The Not So Instinctive Parent

Why do people idolise this idea? What is this elusive “good” child?

When my daughter achieves something- she is innately excited. She beams up at me as if to say “Look, I did it, Mum!”. Sometimes, she doesn’t look at me at all. She chortles to herself or looks in awe at the effect of her actions and then goes to try it again.

Often, in these moments, I find I become the observer. I think carefully here of the posts I have read, the books that have been recommended to me or the advice I have heard: “Praise your child”. I think about it and I go to praise her- and I get stuck. I either can’t do it or sometimes I do it and sometimes I don’t. It feels unnatural. But why?

I have been mulling it over. Am I hampering my child’s growth because I am not praising her enough? I think about training my dog; I say “good boy” when he does something right and then he learns what’s “good” and what I expect of him. Is this not the same with kids? And maybe therein is where my sticking point is. My child is not a dog.

When you achieve something, and I mean something you really want, why do you do it? Are you doing it for external validation or is this something you want for yourself? What’s the driver here? I have seen both models. People who constantly seek external validation to experience their version of self worth. And then I have seen the people in my life who don’t seek this much (everyone seeks it sometimes). I have watched those rare few who kind of seem to just go for what they want and they don’t really look around for how people around them respond. They’re innately driven. These people seem happier somehow. Lighter. They experience life made out of their own model and are more content to coast when they feel like and sprint when they need to. They’re less anxious about the letters behind their name or their next goal post that they some people need to always have on the horizon. This is what I want for my daughter. Internal validation.

So she picks up a peg and fidgets with it for a while and furrows her little brow, intently focused. And the peg falls. Or the peg gets in the hole, finally. And whether she drops it or she gets frustrated and moves on to the next thing or she nails it in one go, I smile at her and I follow her lead. The toys around her are curated for her education, some are things that cater to her particular interests and some are just ideas I have on ways to encourage her development. Some are from instagram wormholes I have fallen prey to. But they’re all good quality toys that are designed to help her learn skills through play. But she gets to choose how to play with them.

There’s not a lot of “good job” or “well done!” That floats around our household. But there are a lot of milestones being met when she’s ready and a lot of joy. Both the joy of me getting to watch her grow and the pride my little girl has in herself that she gets to share with us in the way she wants to. We are always there, quietly guiding when she turns to us for help, beside her to play when she wants us to play with her and then, really, in the background choosing what is in her environment carefully. But she calls her shots within that safe bubble, and we hope that this helps build a little internal voice that says “I did it!” We hope that she doesn’t spend her whole life looking out for someone else’s voice to day “You did it!” Even though we are always there, quietly cheering her on.

Who knows if this is what I am cultivating? But somehow, this feels more right to me.

I had a c-word. That’s right people- I didn’t bring my daughter into the world in a beautiful bath tub in my house with my birthing playlist humming in the background while my doula held my hand and coached me to push. I lay back and felt little to nothing while my expert surgeon cut through seven layers of my bodily tissue and watched as he not so gently pulled her into this world for me.

We were fortunate- we organised health insurance early because I have endometriosis and we wanted IVF cover in case we needed it. I’ve known since I was 19 that fertility might be a journey for me. Every gynae I’ve ever had has warned me to have kids young if I wanted them at all. My husband and I weren’t prepared to have kids before we were 30- but then, where we come from that is young to start having kids. 

We did all the fertility checks. I did my AMH levels (people refer to this as an “egg count” which is not really accurate), I did scans, I checked all my other hormone levels and my husband had his swimmers checked. The results concluded that I had an endometrioma in my right ovary and my left ovary had some scar tissue from my previous surgery.

My doctors could not tell me for sure how these findings might affect my fertility but statistics suggest that a woman with endometriosis may have up to 50% more difficulty conceiving at my age. Because there was no way to know for sure, my gynaecologist essentially said you don’t fix what’s not broke, so have at it and come back in a year if there is no success. So we tried.

