I was recently reading Amalah’s pregnancy countdown and it struck me: we, rookie mommies are frequently lamenting that nobody ever told me this or that about momdom. Somehow, despite the long history of motherhood and friendship, we manage to be nearly completely shocked by some (or all) aspects of having a baby.
I know I was shocked despite the fact that I had obsessively enjoyed Whitney with baby Julian for the 6 months leading up to Holden’s birth. Somehow, she made it look “easy.” I came away thinking that a newborn only needed to eat about 3 times a day like the rest of us. Hmmmm.
Seriously, how lots of people have been shocked at the challenges of breastfeeding, or the surprise of incontinence, an absolute lack of sex drive, or the body “betrayal” of saggy boobs? Like, ummmm all of us?!
And then I got to thinking about the other side of the coin.
Yeah, how about all that unsolicited recommendations that other Mother’s are always trying to dust off and pass out? outdated ideas like putting your baby down on their stomach to sleep (it works!), sneaking some rice cereal in the bottle (never tried it), or trying a dream feed to encourage longer sleeping… or feeding ideas like which bottle to use or how to make breastfeeding a lot more productive (fenugreek, constant pumping, single-side nursing, tandem nursing twins, join a support group (YES)).
So, isn’t that people trying to tell us all that stuff? Discuss.
I tend to think that the only difference between the recommendations used and the recommendations desired is timing. exact to-the-second when-I-want-to-know-it timing.