Yesterday, I spoke with a new mom who’s having a rough time. She’s at home with her 7 month old, breastfeeding, doing all the childcare, night parenting, and guilt-ridden for not feeling very happy. Naturally, she loves her son, grateful for the opportunity to be with him, but she feels trapped, lonely, and like every other mom is having more fun. Sometimes it’s so bad she gets into the shower at the end of the day and just cries. She’s crippled by sleep-deprivation, her husband works 12 hours a day, and doesn’t get how awful she feels. He gets to go to work, which is by far the easier job.
Sound familiar?
A few years ago, when my kids were 2 and 4, I ran into an old friend who I hadn’t seen in 10 years. He was divorced with no kids, and was so genuinely excited to hear all about my family. “Wow, you’re a Mom,” he said. “That’s amazing! What’s it like?”
My response was a shock, like a bucket of ice water thrown at my face. “I don’t like it at all,” I said, with far too much honesty.
His face fell. His jaw dropped. And I instantly knew I had made a terrible mistake. Moms aren’t allowed to feel this way, certainly not allowed to say it out loud.
I began dog-paddled backwards,“Of course I love my kids, and I wouldn’t change a thing, but…Diapers? Mopping up vomit? Bleeding nipples and breast pumps? Being awakened repeatedly through the night and at 5-6am daily for four consecutive years?”
No, the truth is that I like nothing about the actual job, yet I love my kids more than anything else in the world. So I do it anyway, even if I hate it sometimes.
If you’ve ever felt this way, I urge you to be honest with other moms. Write about it. Go on camera and tell the truth. Perhaps if we didn’t expect that mothering would be the most joyous time of our lives, we wouldn’t feel so blindsided and guilt-ridden.
If you're a parent, you probably have strong opinions about how babies and/or toddlers should sleep. You may even feel hostile about what other parents do to get their babies to sleep, if you think it's wrong. I wish I had shot this myself because it shows how judgmental and downright nasty some moms can be about sleep.
My strong opinion is that all of this is bulls#it, and there is no "right" or "wrong" way for families to sleep. As long as you and your kids are sleeping, there's no problem. But if your family is chronically sleep-deprived, maybe you can consider this:
Can you give yourself permission to unlearn everything you've heard or read about sleep, and focus on what you really want? Not what you or anyone else thinks you should or shouldn't do, but what YOU truly want for your family.
Can you turn off all the voices in your head, and allow yourself to change something that isn't working, even if you think it might be "wrong"?
Whatever you believe, try to keep your opinions about what other families do to yourself, and focus on what's right for your family. You will have more friends, and can feel smug that you've chosen the higher road!
 Dear Mel,I wish someone had told me that motherhood isn't always the most joyous, beautiful, glamorous event that the media portrays. I wish someone had prepared me for the fact that it might be the most humbling, emotional experience of my life, and that I might not actually love my new role as a Mommy.
Instead, I was blindsided by trauma, plagued with incessant fears and anxieties that I was abnormal, that every other new mom was happier than I felt, and that I was therefore, an exceptionally bad, inept mom. In retrospect, I now know that there's a conspiracy to trick billions of smart, independent and progressive women into believing that motherhood is fabulous, the penultimate joy, and that we can successfully juggle our careers, parenthood and mariages, all with a cheery smile.
The truth is, some new moms don't instantly bond with their babies, many of us have extreme difficulty breastfeeding (a learned behavior that we cannot possibly learn when it's not visible for us to learn!), and more women experience crippling postpartum mental health issues than is accurately reported. I believe that this is due to unrealistic expectations, and the lack of awareness about how hard and humbling motherhood really is.
So today, as you recover from a c-section and prepare for going home with Walker, who you and Hudson will love like you've never loved before, I wonder...Should I break it down and tell you the truth, or let you find out on your own how emotional and painful this transition may be? Because I wish someone had told me, I am dedicating this post to you and Hudson, as you embark on this remarkably profound journey. May it be peaceful, uneventful, and easier than my experience.Love,Natalie
I want to live in a world where parents don’t have to choose between career or family or self; a world in which all parents have meaningful, flexible work, and have ample time to simply be with their families without constantly rushing. I want to live in a world where parents feel fully supported by society and by their communities and by each other. Yes I know it sounds Utopian, but...
