IT'S OKAY - Stuff I wish I was told about parenting

As a new mom, I am constantly questioning myself. Even now, at almost-16 months, there are times when I feel like I am walking around with a big question mark on my forehead.

When little P has been crying for a long time, I fail to zero down on why he's crying. I try every trick in the trade to calm him, cajole him, talk to him, hell, even distract him. But, nothing works, and I am back to thinking, "I am a useless mom for not being able to get my child to stop crying!"

There are many a times I feel like I have been cheated upon, short changed, even. I feel like I wish I was told a lot of things about pregnancy and parenting. The real deal, you know? Not the stuff about sleepless nights and constant pee and poo.

Those things, everyone knows. But how many actually know what it's like to be a parent. Of all the advice that you get, how much is actually useful and makes sense?

1) I wish I was told that it's OKAY to have an abnormal pregnancy. I felt so judged when I was pregnant and having a tough time with the constant complications that arose. Everybody thought I was having a gala time staying at home and laid up in bed all day. Some even went to the extent of saying I was getting really fat because I was laid up all day and that I would have a really fat baby. Really?! Is that what you would say to someone who was sick and bed ridden? Then why differentiate just because I am pregnant?

2) It's okay to have a caeserean. What is it with women who gave birth the way nature intended us to? Why do they feel they have the right to judge those who delivered via "assisted childbirth"? I went through the whole shebang of labour and the pushing stage. But nothing came out. I felt cheated at that point. But, the intention was to have a safe delivery, my ego be damned.

How would you feel, if you sat on the pot for 5 hours and pushed that whole time, knowing that there was something inside that was dying to come out, yet it never did? Now, multiply that pain a million, heck, even a trillion times, and imagine that you are pooping a football from your frontal "stuff", and not the posterior!

Painful, much?! 

3) It's also okay to be in pain for a while. Or, in my case, a really long time. I took 6 whole months to recover completely. I only started walking at normal pace at around 4 months, I was in so much pain. I got myself checked, but there was nothing wrong. Yet, I was in pain.

And, so, I had to delay a lot of things that I could have started doing earlier. Like exercise. Or household chores.

But, all I got was judgmental responses. " Oh, c'mon! Nobody ever has so much pain!" You are making it up, it's not possible!"

Fine, I made it up, okay? Because I wanted to delay the process of losing weight. Right?! What a dumbass! Who in their right mind would make up such stuff?!

Which leads me to:

4) It's okay to be fat for a while. It really is. Good on you for having lost all your pregnancy weight as soon as your baby popped out! And look at those washboard abs of yours! I wish I could punch you, cuz it surely wouldn't hurt, right?! Steel abs, eh?!

What is it with fat women who think they can call others fat? Kettle calling griddle black?! Hypocritical much?!

I had this sooper fat woman tell me "IF YOU DON'T LOSE WEIGHT RIGHT AWAY, YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO LOSE IT!"

YES, JUST LIKE YOU, you pretentious judgemental cow!

5) I really really wish someone had told me that breastfeeding is bloody hard work. Just to make it work is so difficult. It is such an emotional roller coaster!

Nobody ever tells you how tough it is. or how painful! Those who breastfed say some stupid condescending stuff, and those who didn't, they think formula is the answer to everything and whatever you are doing is absolutely wrong and breastfed babies are forever hungry.

These formula champions could even feed you a bottle, they are so stubborn!

6) I also wish that someone had told me that it's okay if you have to give formula. It's not the end of the world. A baby needs its nourishment, and if formula is providing it for whatever reason, so be it!

Would I judge you if you always ate rice thrice a day, and I didn't?!

7) It's equally okay if someone doesn't want to breastfeed. For whatever reason. It's her choice. Let's not get on our high horses and judge her. If her child wants to come back 18 years later and sue her, that's her problem. Life doesn't end just because somebody you know isn't breastfeeding her baby.