We got off the pill in January and downloaded all the monitoring apps. (If anyone needs an app, I really enjoyed Flo. I still use it now, post-baby.) By April we weren’t pregnant so we tried ovulation sticks next. These are a charming device that you pee on daily after your period ends until it smiles at you eerily when you’re most likely to be fertile. Then you have a lot of sex and hope. And hope. 

We did this for six months and then had another appointment with our gynaecologist to discuss next steps. She said to keep trying and then schedule surgery to remove the endometrial tissue in the hopes that this would improve my fertility. (Stats show it improves fertility by up to 50% for women with endometriosis). So we went back to trying. 

We got lucky; we were pregnant the following month. The cycles of hope and sadness finally came to an end and then we just had hope. We waited the daunting 12 weeks and did the scan at 7 weeks that confirmed a little heartbeat. We were quietly thrilled and then just watched the clock. We did our NIPT, and waited for our final trimester 1 scan. We had a healthy little baby girl growing and we couldn’t be happier. 

Weeks past and we engaged our OB and kept up with my blood work and scans. Our little girl was healthy but repeatedly measuring too small- 10th centile, then 1st centile, then 3rd centile. We started weekly scans from 22 weeks to keep track of her size and make sure she wasn’t falling off the charts.

My husband was convinced I wasn’t eating enough, that I was working too hard, and that I wasn’t resting enough. I took more supplements and I ate and ate and ate. I even stopped work early, at 32 weeks.

She stayed small but continued to show every other indication of health. Happy, healthy and tiny, my OB decreed. He wasn’t worried. But as first time parents, we were. We were constantly in scan rooms. Words like IUGR were floated. We had no idea why she wasn’t growing. We just accepted that our OB was confident in her health and did whatever we felt like was within our little bit of control. Mostly I just ate a lot of pasta.

35 weeks rolled around and we had a new small issue- she was upside down and not budging. I had a small baby bump and likely wasn’t giving her enough room to spin. Or maybe she was just a very comfortable mini miss in the spot she had nestled into. We went through all the options- trying to flip her (ECV), attempting a natural delivery anyway (this was not advised but was an option) or just waiting and booking an elective Caesarian in case she didn’t turn before my delivery date. I chose to book the Caesarian.

This is when I discovered the wealth of BS that comes with saying you’re having an elective Caesarian. First of all- elective in my case was a loose term. The risks involved in trying to turn my daughter externally weren’t particularly appealing.  They included inducing early labour in a very small baby, causing hemorrhage for me or my baby and a lost of other complications. These just weren’t risks I was willing to take at that stage. I didn’t even pause to consider natural labor with a breech baby because no, thank you. 

 I know some babies are delivered fine breech. Many people felt compelled to encourage me to try for a natural delivery. I also know of women whose babies had permanent brain damage from insisting on a natural delivery with a breech baby against medical advice. I don’t and didn’t care how I delivered my daughter. I just wanted her out safe and well. I looked at the risks and I looked at the statistics. With a breech daughter, a c-section was the safest option and I took it.

I found it difficult to explain to people why I was having a planned caesarian. Every time I was asked about her delivery and I explained that it would be a delivery by c-section, I had to explain my rationale. No, I wasn’t too posh to push, yes I had had my options explained to me, no it was not just because my doctor was from the private health sector and therefore he must have been pushing me to plan a caesarian, and no I didn’t feel like I was missing out on something because I wasn’t going the “natural way”. 

Here’s what I wanted to say repeatedly: Even if I didn’t have a medical reason to consider a caesarian it was nobody’s god damn business what I chose to do with my body. 

The one thing that I found the most appalling was that the majority of the negative feedback about my choice came from other women. Not just women who tend towards conservative views- it was often from self-proclaimed feminists. 

First of all, there is no situation in which I invite other women to comment on my body. Second of all, why is this still a problem in the world? 

The “natural way” is a way that women have given birth for millennia- this is correct. Women also died in childbirth at alarming rates for millennia. And infant mortality rates were also obscene. And contraception didn’t exist. And women didn’t have the right to vote or drive or wear pants. Why is it that so many women that are pro all these other rights suddenly become archaic about  your method of childbirth? 

