A new identity

Before Laura became a part of my life, there were many things that made up my identity. I was a career woman, a wife, a friend, a daughter, a sister. I loved fashion, fine dining, Sunday brunches, drinks with the girls, curling up on the couch with a good book, travelling, lazing on the beach, and nutting out a problem while running.

When I was pregnant, I had to put some of these things on hold. A glass of bubbly was replaced by a glass of the non-alcoholic variety. I stopped running as soon as my growing tummy started bouncing uncomfortably along in front of me. My husband and I took a trip to the beach a couple of weeks before my due date, but I was too self-conscious to want to do anything other than take a short stroll. And as for fashion … let’s just say that I spent the better part of nine months feeling like I wasn’t me. (Mind you, this wasn’t from lack of trying — I searched maternity shops all over Brisbane to no avail.)

Now that Laura is here, other things have taken a backseat. My attention span is currently almost as short as my daughter’s: the best I can manage is to read a magazine article — over two sittings. Meals involve my husband and me taking turns to inhale our food while the other entertains our little one. And lazing on the beach is still a thing of the past, but for different reasons: sun is not good for a baby, and what parent has time to laze away an afternoon?

As these parts of my identity were shelved, a new one emerged: I am a mum. My daughter’s needs come first. I constantly worry about her — is she too hot, is she too cold, am I facilitating her development, why is she crying, why haven’t I heard a peep from her? I prepare for her upcoming milestones (like moving her from the bassinet into the cot and introducing solids) and I schedule her vaccinations and Baby Clinic visits. Where I used to enjoy putting together an outfit, hairstyle and make-up for the day, I’m now happy if I’m dressed and my hair is brushed before she wakes up. And yes, she is my main topic of conversation, despite thinking that would never happen to me. No smile, gurgle, sneeze or movement is too small an achievement to tell someone about!

I love my new role, but I am a big believer in balance. And I liked who I was in my pre-mum days. I need to continue to enjoy the things I used to before parenthood. (Although I have accepted that some activities are a thing of the past until she’s much older, like sleeping in on Sundays.) So, how do you incorporate motherhood into your self, without losing who you are?

A piece of advice I was given before our family became a threesome was to teach our child to fit into our lives, rather than the other way around. Thankfully, Laura can be very adaptable (that’s not to say she isn’t a tad stubborn at times; she does take after her mother). She enjoys travelling in the car (the furthest we’ve tried is two hours), which means we’ve been able to get out of the city on day trips. Now that she can grab and hold her toys, she can amuse herself long enough for my husband and me to have almost-leisurely brunches … most days. She’s even learned to sit contentedly in her pram while I push it (and her) on my afternoon runs.

Of course, we’ve also happily adapted our lives for her. I am extremely lucky to have friends who will have a girls’ night in with me, or who have children of their own and so think nothing of a noisy, distracted coffee date that can end quite abruptly. I don’t mind organising my day around her feed and sleep schedule. I honestly enjoy ‘date night’ dinners at home. As a girlfriend and mum of three said, ‘I don’t need to go out for a date night, I just want some time where my husband and I can connect as a couple.’

That’s not to say that occasionally stepping out sans baby isn’t necessary in order to achieve balance. My husband and I were recently given the opportunity to go out for dinner, thanks to a babysitting offer from Laura’s grandparents. I’ve also caught a movie at the cinema with a girlfriend, for which I’ll admit I was most excited about wearing a chunky necklace that simply isn’t practical when you have a little one who grabs at and puts everything in her mouth. Interestingly, as much as I needed the ‘mummy’ and ‘mummy and daddy’ time, I found I couldn’t switch out of maternal mode — I missed her terribly and had to resist phoning and checking up on her.

The way I see it is that I will always be some of the things I was before I met Laura — wife, friend, daughter and sister — although perhaps a more distracted version. I will continue to be a career woman (feeling apprehensive about leaving her when I return to work will likely be the subject of a future blog entry). I am myself again when it comes to dressing up, and much to my husband’s amusement my personal style now encompasses my daughter. Eventually girls’ nights, travelling and beach getaways will become part of everyday life again, and some of these things will be enriched because they’ll no longer involve just my husband and me.

And now my identity includes being a mother, and all that comes with it. I will happily swap a sleep-in for her kisses and a good book for her first step because Laura is my best achievement. You see, I haven’t lost myself; there are just more things that make me who I am.

There are no silly questions

As a new mum, I want to ask a thousand questions every day. But what if they’re not about the usual parenting challenges, like how to grab some all important ‘mummy time’ when your baby feeds every two hours, how you’ll string a coherent sentence together when you’ve been up nursing at all hours of the night, or how to get your baby to sleep without rocking and singing to her until she nods off?

What if you have a baby who has given her mum at least four hours between feeds since birth? A baby who started sleeping seven hours during the night when she was two months old, and who before that would wake up to feed only once during the nocturnal hours since six weeks of age? A baby who has been self-soothing since she was two-and-a-half months old?

