If I Could Tell A New Mom One Thing

If I could tell a new mom one thing, it would be to trust yourself.

I carry guilt. For the ten times I am patient, I carry the one time I yell. For the ten times I play superheroes, I carry the one time I brush them off.

I carry these for a moment. On a particularly bad day, I carry them for hours.

But what keeps me up at night is not these moments.

Even the day when I thought I would hit my children because I was so tired and angry and lonely. I don’t carry that day because I walked away from the crib or the room or the car.

And walking away takes fortitude. Courage. Strength.

No, what keeps me up at night are the moments I took someone else’s advice.

Not a suggestion on how to make gluing paper easier or whether a 5-year-old can handle Star Wars. But those moments I thought: I am a bad mom. My kid won’t {sleep, eat, stop hitting, listen} and these other’s moms and experts know how and even they though what they suggest goes against ever parenting instinct I have, I will do it. Because I must suck not accomplishing these {sleeping, eating, stop hitting, listening} milestones that prove our worth as caregivers.

Like a child sleeping through the night is a badge for the Mom Scout sash. Like it  proves anything beyond luck and inborn temperament.

It doesn’t. No matter what a mom, a mom board, an article, a doctor or your husband tell you.

My kids eat great, don’t sleep well and are sweet as can be, but my son once punched me in the face.

I didn’t win anything for the triumphs, but I lost at the failures. Not because I should have lost or won, but because I believed I had more control than I do.  I believed these moms who had kids who slept were doing something right. Or more importantly, I believed they were proof that I was doing something wrong.

At night, I lay there thinking of my son crying in his room because I was told that he needed to cry in his room at night. Or when he hit. Because I thought his crying and not sleeping and emotional-ness were my fault.  And so did most people.

And some part of me knew that most people felt this way. So I gave in. Even though my son would just cry harder.  Even though it didn’t help. Even though I sat in my basement and cried, too.

It’s not about whether he had gone to sleep after crying for ten minutes or cried for an hour. My guilt is about not ever wanting to let him cry like that. But doing  it anyway.

And I always knew it wouldn’t work. He’s my son. She’s my daughter. I know them. Not perfectly. But I know enough to know when some well-meaning or well-tested advice is not for them.

But sleep-deprived and sad, I had no backbone.

Today, I know the only time my son should be crying in his room is when I’m going to yell or hit him if I don’t leave. And that isn’t often.

And my daughter figures I must not hear her when she’s crying if I don’t show up and she comes to find me. Even if she’s crying over losing a marker that she used to draw her portrait. On the wall. Repeatedly. She still follows me around crying. And I pick her up. Because my love is not conditional on her use of markers. Because not picking her up doesn’t change whether she draws on the wall. Because we all do things we shouldn’t have done and sometimes we do them twice before we stop.

So if I could tell a new mom one things, it would be to test every suggestion, every book, every well-meaning blog and article against your heart. Against how you want to be treated. Loved. Respected.

When I had my children, I birthed instinct and guilt along with them.

So did you.

Trust your instinct.

And may love win.

Tagged as: Children, courage, Crib, Crying, Eating, fortitude, Guilt, heart, moms, new mom, parenting, Parenting Gurus Should Be Taking Notes, parenting skills, Sad, Sleep, sleeping through the night, triumphs, Trust, You are a good mom