Getting To Know You

Erm, what do you mean babies don’t come with a manual?

Looking back now, I enjoyed the first few weeks but I was like a rabbit in the headlights. We had grown a human. An actual living, breathing human. Now we had to keep this little human alive. Admittedly he slept most of the day, what could be so hard? Although, after weeks 3-4, I remember things ramped up a notch and it started getting tougher.

Sleep, eat, feed, wind, change, repeat. Sleep, eat, feed, wind, change repeat. You catch my drift.

It took me some time to realise I had birthed this tiny baby, and that this baby was ours. If I could relive that first day, I would in a heartbeat. It’s a cliché, but it really was the most magical moment of my life. This little baby would eventually look to me like I look to my parents, and that was an incredible feeling.  I spent many hours in hospital just staring at him, at this perfect little bundle of joy.

And slowly, reality kicks in. You arrive home, you place baby in the car seat on the kitchen work top and glance over at your partner. “Now what do we do?”

*Reaches for the baby manual*

Oh yes, it hasn’t been written.

The first few weeks flew by. But the crying had been tough. Feeding had been difficult, but we were slowly getting our heads around it.  We had always had quite a quiet home and so I was quick to react to the slightest mumour. If it progressed to tears, panic set in and in the early weeks it could be hard to work out was was wrong.

One moment that stuck with me was around week 7, we had been struggling with non-stop crying for twenty minutes or so. The cries has increased to screams and I was logically trying to work through the long list we had been taught at parent classes in my head. Logically and working through things don’t go together in the same sentence when there’s a screaming baby in your arms. I decided on food. He was hungry. This was an easy fix.

Not quite. This time I had well untruly missed the boat. In fact you’d have thought the boat was sinking with the racket he was making. I knew I had to calm him down first but his cries were ear piercing and I was struggling to function. He was so upset, and I had become so too, so I took him to our bedroom, shut the blinds, sat on the bed holding him across my chest and cried with him. In fact I howled. It was probably one of the first times I felt completely helpless. But, as if by magic, he stopped and took a bottle. Was that the secret, howl with them?! Had there been a manual, this chapter would have been called Fight or Flight.

It gets easier, I promise. It really takes time to get to know your baby; to get to know their cries, their expressions, their temperament, their personality, their moods, their smiles and your love for them. Of course some brain connections happen instantly; the need to protect, nurture and provide warmth and food, but the connections that come only with time, are those that you cannot prepare for. No manual would do this justice, sometimes you may not think it but you know your baby better than anyone in the world.

It also takes time to get to know the person you have become. A mother. It’s life changing and possibly the greatest and most challenging thing you will ever do.

Time is your absolute best friend. Spend it laughing, chatting, singing and coo’ing with them. Don’t pressure yourself to feel you have to keep your baby entertained. Watching you, listening to you and studying you is their favourite hobby. I realised this at 15 weeks when I threw on some 90s music and we spun around dancing together in the kitchen. I had been overthinking it. I learnt from that moment to relax and just go with the flow.

Just like Mary Poppins once sung…

Getting to know you, getting to know all about you, getting to like you, getting to hope you like me

Getting to know you, putting it my way but nicely, you are precisely my cup of tea

Getting to know you, getting to feel free and easy, when I am with you, getting to know what to say

Haven’t you noticed, suddenly I’m bright and breezy, because of all the beautiful and new things, I’m learning about you day by day.

The lyrics are so fitting for those early weeks, have a listen and a smile: Getting To Know You.