A Beginner’s Guide to Motherhood – ignoring all that the NCT and Parentcraft classes will tell you!
I have been a mother for a whole eight weeks as I write this, therefore I feel that I am expert enough to educate anyone else in matters of motherhood
Although I was told many things by many people, I still maintain that nothing can prepare you for the horrors that the first two weeks of being a parent brings! That’s not to say that a baby isn’t wonderful – it is, and nothing can beat the feeling of looking down at your child and thinking, Blimey, I made that and grew it and look at it now! – but it’s also awful, and the awfulness of it seems to fade fairly fast for most people. Nobody will remember to tell you how bloody hard it is.
So, the first thing to remember is this: It is normal to feel so tired that you suspect you might drop down dead from exhaustion. Your body has gone through a major trauma and if it wasn’t through childbirth, the chances are you’d be told to stay in bed for three weeks to recover from it! But this is nature’s and society’s way – to exhaust you further by making you get up in the night and run yourself ragged. Don’t feel bad if you are constantly dropping on your feet!
Next, you will not be so overwhelmed with love that you don’t get frustrated. I was really worried that I was a bad mother initially – I felt so much love for my boy, and was therefore a little concerned about my urges to throw him out of the nearest window when he carried on. This was until my mum assured me that she nearly threw both myself and my brother out of various windows in the North West of England, and I defy anyone to love their children more than my mum loves us!
Another important issue – your baby has not read The Contented Little Baby Book. He does not know that he is supposed to go for three hours in between each feed. If you are breastfeeding it will be a miracle if he does this. The woman who wrote that book is clearly bonkers, although I have heard that it works if you start a routine a little further on than the one week that she suggests. Encourage Baby to lie on his mat and kick while you eat tea, toast and cereal? Try: Encourage Baby to lie across your lap wailing while you stare longingly at your rapidly cooling toast.
Toys suitable ‘from birth’ can’t actually be played with by your baby – it merely means that your baby cannot eat them and do himself a damage. Expect a few weeks of rattling things and hoping they will respond before they show a blind bit of interest in anything you’ve got for them. Give them a play gym or a cheap plastic mat to lie on, and they will choose the plastic mat every time.
All babies cry. Even happy ones. I thought I was doing something wrong until I worked that one out.
Breastfeeding: yes, it is a wonderful bonding experience and also good for your baby but it is bloody hard work. Babies are born knowing how to suck but it takes a while for them to learn how to feed. On the third day, they’ll tell you that your boobs go hard and sore. They won’t tell you that as your milk comes in, your baby will feed more or less constantly. This is, apparently, normal. Be prepared to want to throttle the smug bottle feeding mum opposite you whose baby does nothing but feed every three hours, and sleep, while you wrestle with your struggling hungry bundle! I’m sticking with the feeding but it has its up and downs – at eight weeks I still have problems when George will not feed for more than a few minutes. It’s not all smiling fondly as Baby suckles merrily away!
I sound very negative, but I can’t sell motherhood enough – it’s the most amazing feeling ever and now that my angel has finally gone to sleep after three hours of feeding, trapped wind, and weeping, I can catagorically state that I love him more than anything, ever. But I wish somebody had told me that I would feel like a frustrated failure in those first two weeks and that everyone feels like that – it pays to be prepared!
A beginner's guide to being a mum!
Teresa and Paul - 2nd October 2004 
& Andy 
but when we do I will try to take on this advice-it seems like a real honest and realistic approach.
to Groovy!
William Robert born 21st Dec06
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