To the Nursing Mom at 2:00 AM — Cloud Nine Birth Services | Birth Doula Services | Postpartum Doula Services
It’s written for the exhausted moms out there, whose night feedings leave them wondering why it doesn’t feel natural or why it’s harder than they expected. Waking up at night is stressful and hectic. As soon as you lay your head back, tears stream down your cheeks knowing you’ll be able to feel it again in 45 minutes. This is my breastfeeding experience. The best advice someone ever gave me was this: It’s a season.
This season can sometimes make you wonder if you’ve lost your sense of identity. Maybe you’re so tired you can barely function and you think baby-brain has diminished your once-sharp thinking. Maybe you look in the mirror at the dark circles under your eyes and how your body has changed and wonder if you’ll ever go back to normal.
This season is bittersweet and it’s okay to feel hard at times. Motherhood will certainly challenge you. Right now, it’s mostly the physical challenge of surviving erratic (if any) sleep and nursing when you’re SURE you don’t have another drop of milk left in your body! This is when the arms ache and the neck stiffens from holding your baby who with some strength of their 8 pound body really won’t let you put them down. It goes to bed at 7:30 PM because you sleep when the baby sleeps. Lazy mornings in bed adoring your baby’s angelic face even though at 2:00 AM you’re sure he’s a spawn of the devil and not your child. This period is a blur of days and nights and feeding, sleeping, changing diapers, and doing it all over again. But this is a time when your baby loves you unconditionally and needs you completely. It was a time of wonder how all 10 toes came out so perfect and small. The baby’s smell is so good and how soft his skin is next to your cheek. It’s chubby little thighs and full conversation of sweet cooing. This is an important time.
Suddenly, as quickly as you became a mother to this baby, you will become a mother to a toddler. Being a child has its beauty in curiosity and questions and messes. This next season is full of wonder and challenges of its own.