The truth is that we don’t live in this world unless we create it. We have to build community, make time for ourselves and demand flexibility from our jobs, or create businesses of our own so we can design our lives to work around our families. It’s challenging to live life the way we really want, but I truly believe we can do anything we set our minds to. So strive for happiness, work less, play more, put yourself on your priority list, and enjoy life as much as you possibly can!
Because really, how many of our kids will ever think, If only my parents had worked harder and made more money!?!
Brand managers and marketers recreate brand image by renaming products, especially if their products receive unfavorable press. Sometimes companies reinvent themselves completely by simply changing their names. So, I’m thinking it’s time to re-brand Sleep Training.
Seriously, think of Sleep Training as a brand. What do you associate with that brand? Do you have any favorable associations with their products? Let’s face it, sleep training has had some bad press, especially from Attachment Parenting enthusiasts. Critics argue that sleep training is cruel, and bleary-eyed parents won’t even consider it because of the negative press. They hear about Sleep Training’s “Cry-it-Out” (aka CIO) method and often plug their ears. How could parents leave their babies to cry, alone in their cribs, because it is more convenient for them? Why would they buy those products? I agree, it sounds terribly cruel!
But what if we re-brand Sleep Training and call it something like Sleep Soothing or ???
We sleep trained both of our babies at about 6 months. Yes, it was hard and yes, there were tears (mostly mine), but it only took 3-4 days each, our babies were constantly assured we were there, and I guarantee there would have been more tears had we not done it. Ultimately our babies learned, through a process of soothing and cooing and shushing and reassuring, that falling asleep and waking up in the night is normal, and nothing to be scared of!!
If you teach your baby how to sleep, then s/he won’t be scared when they wake up and you’re not nursing or rocking or bouncing them. They’ll simply know that it’s normal, and roll over and go back to sleep, just like you do.
Before we have kids, I think it’s safe to say that the majority of us have NO idea what we’re getting into. As new couples, we look at families with children and we think warm, glowing, happy thoughts. We name our hypothetical babies in bed as we cuddle with our partners. We dream about becoming mothers ourselves, but don’t truly understand what’s going to happen if and when that happens. In the media, motherhood looks beautiful. Expectant mothers “glow”, they instantly fall in love with their babies, they giggle and play with their kids in the park – they look happy! And maybe many of them are, but as a mother of two young children, I see the another side, and I worry for all the moms who think they should be happy, when they’re really not. I see a lot of moms who are pretending, because it’s not socially acceptable to be an Unhappy Mom. What about those of us who hated being pregnant, hated breastfeeding; those of us who didn’t instantly bond with our babies and really felt (if we’re truly honest with ourslves) that having a newborn was more of a trauma than a difficult childbirth? What about those of us who really miss our former bodies and sleeping in and having private time and reading novels and having our own identities beyond mom/wife/worker? The societal pressure to be Happy Moms is driving many women into a deep, dark depression, and we need more honesty and open dialogue about how we’re really feeling. If not for our own sakes, for our children – to become better, more honest mothers and role models. It’s OK not to feel all the things the media tells us we should feel. And it doesn’t make you a Bad Mom if you don’t love motherhood 100% of the time. I’m curious to hear from moms about this. How many of you feel like a Bad Mom at least some of the time? Please tell me I’m not alone!
If you’ve moved beyond pregnancy and childbirth books, you might begin to notice that there’s a HUGE theoretical divide amongst parenting experts about how you should care for your baby. On one (very popular) side, there are credentialed individuals who advocate for attachment parenting, based on Dr. Sears theory that we should sensitively respond to our babies cues, feed them on demand, and be physically attached to our babies at all times (including co-sleeping and baby-wearing). On the other side, we have Dr. Weissbluth and many other credentialed individuals who recommend exactly the opposite, based on theories that parents should take the lead, foster independence, sleep-train, and create feeding and sleeping routines our babies. Both sides of the theoretical argument suggest (roughly) that if we DON’T follow their advice, we will have needy, and/or emotionally insecure children. If you’re already getting heart palpitations, take a deep breath, because it gets worse. You will soon learn that EVERYONE has an opinion about how you should care for your baby, and most of it is conflicting. Seriously, in the hospital with our first baby, one nurse responded to our babies cries with, “No wonder she’s crying, it’s so cold in here!” and she swaddled her up. Moments later another nurse came in and scolded us for having the baby swaddled and said, “No wonder she’s crying, she must be so hot!” And that was just the beginning of the unsolicited advice onslaught. The one thing that the experts aren’t saying, is that there is no single theory or book that has all the answers. There is no right and wrong way to care for your baby. So take that stack of newborn and parenting books, and read it all with a grain of salt. YOU are the only expert you need to care for your baby. And don’t worry – despite your deepest fears, you’ll be a great mom!