8) The most I wish for is that if somebody had told me how emotional the early days are. In hindsight, I think I cried more than little P! The hormones, the lack of sleep, the pain of the operation, the inability to lay down and get back up without any help, all those debilitating things can really pull you down. You wish someone had told you that it's okay to let the emotions take over.

9) And when the baby gets his own personality, it's also okay to lose the plot at times. I always keep thinking I am becoming a certified nut case. There are days, when I am really really close to tears. And, then, there are some, when I've actually shed them. I wish someone had told me that it's okay to feel this way at times. It doesn't mean you are a bad mom. It just means you are human and have feelings and that it's healthy to express them and not bottle them up.

10) It's equally okay to sometimes let housekeeping on the back burner. In my case, it's ALWAYS ON THE BACK BURNER. Maybe because I am lazy, or had a ceaserean, or because I feel mental most days! Who cares?! I am certain my priorities are bang on, and I won't let anyone question that.

11) The baby - it's okay if your baby ISN'T LIKE HERS. OR HER SISTER'S. Or the other kids in the family. Be proud that your baby is different! Who wants a baby that came out of a mold meant for cupcakes?!

Again, I will admit that I have received a lot of judgy-pant comments about little P and his ways. A number of people I know too well have made random comments about his sleep. IT'S ALL MY FAULT, according to them.

An experienced aunty told me that all the babies in her family would sleep for 7 hours straight in the day?! HUH? DID YOU JUST MAKE THAT STUFF UP?!

What?! He eats adult food! tsk tsk! What?! He's never had food out of a mixer/grinder?! tsk tsk

Err, do you notice that he chews and doesn't gag even though yours still gags at the age of 3?! tsk tsk

I AM GAGGING!

12) More than anything else, I really really wish that someone that told me that it's perfectly normal and natural to "listen" to your baby. Babies are intelligent peeps, I tell ya! We undermine them just because we have a college degree, and they don't.

I am so glad I always allowed myself to be driven and led by little P and not try and concoct my own logic about what I "thought" he wants.

I got told to let him go between feeds for FOUR HOURS! Which self respecting baby would go hungry for 4 hours?! Not even formula-fed babies go that long!

Another intelligent soul told me to feed him only once he'd really started crying! Hold on, I thought there's only crying! I had no idea there were levels of crying, like really started is level 3! CRAZY!

I would make it a point to talk to these people, but it's so difficult to maintain eye contact with them, because they refuse to get off their moral high horse.

In the meantime, I am going to pretend I like to exercise, and that my child sleeps like a dream and that we all have food out of a mixer. Does that make you happy now?

Old McDonald had a farm! And on his farm, he had a COW!!!

I am sitting here trying to recall the initial days, but all that comes to mind is the feeding, or sometimes, the lack of it, in my case.

The only other thing(s) that come to mind are the constant peeing, little P's, NOT MINE! The poos, again, HIS.

I also recall being peed IN THE FACE, INTO THE MOUTH!

NOTE TO SELF: KEEP TRAP SHUT WHEN CHANGING THE DUDE'S NAPPY!

And. the sleeplessness. Oh man! I think I had gone into zombie territory!

Those who know me well would know that I am an emotional person when it comes to sleep. Lack of decent sleep makes me go bonkers. I could literally pull my own hair off and cry, I get that cranky, even at this age.

And the breastfeeding was taking its toll on my emotions. The biting was just getting too much. At one point, half my nipple came off, just like that. It was as if it decided, hey, let me see what happens when I hang off this cliff!!!

I was constantly doing a yo-yo between "I am stopping right this moment!", and "Let me feed him ONE LAST TIME!"

Come to think of it, I was sleepless because little P would just not sleep. The combination of lack of sleep and the feeding issues were taking a toll on him.

We were clueless. Breastfed babies typically thrive on mother's milk, but ours was like a one-in-a-million exception.

We had to radically up the formula, yet again, and this time, we started using bottles, because spoon feeding a screaming baby is an art that no one can master. More than 70 per cent of the milk goes waste!

