With our fifth daughter literally on the heels in the tenth month of pregnancy, I wonder what things that I know now I wish I had known when I had my first baby. I remember the unlikely conversations that during our first pregnancy we had the father of the child and me.
Conversations as far from reality as when I struggled to discuss whether it would be better to take it at snack time or after eating and how we would square that with some good anchovies in a pleasant terrace. In my first version I had to think that babies were programmable and predictable gadgets.
Then came the First and he had no choice but to dismantle all the myths that my runaway estrogens had had to make. I remember living my first motherhood with surprise, everything was so new and so unexpected that I had the feeling of floating in a parallel reality. They were great months in which I really enjoyed our girl, but the experience is a grade and I would have liked to know then some things that I now know.
Everything happens
One of the most curious transformations that one suffers with the arrival of a baby is the perception of time and, above all, of the lasting or established. It is not uncommon to hear parents say things like that the baby is a saint, who sleeps at the pull and only sleeps and eats. It is possible that the baby in question does not have more than 24 hours and that all those behaviors that we give as definitive features of his character have no more than a few hours of life and can change radically in the next five minutes.
This blind faith in the routines we have just acquired gives us confidence but can turn against us if what we are talking about is that the baby does not stop crying, does not sleep or has gas. The bad thing we also believe will be eternal and for a brain with lack of sleep it may seem an insurmountable obstacle.
The most important thing that every experienced mother learns is that everything happens. Much faster than we can imagine. This helps us to live the cries and the bad nights with the tranquility that lets us know that there is no harm that lasts a hundred years. When you have several creatures bellowing in your ear for reasons of various kinds, this wisdom pill is essential to maintain sanity.
The dream that heals everything
It is not uncommon to meet a first-time mother who has a llantina, who has not cried in the puerperium that throws the first stone. Some say it is hormonal and others call it baby blues even reaching postpartum depression, but I have a clear theory, if a mother cries it is because she is tired.
Exhaustion can be physical, mental or emotional and crying can be caused by the most varied reasons. From a door that does not close well, a baby who does not sleep or a badly seasoned chicken wing. It does not matter, any of these incidents is the drop that fills the glass of an exhausted woman who needs rest, silence and, if possible, sleep. The dream heals everything.
The good news is also that in this phase of our life we don't need eight hours to recover. Maybe an hour of silence and peace is enough to recover and with three or four hours of uninterrupted sleep we are reborn from our ashes like a phoenix.
The rush is not good counselors
Another curious syndrome that usually attacks new mothers is the inability to dominate their own time. It is not uncommon for him to give us time to eat in a dressing gown and without combing our hair without understanding how well we have done all morning.
Trying to subject a new mother to a schedule, whatever it is, is useless as well as counterproductive. A first-time mother can intuit when she will leave home but never know for sure.
It is convenient to accept this uncertainty as such and assume that, although we had agreed to leave the house at eleven o'clock, if the child starts crying at ten to eleven it is best to forget the appointment, feed him quietly and be late. No more Let's leave the Germanic punctuality for when we have more caught the trick to our new life.
The perfect is an enemy of the good
And in question of mothers it is not worth it. It is possible that if the baby has had a placid entry into the world and has given us a relaxed first few days, an excess of enthusiasm will lead us to believe we are superhuman capable of feats such as washing and drying our hair with a hair dryer, having the house as a whistle, hide the gut off the hook with a sash that does not let us breathe or get into a pre pregnancy jeans. It does not compensate. Believe me. The harder the fall will be.
If one is in a movie theater after delivery, the best thing to do is hide it and enjoy that well-being by reading a book on the couch with your baby and accepting any help even if you don't need it. You may have extra strength today but there will be days when you are missing, stock up while you can. There are no medals of honor for heroic mothers.
Nobody expects you to have your body before, or that you are able to manage a multinational while breastfeeding your newborn. If you do not have time to cook, comb or read a light novel, nothing happens, it happens in the best families, and for your baby there is no one better than you with your dark circles, your loose meats and your changing moods.
Everything returns
Although free time seems to lie, routines and even your body - or something very similar to it - always end up sneaking back into your life. You will feel owner and mistress of yourself again. Unless you have an unavoidable date to parade in underwear, do not hurry to look great again, a baby in your arms is the perfect shield to hide the rebel michelines for a while. With some simple postpartum care you will get it without stress.
No mother, no matter how much experience she accumulates, is immune to the hardships, tiredness and llantines of the puerperium but the perspective of what has already been lived helps us to know that it is normal, that it has nothing wrong and that everything happens. These are the things that I wish I had known when I had my first baby.
Photos | Don't make me think on Flickr In Babies and more | First time, what clothes are most suitable for a newborn ?, What to buy for the arrival of your baby