Rant aside, I didn’t and still don’t care how I gave birth to my daughter. She’s alive, and she’s amazing and she’s here. And I got to make her and she gets to call me Mama now. I adore her and I think she adores me. And really, above everything else- that’s all that will ever matter. We’re both here and we’re both happy.

P.S. Before anyone feels the need to remind me that I can always try again with my second, I don’t like my odds with a VBAC. I will probably have another Caesarian if I choose to have a second. Or a third. Or an imaginary fourth. Yes, really #tooposhtopushandproud 

Will they really sleep better if I train them?

(So like most parents I am on a journey- I get caught in thought loops at 3am. Let me premise this post- I 100% acknowledge my privilege. I know what I am about to write doesn’t cut it for the average working mum that has to go back to work when their baby is about 6 months old. Having said that- this blog is about me and how I feel and I will unapologetically continue to write about my experience and if it resonates, I hope it helps you feel freer. If it doesn’t- maybe skip to another post.)

Okay, so if you’re a parent- especially a new parent- you are sleep obsessed (most likely). Unless you are one of those gifted parents whose babies just tuck themselves in and stay down, you miss sleep. You want to sleep. Everyone tells you that you should sleep- but your baby won’t. They didn’t get the TikTok targeted ad that claims they should sleep through the night and nap on a clock. But you did. You now can’t help but wonder; what am I doing wrong if they aren’t sleeping right?

I read the instagram pages. I followed the sleep consultants. I watched the TikToks. Sleep deprivation was central to my parenting journey from the get go. My daughter was only 2.4kg at birth, born full term. We don’t know why. To adequately maintain her nutrition, her paediatrician prescribed a 2 hourly feeding schedule, like clockwork. 24 hours a day. Every day. For 2 months. You can see where the sleep desperation began for a breastfeeding mama.

As we were gradually allowed to let her sleep for longer stretches, my daughter slept like a dream. She would nap for hours and I would have to wake her. Eventually, we got the green light to stop waking her. And she slept. From about 10-12 weeks of age, she slept through the night. We were elated. Smug, even. The gnarly 4 month regression mark came and went, and she still slept. We were becoming functional adults again. We had nailed parenthood. Then she turned 6 months old- and it was a reality check.

The regression began- and it did not end. By 8 months, we were fried. We needed sleep help and we needed it yesterday. I read blogs, engaged sleep help from our sleep expert hotline with our insurance, I tried the online sleep experts, I sought out my maternal child health nurse, even. Resoundingly, we were advised to try sleep school.

Non-parent Australians- brace yourselves. Sleep school is a thing. Yes, there is a school that teaches your tiny baby to sleep. It also teaches parents how to resettle, how to improve transfer of breast milk, bottle feeding techniques, etc. It claims to help you tackle anything that promises the ultimate outcome- a sleeping baby that stays asleep. The clincher- it is fully covered by your health insurance if you have pregnancy cover. It is a 5 night package where mama and baby check in, baby is managed by nurses, mama gets to sleep in a room by herself for a night or two, and the nurses look after both of your sleep needs. How enticing is that?! Naturally, I enrolled. I was ready to sign the documents in my blood if I needed to.

Here’s what they don’t write on the brochure; they take your baby from you on the first night to “settle” in a different room. And they let them cry. And cry. And cry. And all of this is with your consent. This is not some magically gentle night nurse that comes in and rocks your baby and soothes them while you sleep in. This is a militant training school for you and your baby. I was advised to “have the stomach for it¨if I wanted to do it and I really did not. I never went.

We were back to looking for help and hoping she would just grow out of the poor sleep phase the way she grew into it. We discussed our parenting approach as a couple; what were we willing to do to improve her sleep? Time and again we revisited the idea of sleep training. Could we try controlled crying? Did it work? Was there evidence to back this up? Everything we read was wishy washy. The “evidence” was really poor. Even the studies that were purported by sleep experts were scanty at best when you analysed the methods and the data.

