motherhood

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HERE’S HOW TO HELP A NEW MOTHER (ESPECIALLY WHEN SHE DOESN’T ASK)

http://raisedgood.com/how-to-help-new-mother-especially-when-doesnt-ask/

As a new mother, I had a knack for giving the impression that I didn’t need help.

My village lives on the other side of the globe, so it was borne out of necessity, but I wonder if it was more than that. As new (or not so new) mothers, I wonder if we feel as though we’re letting ourselves down if we show that we’re vulnerable. Are we falling short if we admit that we simply can’t do this alone?

That we have one hairy leg because our survival strategies have devolved into shaving one leg one day, and the other the next. And we forgot the second leg…for a week. That we eat breakfast for dinner on a semi-regular basis. And that if one more well-meaning person tells us (as if we’ve forgotten) that we really need to take care of ourselves, we’ll scream.

Because, before becoming mothers we were used to feeling productive. To meeting deadlines. To getting the job done and feeling like a valued team member.

But motherhood shatters that reality. And although it’s bittersweet, thank goodness it does. It softens us. Slows us down. Stops the treadmill of a results driven society, forcing us to reassess what we truly value in this one short life of ours. As parents, we need to redefine success in the context of a journey, with a destination we will never see.

(click to read on raisedgood.com)

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What No One Tells You About Bonding With Baby

http://www.mothering.com/articles/what-no-one-tells-you-about-bonding-with-baby

(click to read the entire article on mothering.com)

If we spend time thinking about it (which we often don’t), most of us believe we’ll transition into motherhood easily. I’m sure lots of women have no problems in those early heady days of being a first time mom. But I’d also be willing to bet that even the moms who look like they were born to smile at their babies (and manage to find time to take a shower) have ups and downs at the beginning.

With the vantage of hindsight, a lot of parents confess that the early days of life with a new baby were hard. Many moms I’ve talked to over the years have had trouble bonding with their babies, a process they assumed would be natural and easy. (I’ve written about my difficulties bonding with my second born here.)

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Asking for Help Doesn’t Make You Less of a Parent

http://wellroundedny.com/asking-help-doesnt-make-less-parent-2/

(click link above to read the entire post on wellroundedny.com)

A mom of twins explains why she said yes to every offer.

I was 40 years old when I got pregnant with my twins. Because of my age, I would have been happy to have one baby. Having two was icing on the cake. I was really excited to be a mom. I would daydream about all the fun I was going to have with my babies — what we would do, where we would go. Only joyful thoughts. It never occurred to me to be nervous or that having twins was going to be incredibly hard. I just assumed that I was going to be able to do it. The plan was for my husband to go to work while I stayed home (alone) with the babies and took care of them. Naive? Crazy? Maybe. I like to think I was blissfully unaware.

When I came home from the hospital with my babies (my little guy came home the same day as me, my little girl spent a few days in the NICU and then came home) I was so happy to take care of them. I was happy to feed them, bathe them, hold them and so on. I was running on pure adrenaline.

Within a few days, the adrenaline wore off. I was tired. I was doing all of the feedings (both day and night) and taking care of them for the most part by myself. I thought I could do it all and actually believed that it was my job to do so. I was wrong.

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Dear Mothers: We’re Not Meant to “Bounce Back”

http://revolutionfromhome.com/2016/08/we-arent-meant-to-bounce-back-after-babies/

(click link to read the blog post)

We’re not meant to “bounce back” after babies. Not physically, not emotionally, and definitelynot spiritually. We’re meant to step forward into more awakened, more attuned, and more powerful versions of ourselves. Motherhood is a sacred, beautiful, honorable evolution, not the shameful shift into a lesser-than state of being that our society makes it seem.

The very notion that we are meant to change as little as possible, and even revert back to the women we were before we became mothers is not only unrealistic, but it’s an insult to women of all ages, demographics, shapes, and sizes. It makes a mockery of the powerful passage into one of the most essential roles a human can live into, and it keeps women disempowered through an endless journey of striving for unattainable goals that wouldn’t necessarily serve us even if we could reach them.

The world needs the transformation motherhood brings about it us. The softening, the tenderness, the vulnerability, the shift in prioritization, the depth of love — these are some of the qualities our hurting world needs most.

 

(click link to continue reading this beautiful post on revolutionfromhome.com)

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19 Things No One Tells You About Having a Newborn

http://blog.cricketscircle.com/best-things-about-newborns/http://blog.cricketscircle.com/best-things-about-newborns/

  1. It’s totally normal to catch yourself standing, with no baby in your arms, yet still swaying side to side (and maybe whispering shhh).
  2. You’ll make up horrible, ridiculous songs revolving around your baby’s name. (I’m just gonna Nate Nate Nate Nate, Nate it off, Nate it off.)
  3. You’ll have trouble remembering if a conversation took place an hour ago, a week ago… or, frankly, ever.
  4. You might pee in a public restroom with the door open because you can’t close it behind your stroller, and like hell you’re going to leave that baby unattended….

Cute. (Click link above to read the rest…)

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PERFECT IMPERFECTIONS: EMBRACING AND EMPOWERING POSITIVE BODY IMAGE | KER-FOX PHOTOGRAPHY

 

 

 

slide_430694_5591780_freeo-BEAUTIFUL-IMPERFECTIONS-900

http://kerfox.com/perfect-imperfections-embracing-and-empowering-positive-body-image-ker-fox-photography-st-francis-midwives-birthsource/ (click to see all of the stunning images)