Crazy things happen when you become a mommy. You may experience an excruciatingly painful, unconditional love that brings you to your knees. There will likely be a roller-coaster of hormones, many sleepless nights and tears, breastfeeding challenges, potential postpartum depression; you name it, it’s all happening. And while you may be one of the rare few who (honestly) finds it all very natural and easy, the vast majority of us are scratching our heads thinking, Oh, crap, now what? And we figure it out, one way or another, in a process of trial and error. Usually at about the six week mark, new parents start feeling more confident and in control. The baby starts sleeping longer stretches, you get a few smiles; it all starts to feel somehow more manageable. These are things we can all anticipate on some level, right? But did you know that if you have a baby who sleeps through the night early on (I’ve heard as early as 5 or 6 weeks), that you absolutely must NOT talk about it with other new moms? Trust me on this, just don’t. The rest of the sleep-deprived mommies will hate you. It will make them feel like failures, and they won’t have a sense of humor about it. Believe me, I’ve been on both sides. If your baby sleeps through the night a freakishly early age, be smug in private and lie to the other moms.
I suspect that everyone reading this already knows that breastfeeding is best for babies; that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breast milk exclusively for the first six months. No disrespect to La Leche League and other organizations who work to raise awareness about the benefits of breast milk, but enough already! I think we got the point. The pressure to exclusively breastfeed our babies has become so strong, that women who CAN’T breastfeed are shamed into a horrific amount of guilt if they’re unable to nurse their babies. There are hundreds of thousands of new moms worldwide who aren’t able to breastfeed for one reason or another. Adoptive moms. Surrogate moms. Moms who've had medical complications. And then there are regular new moms like me. I personally found breastfeeding so stressful and painful that I struggled with milk supply, and went through ridiculous hurdles including nighttime pumping, gallons of tea, and daily calls to a lactation consultant, to avoid any formula at all. Looking back, I feel silly for being so stressed about it, and realize the stress was likely the biggest problem, but I didn’t know any better. The lactation consultants all wanted to keep me breastfeeding. I seemed to be the only one in my new moms and breastfeeding support groups who was struggling with anything (everyone else looked so perky and happy!), and I didn’t have any veteran mom friends to give me permission to give my baby a bottle of formula so I could loosen up a bit! Instead, I pumped every two hours, often through the night, and made a ritual of calling my lactation consultant daily at 9am, as well as making a pot of special tea that I would then chill and drink throughout the day. And this was all just to keep my milk supply up. A dear friend of mine, after thorough planning for a natural childbirth with a midwife, ended up with an emergency C-section, followed by an infection to the incision, followed by IV antibiotics for the infection, then mastitis, followed by more antibiotics, etc. The result was a crippling case of postpartum depression (PPD) and an inability to produce enough breast milk to feed her baby. Her depression was so bad, that her mom had to come care for her and the baby for six months. On her first excursion out of the house, she actually got scolded by another mom at the food co-op for feeding her baby a bottle of organic soy formula. The woman smugly said over her sling, "Breast milk really IS better for your baby." Can you imagine? The self-righteousness is shocking, but I truly believe this kind of behavior, and the cultural pressure to exclusively breastfeed, is a significant contributing factor to the high levels of PPD in the U.S. So please ladies, give new moms (and yourselves) a break! A bottle of formula every now and then is not going to kill your baby. Why not have a glass of wine with some other new moms once a week, and leave bottles at home with the dads?!? Let them bond, while you loosen up with the girls. That seems far more healthy to me...
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