We ended up trying a sleep consultant- a private consultant who comes to your home and teaches you to settle your child and helps you improve your sleep environment. She was advertised as a “gentle” sleep consultant and our friends recommended her. It sounded like a balanced call- support that didn’t grate against our parenting instincts.

I sent in our query, stressing that I was not open to controlled crying. She sent back lovely messages filled with empathy and understanding for our situation. We quickly realized that “gentle” just meant gently allowing your child to cry it out- in small increments at a time. 3 minutes, then 5, then 10…. Etc. I again stressed that this was not the approach I was willing to take. She countered with “didn’t I want my child to be independent?” “What was the difference between this and starting daycare?” And “Your baby will adjust”. If the slippery slope argument wasn’t enough to piss me off on its own… listening to my daughter cry for 3 minutes was sure as hell sufficient grounds for the frustrated email I sent our consultant as feedback for her “gentle” approach.

Sleep deprivation is a form of torture for a reason- when you’re sleep deprived, nothing works. And I mean medically, your hormones are out of whack, your neuronal connection speed is on the fritz and your ability to regulate your emotions is well and truly on hold. There is a multimillion dollar sleep support industry that is capitalizing on it and it is marketing itself really well- why wouldn’t it be? Our desperation smacked of dollars waiting to be drained from our account.

The result of this reality is that you are constantly surrounded by voices that croon sleep results at you- and they are seductive as hell. When you are a sleep deprived parent, there is little else on the top of your wish list. But what is the cost?

Eventually my husband and I tried a portion of the sleep consultant’s advice- we built a rough routine in for our child, she took her naps at the same time every day, we tried these epic evening walks in a baby carrier touted to improve her serotonin levels which would convert to magically elevated melatonin levels, and we started a more standard bedtime routine. She sleeps better- she does. We are getting more reliable nights where she sleeps through or wakes up maybe once or twice. This is MUCH better than the five times a night that we were at.

In hindsight, we also have a daughter who wakes up an appropriate amount for her developmental stage. Over the time where she went through her sleep regression- she learnt to roll over independently at night, she learnt to crawl, sit up from a lying position on her own, pull to stand and dance in her little cot. She has a little voice and she says “Mama”. She learnt all of this from 6-8months of age. She also started solids and eats independently and drinks out of an open cup on her own. She’s happy, intelligent, healthy and loving her little life every day.

I completely appreciate how important sleep is for her and for us and for everyone’s mental health. But my daughter was clearly processing a lot in those 2 months where we all lost a lot of sleep. Of course her little brain was active a lot at night. Of course this caused her some stresses that broke her sleep cycles. She just had a lot going on in that little brain of hers.

On the spectrum of parents we know- we had a long sleep regression and a rough couple of months. So did our friends. All of them. The ones who ferberized, the ones who didn’t, the ones who did regimented sleep schedules, the ones who let their kids figure it out, the ones who practiced cosleeping, the ones who didn’t. All of my mum friends with babies our age are at a similar sleep stage to our daughter now. They all experienced rough sleep regressions, barring the one magical boy who has always slept through the night, bless his soul. They all also tried everything the could you entice better sleep out of their babies. Eventually, all of our babies grew out of their regressions and moved on to more reliable night sleeps.

I realise now that whatever we had chosen to do, her sleep may or may not have been much different. Based on my anecdotal evidence, I’m not sure anything we did made a huge difference. What I am sure of is we listened to our instincts on this one and we trusted that our little girl would get there when she got there. And I’m really glad we did. She’s sleeping beautifully and she trusts that when she needs us, we’re always there for her. We never had to sacrifice her faith that we were always right there when she was having a rough night and that was ultimately the thing that came out on top. In the game of parenting, I feel like we beat this level.

We were not a cooking-friendly household. I worked, he worked, we got to the end of the day and we got takeout. It was modern day love. Until we had a child. A very small, very powerful little person.

I am a practical person- some of the time. I am a woman of science- most of the time. But as a mother, I am a sucker for “what’s best” for my child.

