Trust in your parenting skills - remember you rock!

I remember the first night (and only) night that I spent alone in hospital with my baby. My husband had gone home to sleep after a 17 hour labor and I was left by myself with this tiny new fragile life, with absolutely no idea how to comfort, soothe or otherwise keep it quiet!!

After sleeping right through that day, my baby decided at about 10:00pm that he would wake up and scream down the maternity ward. I remember feeling so vulnerable and so embarrassed that I couldn’t soothe my screaming baby… I was his mother after all. My baby’s screaming was waking the other mother and baby in our room and this just added to the pressure. I stood with my baby, pacing the small area around my bed trying to calm my little one back to sleep. It was then that I really thought to myself, that you don’t get a manual. Nothing can prepare you for how to parent this tiny life. I had absolutely no idea what to do.

The icing on the cake came when one of the nurses came into my room and asked “Do you want me to take your baby to the nurse’s station so I can calm him down and you can get some sleep?” I was absolutely devastated. I felt then, only a few hours after his birth, that I couldn’t parent my own child. Even though, I see in hindsight now that she only wanted me to get some sleep, I hated her at the time. She made me feel so incapable.

The next day I told my husband I wouldn’t stay there another night and asked the hospital for an early release. It was the best thing I did. As soon as I got home I started to relax. I felt like I could parent my child the way I wanted to, without any judgment of hospital staff or other mothers residing in the hospital.

After a while though, I sat back and realized that the staff at the hospital weren’t judging me. I was judging myself. Trying to soothe a newborn with absolutely no experience is the hardest thing in the world. And I was expecting myself to be an expert from the outset. I didn’t give myself a break. I thought I had to know it all right then and there. I thought I should know it all right then and there. I was so paranoid about what others would think of me that I couldn’t relax.

I really want to urge all new parents out there to not put too much pressure on yourself. Your baby doesn’t come with an instruction manual but trust your instincts - they are right!! You can look after your child better than anyone else and better than any ‘expert’ says - because that child is yours! Please don’t think that you have to know it all straight away… you don’t. And please do not worry about what anyone says. People are so quick to dish out advice to new parents when they really should just be quiet. You have enough to worry about without having to figure out which is the best way (of the seven ways you have been told) to settle your baby.  Even if you make mistakes, remember you rock! Your the best caregiver that your child can have. Besides, your baby won’t know that you’re new to parenting. Enjoy.

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