This was a catch 22 situation, yet again. In less than 3 days' time, little P had developed what is known as nipple confusion. In simple terms, he had started preferring the fast pace at which milk was flowing from the bottle nipples, compared to breastfeeding, which required him to put in a lot of hard work!

Oh yeah! Babies are smart! They will, any given day, prefer something that requires them to do less hard work.

I was stumped. I just didn't know what to do. He simply refused to feed, all over again. I finally managed to spend some good monies this time, and bought an electric pump, which is typically far far better than a manual one.

I went online and found out some women who do what is known as "exclusively pumping". That is, they pump breast milk on a schedule that more or less resembles their baby's feeding pattern, and the baby is only fed expressed breast milk. 

This is the hardest thing to do. Imagine the horrors of cleaning and sterilising bottles, add to that the cleaning and sterilising the breast pump. Now, instead of directly feeding the baby, which gets easier as the baby grows, you put a pump to those breasts and sit for a scheduled time.

Here's the beauty: In the initial days, you HAVE TO DO THIS AS OFTEN AS YOUR BABY WOULD FEED! YES, that's right. One has to do this at least 8-10 times a day! And you have to pump once between 1-5am, because that's when you produce the most milk, based on your hormones.

Without going into further details... I did this for ONE WHOLE MONTH. Every day, without a fail, I would start at 7 am, and pump on a 2 hour schedule till 11 in the night. The pumping itself would take 40 minutes, so by the time I would be done, it would be time for the next session!

I would even put an alarm for 3.30 am every night, and when the whole world and my own baby would be fast asleep, I would be up and out on a date with the damn pump going grrr grrr grrr whee whee whee on me!

The funny part was, keeping that expressed milk in the refrigerator was a constant worry! I had to always tell FIL, hey, you better not use that to make your morning cuppa!!!

My pumping had become a joke, and so had I, but not in a bad way. Every one was glad things were going okay. Little P was finally thriving. The formula was slowly being cut out and he was becoming more and more "dependent" on me.

Because I was constantly pumping, most times, I felt like a farm cow who was being milked at all odd hours of the day, and the reason I was being taken care of, was because of the milk I was providing.

My mother dear's sense of humour suddenly knew no bounds. As soon as little P would start crying, she would say, "Hold on! The cow is being milked just for you!"

Some times, she would feed the expressed milk to him, and say, "Here you go! Fresh from the farm, just for you!" I could kiss her RIGHT NOW, I TELLYA!

At times, when I was in the mood myself, I would MOO MOO!! whilst pumping!

Oh yeah! Whoever said bringing up a baby isn't fun, should try his (her??!) hands at pumping!  

Look, mommy! Instead of milk, there's blood coming out!

The last time I checked, it had been 3 HOURS since little P had started feeding. Oh yeah, those cluster feeds, when your little monster can literally feed for hours on end, can break the hardest of human beings.

I know a fellow-mom whose little one once fed for some 14 hours non stop!!!

Me, I was so ecstatic that little P was feeding from me, that 3 hours seemed nothing. My doctor had advised me to lock ourselves in a room, no disturbance, put on some music to ease my anxiety over feeding and just feed feed feed.

So, in true nerd style, the ipod was always at the bedside, the room was always comfortable, there was a water bottle and a straw, LOADS AND LOADS of pillows to support me and little P, and just us.

More importantly, I had three soldiers literally standing on one foot, ready to take orders from a screaming me, every time I wanted something. Mom, MIL and the husband were equally happy that things were finally working for us, and ready to provide me with a helping hand and leg!

There was a flip side to this, though. Our little P, it turned out, was quite a biter!

Only a nursing mother knows how painful it is to be bitten by a baby whilst feeding!

Man! Do no underestimate the power of those gums. Teeth are overrated! A little nip is all it takes for the blood to start oozing out instead of milk!

I sometimes think, maybe it's a good thing that nature provided women with two breasts! I would be retired hurt from one side for days on end. As soon as it would repair, bam! The other side would get seriously nipped, and I would have to suspend feeding from that side for at least 3 days for it to heal completely.

