It’s been 11 years since my first child was born. 11 years since the first wave of ‘mummy’ anxiety came over me. I had no idea what I was doing. I had never changed a nappy in my life, babysitting was listed under my ‘jobs from hell’ category, and I wasn’t so much the ‘aww-your -baby-is-so-cute-can-I-hold-him?’ type. To make things harder, my daughter refused to take a bottle or dummy and the only thing that would soothe her was being breastfed. Even if she weren’t hungry, she would scream her little tush-face lungs out till I put her on me. Around a few weeks after she was born, I was on a bus with her completely riddled with anxiety in case she started crying as I still hadn’t gotten the hang of feeding in public yet.
…… and then she started crying.
The shaky hands and sweaty palms started, along with the thoughts of ‘what if people think I am a bad mum - I can’t even pacify my baby!’
My mind started racing begging her to stop crying, patting her, rocking her. Futility, I attempted to give her a dummy which only made her scream louder.
I wanted to break down and cry wishing the bus would reach my stop faster.
‘What would people think??’‘ I can’t let people know how I’m feeling!’ What lasted only 10 minutes felt like 10 hours.
If I could go back and talk to the Talie that day I would tell her that she is doing a wonderful job, that babies cry - that is what they do! Everyone here has heard a baby cry before - half the people here have probably been in some similar situation and the other half have probably zoned out. And even if they would judge you, it is their issue, not yours. I would tell her to filter everyone out and do what needed to be done. And then I would teach her how to breastfeed in public using only one arm.
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