Mothering Our Little Rainbow

Our Little Rainbow, X was born on 8 January 2009.

Like the name suggests, she is full of life and colours. Red is when she’s frustrated and angry, yellow when she is agreeable, orange when she is happy and cheerful, blue when she is peacefully sleeping, green when she is contented, purple when she is moody and grumpy.

Our plan was for me to take 6 months off from work, in addition to my 2 months maternity leave, to take care of X. This would give me a chance to evaluate if I would like to be a full-time stay at home mom. To be honest, I was a little tired of working, although I have only worked 10 years, my work involves many late nights and travel, something I could not imagine doing while struggling with a new baby and sleep deprivation.

To my surprise, taking care of my baby has been a real challenge for me. Although there are rewards, such as her smiles and gurgles, more often I feel really frustrated when struggling with her crying, crankiness and trying to make her take naps.

Mothering is also unchartered waters for me, I was not realistically prepared. I did not anticipate the 5 Cs.

Crying – Boy is there a lot of crying involved. And my little one is not shy about crying. I am not talking about soft cries, I am talking about top of her lungs, all out screaming with her eyes squeezed shut with tears running down her face, mucousy nose and breathing, mouth wide open, coarse voice, red face and body…you get the idea. And X is not the only one crying, I seem to cry quite a lot too. For the first 4 months, I seem to cry several times each week especially when she is on a crying marathon…if this doesn’t stop soon, I’d know where my crybaby baby got her genes from…her crybaby mommy!

Chaos – Taking care of a baby is totally chaotic. You can be on the move from 7am to 9pm and feel like you have not accomplished a single thing, not even taking your own bath. Young babies do not understand object permanence (they do not know that mommy still exists even when they can’t see her). So I either have to do things with her, or run back and forth like a headless chicken between her and the chore so she doesn’t cry too much, and getting what I need done in stages!

Confusion – There are many parenting philosophies out there – demand feeding, attachment parenting, cry it out, parent directed scheduling, baby led scheduling, combination scheduling…and the list just goes on. Google it, I dare you to. For a new parent, all these are confusing, which one is the best way for the baby? The best way that would lead to less crying and more sleep? Would letting her breastfeed to sleep now, in order to make her take longer naps come back to bite me in my ass when I eventually try to get her to sleep some other way? Would she be able to go to sleep without me if we eventually send her to a babysitter if I go back to work?

Conflict – Especially for a first time mum, I second guess what I do, over and over and over again. Especially after talking to some supermums, with perfect babies that sleep through the night from 4 weeks and take lovely 2 hour naps a couple of times a day, babies who do not cry and are happy cheerful most of the time, I question myself, what is it that I have done, or not done that makes X not as easy to care for as their babies? If I’m such a sucky mother, would she be better off with a patient babysitter to take care of her during the day? This leads to huge conflict within myself, and I’m not much closer to resolving the conflict.

Craziness – In me, that is. Sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy and not myself at all. All of the Cs above contribute to this.

Of course there is also joy involved while taking care of X – her first coo, gurgle, smile and laugh. The first time she turned over from tummy to back (more on this later, I actually missed the first time she did it). Over the months, it has become easier, and I hope it keeps getting easier and more rewarding. This is why I have started this blog, to remind myself what discovering life with X is like, the bad and the wonderful, in case I forget later on, due to sleep deprivation and sheer exhaustion!