Dear New Mama,
It’s OK to cry.
It’s OK to cry because you are learning to love someone new and its OK to cry because you love them so much.
It’s OK to cry when your newborn is crying, no one expects you to know your baby and what it needs within its first few days of life.
It’s OK to cry when the midwife leaves your hospital room after she has spent half an hour teaching you how to latch your baby to your too-sensitive-to-touch nipples and you still have no clue how to do it properly without those sharp pains stabbing you with every suck! (Take a breath here).
It’s OK to cry because you are so overwhelmed with love as your baby drinks from your breast.
It’s OK to cry because you are so overwhelmed with visitors, sleep deprivation, trying to work out how to comfort your baby and midwives coming in and out your room all night.
It’s OK to formula feed your baby if you cant breastfeed or just choose to do so.
It’s OK to stare at your newborn all night and put your hand on its chest to make sure they are breathing.
It’s OK to not use any of the six nighties you bought for your newborn to wear. Nighties!! Seriously.
It’s OK to order every food item of the hospital kitchen menu and only eat the jelly.
It’s OK to put a holt to all visitors to the hospital.
It’s OK to not sleep when the baby sleeps.
It’s OK to have your baby on your boob pretty much all day long to feed it, keep it calm and put to sleep.
It’s OK to start a routine when you think your baby is ready.
It’s OK to be anxious, about your health, your child and everything or anything. Anxiety is real and is OK, you have so many people who will listen (trust me, I know first hand about that bumpy road).
It’s OK to feel self conscious, fat, ugly, a walking talking mess, you grew a baby in your stomach for nine months, it will take that long at least to feel you again, or maybe your new curves are here to stay, thats ok, your baby gave them to you and you wouldn’t change that for the world, because you now know that nothing else is as important in this world as your child is.
It’s OK, it’s all OK, from the sleepless rocking-the-baby nights, to the light of day, that face will remind you that it is all OK because they love you so much.
