Hey mama did you get up last night? Was it one time, three times, twenty times? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. I was up too.
I know how tired you are, mama, because you are just like me. Your eyes are heavy, your stomach feels sick, and your body aches. You don’t know how you’re going to get through the day and neither do I. Yet we somehow manage to do it. We look at our babies and think why? Why can’t you just sleep?
The problem is our society tells us that our babies should be sleeping peacefully all the time. If they are not, then there’s something wrong and we need to do something about it. But what society fails to recognize is that there was never a time until now that we expected our babies to do this. Modern society believes babies should come into the world and make very little noise, learn to self soothe, breastfeed only in intervals, and sleep through the night.
What they fail to recognize is that our babies just spent nine blissful cozy months in our womb. They come out wanting nothing more than our touch and comfort. They need to be close, feel our warmth, hear our heartbeat, and be on our breast.
What babies don’t need is to be wrapped up in the newest swaddle, placed in the best bassinet, and left to figure out this new world on their own. If we focused more on how biologically normal our baby’s wakings are, how they have a constant desire to breastfeed, and how they yearn for touch, we would have a lot of less mamas wondering if something is wrong with their baby. We need to teach mamas to expect less from their babies. If your baby won’t sleep unless you hold them and breastfeed them 24/7- and cries as soon as you put them down- congratulations, you have a normal baby! Nursing a newborn is difficult and tiring (oh mama it is hard!), and it’s okay to lose your mind, but don’t think for a second that your baby isn’t normal. I promise you mama you will sleep again. It might not be tomorrow or even in the next couple of months. But just know you’re not alone and there are many mamas up at 3 a.m. yawning just like you.
**This story was written by Melissa Ostroth of Milkitivity. Follow her journey on Facebook and Instagram.
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