Attempt 005 at Everyday Mama - Parenting, maybe?

About five months into my pregnancy I started following many "successful" mothers on social media that made parenting seem so easy, especially parenting a new born. But that's not even the catch, they also made occasional posts about how it's AK-OK to lose your mind and not feel guilty. This made me feel so much better after having Baby A around. I went back to these posts every time I needed some reassurance or just validation. However, today was different. I saw a post on Why sleep routines are harsh on new born babies in a Gentle Parenting page. This triggered me. Before I get to the 5Ws and 1H of my feelings, let me give you a sense of our bitter, bitter morning from today.

Baby A has stared rolling over. In fact he has been doing that for two months now. It was such a joy to watch him do it at first and it continues to be even today. It is a significant milestone that just fills my heart with warmth every time I watch him roll over. BUT. BUT he has started doing this in his sleep. Do you even know what a nightmare that is? Well I DIDN'T. This means he would flip over and wake up and CRY. Now I have to either feed him back to sleep or feed him for comfort. I dont mind it. IT comes naturally to me now - the whole drill of waking up ones every two hours (it only takes 21 days to forma  habit).  In the midst of doing this I realize that I have to do his laundry and dry his clothes out, all this while I had exactly one piece of clean dress, the one that I'm wearing..Anyhow, I push myself out of bed at 2:00  AM to finish Baby A's laundry  and went back to sleep only to be woken up by 3:30 AM. I feed him and rock him back to sleep only to be woken up by my firecracker at 4:26 AM. From this precise moment till about 7:00 AM both of us did not sleep a wink. I was exhausted from over-thinking my parenting skills and had lost all hope of Baby A falling asleep so I decide to change his diaper and in that fraction of a second Baby A pees on my last frigging clean piece of dress. 

Now connecting the dots, go ahead and tell me more about gentle parenting and why sleep routines are harmful please. I had blown my top off and lost it like a monkey who has eaten a whole thumb of ginger. I'm not saying advocating gentle parenting is wrong or anything remotely close to that. But I just, JUST wish someone told us that its okay to be not a gentle parent sometimes or most of the times, it doesn't matter. We are human and being a mother does not / should not change that. In fact I think we need to parade 'being gentle on parent' on social media. 

Here's hoping and praying for more sleep tonight. Also currently wondering if offering the head of a organic grass fed unicorn to the sleep gods will help better the situation. 

Baby A - 1. Mama P - 0

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Guest post - Mama G on Motherhood

I am full of surprises, did I not tell you that before? Well I want to keep this space open for more mothers to come forward and share their journey. Call it a community, a forum or village. I want every mama, who is struggling day in and day out, to know that they have a tribe to fall back on. I knew this because I always had Mama G around. She is my rock and has been for many, many years now. If I have even remotely mastered anything about motherhood, I have got Mama G to thank. She guided me through most of my panic attacks and told me that its all going to pan out.  We ave been best friends from school sharing every little secret. Now, here we are sharing our motherhood experiences.  Mama G on Motherhood: So I gave birth to my pea (yes, I call my son pea - pattani in Tamil lol) on 23rd March 2019 and I was  stuck in the hospital due to postpartum hemorrhage (PPH - google it, it's serious!) for almost 5 days post delivery. I had my entire family around me, at my beck a...
Read more

Attempt 001 at Everday Mama - An introduction

Sitting bang in the middle of a laundry pile and journaling away is a place I never imagined myself. Not just your regular laundry pile that sits in the corner of your room for so many days that it almost becomes a part of the room's aesthetics. This is a pile of diapers, cloth diapers. I have to say that people warned me  about the diapers when I announced my pregnancy. But now I know that the diapers are just a metaphor for the true mess that is motherhood.  Now don't come at me saying, Motherhood is a blessing and that I'm just being whinny. I'm only still learning. You know what else I'm learning about Motherhood? That it is one helluva ride backed by research, research and more research. It sounds scientific, but in reality it just a non-certified course from the University of Google Search. From mastering the art of cloth diapering (failed numerous times already), to picking the right high chair (do we even need one?) to dissecting baby's poop color, here ...
Read more

Attempt 002 at Everyday Mama - Shit gets real

Let's talk shit. I saw a lot of it today. In fact one of the things I wake up to these days is not a hot cuppa coffee or the newspaper. I wake up and ask Dada K three questions about Baby A's poop - Colour, consistency and how much shit was there? This is how we romance in the morning, we talk poop. I'm quiet enjoying this to be honest because it allows me to apply a lot of research and come out with theories. But today was different. We saw poop that was rather worrisome and we had to rush to the hospital (could have totally avoided this) and there were tears as always. But through all of this, hero of the hour, our very own Baby A kept grinning like a toothless 80 year old monk and I have got to say that it cheered me on and gave me much needed reassurance.  As a new mother I spend most part of my days wondering and scrambling for positive thoughts. Mostly thoughts that help me feel like I have got this shit (also the actual shit). I text friends who are mothers with more...
Read more