New moms: C is not for Comparison
I stared at the long cloth before me, confused and angry. In my non-sleep delirium, I couldn’t piece together how to get it on. I irrationally wanted to rip it to pieces, because this thing was not intuitive. The books and the other moms told me to wear her as often as I could. Babies like heartbeats. It’ll keep her from getting a flat head. It took 4 YouTube views to finally figure it out. At three weeks of my daughter’s life, I wasn’t wearing my daughter enough. What a statement. I took it so seriously that I just had to wear her constantly in order for her to grow to be a healthy and successful human being. Now, years later as she runs around singing fragments of songs from Frozen and builds elaborate houses out of Legos for Pikachu, I see it doesn’t matter that I didn’t wear her 8 hours a day or even every day. I wish I could go back and offer myself some compassion.
It’s common for new moms to feel stress and anxiety over both simple and complex tasks as they learn how to live with a dependent baby. All while sleep-deprived. Many feel they are failing their children when they start to compare themselves to other moms and social media images. Perhaps I’ve watched too much Sesame Street lately, but the letter of the day is C. For Compassion, not comparison.
The best gifts you can give your newborn is to take care of yourself as best you can and to stop comparing yourself to all the other moms. It’s not selfish to get sunshine, rest, a proper meal, hydration, a haircut, and time to connect with other adults. As far as cutting yourself some slack as you learn how to be a mom, think of someone who encouraged you and helped you overcome another difficult challenge in your life. Speak to yourself as they would (so long as they were kind of course. You don’t need the coach who made the whole team run laps when you struck out to be your inner voice.) Speak to yourself like you would a friend. You are not a failure if you can’t wrap your baby up like a little koala. Chances are if you’re reading this post and thinking about giving yourself space to be heard and to connect, you’re already putting in the effort to be a wonderful mother. Now go treat yourself to an Autumn Moon Latte and watch some Gilmore Girls.
