Being a mom
Why does it feel like everyone has an opinion about how I should raise my baby? And why does it always seem like, no matter what I choose, I’m somehow doing something wrong?
I practice safe co-sleeping with my baby. I love breastfeeding him to sleep, and no, he doesn’t sleep through the night. I completely understand that doctors have a responsibility to give parents medical information and explain safety recommendations. I want that information, and I value it. What is difficult is when it feels like the conversation goes beyond providing information and becomes judgment about the choices I make as his mother. I’ve even had doctors look at me with what felt like obvious disapproval.
Then there are the opinions from family. According to my MIL, I hold my baby too much and don’t allow him to be independent. But I watch him crawl, explore, play, and become more curious about the world every day. And yes, while he’s doing all of that, he still comes back to me and asks to be held. I don’t see anything wrong with that.
My MIL has repeatedly told me that I need to let everyone in the family hold him so that he can become more social. There was even an occasion when she physically stopped me from touching my own baby because she thought my smell would wake him up. Moments like that make me feel as though everyone else believes they have a say over my baby, while somehow my own wishes as his mother matter less.
I’m exhausted from constantly hearing about everything I’m supposedly doing wrong.
I genuinely love being with my baby. I enjoy him every single day, even on the difficult days. Yet people constantly tell me that I “need a break.” Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like they’re offering to help me. It feels like they’ve decided for me that I need to be separated from my baby, and that they should be able to take him somewhere without me because I’m apparently too attached or “obsessed” with him.
What makes all of this harder is everything we went through together.
My baby was born at 27 weeks. I spent eight weeks in the NICU, and so much of that experience was incredibly lonely. During those eight weeks, my MIL visited once, and during that visit she told me that spending so much time at the hospital could negatively affect my relationship with her son.
Meanwhile, that hospital, the place where my tiny baby was fighting to grow and come home, was sometimes the place where I felt the least alone. There were nurses and doctors there who listened to me, talked to me, and made me feel understood in ways I wasn’t always feeling outside of the hospital.
Maybe that experience is part of why I treasure being close to my baby so much now. I know how it feels to leave the hospital without him. I know how it feels to have to ask permission to hold him, to watch other people care for him, and to go home without my baby in my arms.
Now he’s here. He crawls. He explores. He smiles, plays, learns, and grows. And when he wants his mom, I want to be there.
I’m not saying I know everything. I’m not saying I’ll never make mistakes. And I’m not saying that I don’t want advice, especially when it comes to his health and safety.
I’m just tired of feeling like loving my baby, responding to him, holding him, breastfeeding him, and wanting to be with him are things I constantly have to defend.
I just want to know that I’m not the only mother who feels this way, and that choosing closeness with my baby doesn’t mean I’m doing something wrong.