And what if you’re also one of those lucky mums who have a very hands-on husband, a husband who dearly loves his little girl and wants to be as involved as possible? Who encourages you to go have a pedicure and get your hair done while he looks after his daughter, and tries to assuage your feelings of guilt about needing to have some time without your little one attached to you?

As one of these mums, I’m finding it tricky to talk to friends, family and even healthcare professionals about the ups and downs and steep learning curve of being a new parent. When I start to say, ‘My ten-week-old daughter was sleeping for seven hours at night, but lately she’s been waking again at 4 am. She goes back to sleep after a nappy change, but I’m so tired! What can I do?’ it sounds thin to my ears ­— I’d hate to think what it sounds like to others whose early parenting experiences weren’t as smooth as mine. I imagine it’d be something like, ‘What’s she complaining about? She doesn’t realise how easy she’s got it!’ As a couple of well-meaning nurses have said, ‘Don’t mention to the other mums in your mothers group that your baby is sleeping through — most of them will have concerns about getting their baby to sleep in the first place!’

Establishing a sleep routine was a big challenge for us — it took consultation of many resources, much self-doubt, a lot of forward planning and timing, and many tears (from mum) to get to where we are today. To my husband and me it felt like hard work, and on those days when the routine fell apart despite lining feeds, sleeps and play time up perfectly, I felt defeated and the goal seemed impossible. But was it realistic to expect to find guidance, let alone a sympathetic ear, when it took her a mere eight weeks to learn to consistently sleep through the night?

One of my husband’s colleagues and his wife had their first baby a few weeks after we did. His wife and I had similar pregnancies, and I was looking forward to sharing information with her when we both had our little ones. Then my husband came home with the news that their daughter wakes and feeds every two hours. Not wanting to be seen as rubbing my good fortune in her face, I haven’t yet struck up the courage to ask her if my little one’s newest development is something she’s familiar with. (I must admit that we never asked her if she was happy to get up to her little one as much as she is, as I know many mums are. I just assumed she wouldn’t want to hear about me and mine.)

I didn’t think too much about how to parent and teach a newborn until my little bundle of joy arrived. Then, someone asked me if I’d started establishing a routine. Realising I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, I absorbed as much information as I could get my hands on, from midwives and doctors, from friends and family, and from websites such as Baby Centre and the Australian Breastfeeding Association. Interestingly, our daughter has responded on cue to what is suggested for the usual concerns, and in some instances appears to have skipped a month or so of learning and exploration and gone straight to the next milestone. While this has obvious benefits, it also means a bit of confusion, like should we consult the one-to-three-months developmental information, or start to look at what is written for three to six months?

Cases in point: our beautiful daughter’s neck muscles have always been strong (I swear she was holding her head up in the hospital). She began focusing early — we have a great photo of her intently examining her grandma’s face when she was just two weeks old. At three months of age she grabs objects in front of her and puts them in her mouth. As a result, she prefers looking at the world around her and being in the midst of the action to sitting and sleeping in her pram. While I am so proud of her development, there are times such as when I’m carrying her in one arm while negotiating her pram up an escalator in a crowded shopping centre with the other that I can’t help but lament, ‘How do you get a baby who is beyond her months to sit happily in her pram for more than five minutes?’

The best advice about parenting that I’ve been given so far is to trust my instincts. Even so, when everything is new and you’re in the middle of it all, you have doubts and questions. Because our little one sleeps so well, she has hardly ever fed more than six times in a 24-hour period (including during growth spurts), and as she’s gotten older there are days when she’ll want as little as four feeds. Even though she is happy, healthy, strong and, most importantly, gaining weight, we wondered if she was getting enough to eat, especially as everything we read says little babies generally feed between eight and 12 times a day. To add confusion, we were told that she needed to feed at least six times a day, and that we could wake her up to get more feeds in (a big ‘no’ in some schools of thought). All this accomplished was a grumpy, tired baby who refused to feed because she wasn’t hungry. Eventually my husband and I decided to let her do what she wanted to do, confident (from experience) that she’d tell us if she wanted more to eat.

New mums are encouraged to talk about their experiences and ask questions. There’s a lot of information out there for us, and a lot of people we can ask questions of. The not-so-easy part is finding the best resource for each question, especially when the question is along the lines of, ‘Would it work if we started teaching our three-month-old to sleep from 7 at night to 7 in the morning?’ (to her credit, our Baby Clinic nurse kept a straight face when she answered that one). Sometimes our friends and family didn’t have the same experience, and the books and websites we know about don’t have the answers. Sometimes trusted sources give conflicting advice. And sometimes we just want to be sensitive to other mums’ experiences.

For the first three months I oscillated between being too embarrassed to ask questions, and confused by the answers I got when I did. I’ve now learnt to take bits of advice and information from a few sources and mash them together into something that works for me. I’ve learnt to listen to my little girl — is she happy, healthy, learning and growing? Then she’s fine. And I’ve learnt to be brave and keep asking the questions, no matter how insane they sound, because someone else must have experienced the same thing too!