebook page defines me as “a sling-wearing, BLWing, breastfeeding, lactivist mama of a little monster”, and it’s right, I think. I mean, David hasn’t been in the buggy since I got the new sling (and I’m perfectly happy that way!). We do baby-led weaning: at least, we started with purees and moved on to BLWing when he refused the spoon, and now he’s just eating. I’m breastfeeding, yes, and I love it, but I’m not sure exactly why I’m motivated to shout from the rooftops about it. I’m a lactivist, because, well, I want other people to have decent breastfeeding support that I didn’t have, to not think that formula is the norm, for babies to have the best start they could possibly have. (Time to add, maybe, that I don’t think formula is the root of all evil. It’s not. It’s not that formula is inferior, it’s that breastfeeding should be seen as normal by society, and better supported, and then maybe more women will do it. That’s a whole other post…) The little monster part? Well, that’s one of the few things that’s blindingly obvious.
I’ve only just, fifteen months into this game, got up the courage to be the mum I am, to parent the way that feels right. In the first few weeks and months I was blinded by other people’s advice, we muddled through, and the guidelines were king: mostly because David was ahead of all the targets and I felt like a good parent because of it. As soon as my instincts actually kicked in, nothing I was doing felt right any more, and I felt as though I had to do something. I started cuddling David to sleep rather than trying to make him self-settle. I swapped the front-facing buggy for the rear-facing one, and then started wearing him in the sling again. The breastfeeding was at his request, and I’m glad it’s an opportunity I took: I just wish I’d had the confidence and the support to do it fifteen months earlier.
I still don’t know for sure that this is the right way to do things, the mum I am, but I feel that it is. We’ll wait and see how it develops, how much longer he’ll want to breastfeed, how much longer he’ll want to be in the sling before he wants to walk. I hope I have as much time like this as possible. It’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever done, and it’s who I am, I think. That’s all I need to know.
Incidentally, here’s David’s contribution to the Gallery. I thought it was pretty good for a fifteen-month-old’s effort!
I’m sitting downstairs writing this, with the baby monitor turned on and a cat either side of me on the sofa. David is upstairs, in his cot, quite happy to be there. I’m managed not to eat Mars Planets for breakfast, and I’ve actually managed to have a bath, dry my hair, and put makeup on! So why do I feel so bad?
I feel bad because I left my sick one-year-old watching an episode of In The Night Garden in his cot. He was almost passing out on my lap, so I turned the TV and the Wii on, fired up BBC iPlayer, tucked him in, pressed “play”, and sneaked out. Ten minutes later he was asleep, without any distress whatsoever. Usually when he gets to that stage we tuck him in and run out, without the TV, but there’s still a little bit of crying. I didn’t want to risk him crying and throwing up again today: that’s why he had the TV on. It was a good decision because it was the right decision to make for David at that time, so why do I still feel bad about it?
Being a parent, especially a mother, opens you up to public criticism like never before. Breastfeed? Your child will be a bad sleeper and clingy. Formula-feed? Your child will be ill and obese. Wean with purees? Your child will be fussy. Use baby-led weaning? ”But they’ll choke!”. Controlled crying? That’s cruel! Co-sleep? ”You’ll never get your bed back again!” Give them the odd packet of chocolate buttons or crisps, or feed them just organic food? Stay at home, or go out to work, or work from home? Let them watch TV or none at all? Put them in a forward-facing buggy or carry them in a sling? Whatever decision you make, someone, somewhere, will be judging you for it.
Before David was born, Joe and I decided to use a Quinny Zapp lightweight pushchair and a Maxi-Cosi car seat instead of dragging a big pushchair around. My mother was horrified, and bought us a leviathan of a pushchair/pram/buggy system that barely fitted in Joe’s estate car boot. We’ve used it about twice since he was born. When I switched to expressing milk and bottle-feeding, and then to combined-feeding, she was careful to tell me repeatedly that I was doing something wrong by depriving him of bonding time: that might be true, but I was also depriving him of tummy ache and wind, and giving him sleep. When we decided to leave purees behind and switch to baby-led weaning, she bought us (I swear) every single book by Annabel bloody Karmel, and spent months pushing me to use them. She fails to understand why we use cloth nappies and organic cotton (but that’s the subject of a whole other post!), why we won’t let him have juice in a bottle any more, why I snuggle him back to sleep for his morning nap instead of leaving him to cry it out. She fails to understand that we do what works for our family.
I’ve come in for a lot of judgement, too, from complete strangers. It’s probably the purple hair and the eyeliner. Until the other day, when I had the misfortune to argue with an idiot in a supermarket car park, I didn’t think people used words like “feckless” and “irresponsible” unless they were using the Daily Mail comments section. (Incidentally, bitch, parent and child spaces are for PARENTS AND THEIR YOUNG CHILDREN, not perfectly able-bodied middle aged women in fancy cars who have no children with them. The fact that I am young and have purple hair doesn’t change that.) I had a coffee shop outing ruined this week by someone who told me to keep David “under control”, and to this moment I’m still not exactly sure what his crime was.
I have little time for “extreme” methods of parenting. I’m not sure I understand why there even needs to be a debate on any aspect of parenting: can’t each family do what works for them? Why can’t people do things the way they want to, without the need to be evangelical about it? When David was bottle-fed (both with the expressed milk and later, formula), I spent hours and days and weeks trying to justify it to myself: not because I thought I’d made the wrong decision, but because of other people’s judgement and opinions. If I wasn’t trying to make a point, I wouldn’t be announcing to the world that David watched TV to get to sleep, for similar reasons. It’s just not one of those things you admit to, is it?
We need to get to a point where, as parents, we all support each other, regardless of the decisions we make. We’d all end up far less stressed and far happier if parents could turn to each other, without fear of judgement, for advice and support and help.