Here's another beautiful thing about breastfeeding. If you rest a injured side for too long, you end up getting either engorged, or with block milk ducts.

And when I say that getting spanked on your bottom is probably a lesser pain any either of these two bit***s, I am right!

Mother of god! The pain, and the shivering and the fever that follow these two beauties, oh wow!!!

This one time, I was feeding from the nipped side, I looked down, and he looked like a little vampire! His mouth was covered in MY BLOOD!

I hadn't realised, but I had seriously "broken a boob", as they say. There was blood gushing out like a waterfall, little P had no idea had he was guzzling on my blood, and his torso was also covered in blood!

The emotional trauma of getting bit was too much for me to handle. This was a recurring thing for me. Every few days, I was heard screaming my lungs out, crying hysterically, rushing to the washroom to see the damage and eventually roam around the house with a smelly Tee-shirt that would reek of milk, because I would leak to the moon and back, during those rest days.

Apart from the biting, things were going okay, I suppose. But, there was a weird part: Little P was refusing to sleep. This was one non-sleeper. He just wouldn't sleep. He would feed for 3 hours, but sleep for 10 minutes, and wake up for another feed.

So, we continued giving him his top-ups here and there, but he kept dropping weight, until one day, we got him weighed, and he had dropped roughly 1.5 kgs. Which is like some 20 kgs in adult weight.

My ego was satisfied that breastfeeding was working, but this wasn't how I wanted it to work. The doubts and the questions were back.

"And why are we feeding the baby poison?!"

Day 4 was one long day and drained me emotionally!

It's like a switch flipped inside little P's head and something went kaboom!!

He just refused to feed. Nothing I did, worked for him. He kept howling like a banshee. It was like watching Tarzan in a horror show, it was that bad.

He was clearly hungry, but would not bother feeding from the breast.

Looking back in hindsight, I smile as I recollect the things I tried in order to get him to feed.

I handed him to mom, and as she held him i dangled "myself" over him so gravity could works it miracle.

But no! Some more hollering!

I put him down on the bed, and bent over him. NADA!

I had read about the wonders of skin to skin, that is stripping baby and yourself down to nothing and just letting him say on top of you like that. Nothing there!

I was getting restless and the folks were wondering if I was mad.

The thing with breastfeeding is, it's very simple and easy to those who don't face problems; else, it's the hardest thing ever for those who do face problems.

And I, of course, fell in the latter category.

Nothing was working, so we all finally gave in, and gave little P a bit of formula, and off he dozed.

Now, again, how breastfeeding works is very simple, a supply and demand thing. The more you feed, the more milk you make.And that's why newborn babies feed like crazy, because they send out signals to your body to make enough milk for them.

I had no idea what to do. I was crying hysterically. I had envisaged a smooth nursing journey, but this was the beginning of a long, long battle.

So, every day, or rather every few hours, I did the unsexy task of hand pumping my own breasts. And I tell you, this is the weirdest thing one can do with those ladies!

I mean, once you start breastfeeding, the idea of breasts being a sexual commodity sounds so lame and ridiculous, that you wonder what the big deal is about them. After all, they are only a baby's natural source of food!

Things went on like this for about 4 odd days or so. I would be knackered trying to win a lost battle, I would get fed up pumping spoonfuls of milk, which would sometimes take me 45 minutes, and little P was happy and content with his formula, something I was beginning to hate from my core.

In the meantime, I had ordered a manual breast pump for myself, because I was getting fed up of pom poming myself every few hours.

We had our immunisation coming up, and decided to carry little P's formula in a bottle, something we hadn't used until that point.

We entered the pediatrician's cabin, and I was greeted with:

"And why are we feeding the baby poison?!"

I was stunned. The bottle and the formula wasn't a choice, it was a compulsion because things were taking time to work out and the baby needed his nutrition.

I had suddenly, in the matter of a second, been turned into a evil mother who feeds her baby "poison".

The battle between breast and formula had just begun!