u/StrawberryMilk_1228

It feels so awful and guilt inducing to say but it’s true.

The preparation is an agonizing game of roulette, will he eat as much as a grown man and I will have prepared too little? Or will he have one taste and decide that the mere essence of the food has filled his stomach? Am I neglectful if I prepare peanut butter toast for the second time today? Or am I neglectful if I prepare a healthy meal with new foods to try and he ends up eating nothing? Perhaps both are true.

“It’s best to eat your meals with the baby so he feels included and can watch you eat too.“ Okay well now I’m hangry and he’s flipping out because he’s already finished an entire banana in 10 seconds flat and like a wild animal in a cage is ready to be released.

He doesn’t like purées so we’re baby led weaning, so every time I feed him the food ends up everywhere. On his face, on his clothes, on the table, on the floor, in every nook and cranny of his expensive modular wooden high chair. He runs his saucy fingers through his hair while eating, like some kind of cursed hair gel. If I wipe his fingers or face the experience is equivalent to having his skin peeled off with the baby version of someone being tortured screaming “no no no!”

The aftermath is no joke either. Perhaps I have to change his clothes, perhaps he pooped himself while eating, for sure I have to brush his teeth. What? You don’t want to brush his teeth? Well now he will get cavities in his baby teeth and his mouth will be destroyed for life. Oh, how he loves his toothbrush. If I dare to take it away I am met once again with screams of agony.

Okay, the ordeal is over. I’m filled with guilt over what he did or didn’t eat, it’s now time for me to sit on his play-mat while he plays and stew in my remorse, unmet self-expectations, and my own still-empty stomach. What’s that? He’s crawling at the speed of a freight train towards a piece of discarded food next to his high chair that his careless, neglectful mother didn’t pick up after he threw it there. Once disgusting, now that it’s on the floor it’s a delicacy. If I take it away, the screaming returns. If I let him eat it I’m plunged deeper into the depths of guilt and self-hatred. What mother allows her child to eat cat-fur covered, mushed up, floor crumbs? Me, I guess.

Well, luckily I get to do it all over again two more times, and then the next day. And the next day. And the next day…

“Your husband must be much more tired and stressed than you since he has an hour commute to work each way. I know I’d rather just sit at home with a baby than do that.”

ok. yes. definitely. sure.

“Why don’t you just put the baby in daycare?”

ah yes, silly me, why didn’t I think of that?

”Moms really should think about quitting their jobs so they can stay at home with the baby, the baby really needs their mom the first few years.”

my man, what does it look like I’m busting my a** to do here? should I quit and make my family move states because we can’t afford the cost of living here without my job?

”oh. you have to pump again?”

yes. it’s my hobby. I do it to inconvenience you specifically.

after telling them I planned to put my baby into a daycare in a few months: “I’ve been telling you that you should do that.”

if only I had listened to you, I really didn’t even know daycares existed until just a few days ago!

and a different person: “I mean if the baby is at daycare all day then they’re basically not even your child anymore because they’ll spend more time with the daycare workers than with you.”

that makes me feel great about this already difficult choice, thank you so much for your feedback.

please share yours, trying to laugh instead of cry