When it was time to start solids, we looked at jars, we looked at organic packaged meals, we looked at simple home cooked food. I didn’t want any of it. I was a fiend for nutrition. I began to read every reputable, evidence-based source on starting solids and nothing was good enough. I started the most ridiculous pantry list and suddenly I was a culinary demon.

I don’t eat meat. I turned vegetarian at the age of 9 because I found out what farm to table actually meant and I didn’t think fluffy could be food anymore. My daughter now eats homemade paté made with organic chicken liver that I source from the local grocer and blend myself using an immersion blender that I never used to own guided by a recipe designed by a qualified paediatric nutritionist. And I cannot seem to help myself.

She needs iron? I have got every iron source known to man in my kitchen and you bet your bottom dollar it ends up in my daughter’s diet in some form or the other. I make spinach and beetroot frittatas, lentil pasta with homemade organic grass fed beef meatballs, baked fritters of every kind. I own five different types of flour. What have I become?

What is it about becoming a parent that makes you crazy in the kitchen? My daughter could be a masterchef judge by the time she’s five with the culinary palate she’s acquiring.

And it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. She’s on 3 meals a day now and I have fully embraced this new parenting role even though it grates against my inner feminist sometimes that I am constantly in the bloody kitchen. Cooking is becoming quite therapeutic in my post partum journey and watching my daughter develop her oral motor skills is a reward in itself.

Don’t get me wrong- I’m not a reformed purist. There are days my husband and I chow down on our Ubereats while my daughter jubilantly flings her organic well-done ribeye at the dogs and everything is very not organised chaos. But that steak has been hand picked lovingly and made by her parents under the shared belief that if every thing else is a mess, our little girl is worth it all, every single time.

“As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”

– Nietzsche

This is a an open letter to every parent out there that has been asked to set aside their parental instinct and ignore their child’s cues by their most trusted and reliable sources of information. You are not (always) wrong. 

I remember the first time this happened- in the hospital when my daughter was first born. I had a favourite night nurse that would come in and sit with me for hours. She was an older lady- had raised 3 kids of her own and had worked as a midwife for 35 years. She would come into my room at 2am and tell me stories of other babies. Her analogies would comfort me as I sat in my hospital bed, simultaneously bewildered and enamored by the little creature I had just birthed. 

She had just given me a litany of enormously helpful advice and I was so grateful for the wisdom and calm she brought to our care. 

She turned to me as she exited my room and looked me in the eye knowingly as I held my baby, yet again, so she would fall asleep in my arms. “You’re spoiling her, you know. She’s going to get used to that.” 

I looked down at my daughter, then a day old, and of course the thought spiral at 3am began. Instinctively, as a new mother, I wanted to hold her so she wouldn’t cry. I didn’t want to put her down, I wanted to keep her close, where I knew she was safe. Where I could see her breathe and hear her little sounds. Where I could watch her sleep and just feel it all in this small little room that no one else could share with our little family right at this moment. But doubt had now invited himself in. 

Ten minutes of Dr Google later, I still held onto my daughter and thought I had convinced myself that I couldn’t spoil a one day old. But I still wasn’t sure. 

This is pretty much how I would begin to feel about every micro parenting decision to come- unsure, unsteady but also unwavering in my desire to keep misinformation from standing in between my daughter’s care and my parental instincts. 

The barrage would come- don’t feed her so often, don’t pick her up every time she cries, don’t let her sleep with you like that, she’s going to expect you to do that every time now, stretch her out a bit, it’s not controlled crying, it’s spaced soothing. She will never sleep by herself- and my ultimate favourite; don’t you want her to be independent? 

Of course I want my daughter to be independent. I want her to be confident and brave and everything she wants to be. But I just don’t believe in the insanity of the modern parent conundrum. I’m a scientist and a mother. A doctor and a parent. It’s not a textbook with an index that says “good parenting pg. 213”. I’ve come to realize it’s just an active choice as an individual and you make them as you go. Sometimes the science makes sense. Sometimes the research is dead on the money. And sometimes the voice inside my head, the one that says “that can’t be right” is right. And I’m tired of feeling like it can’t be.

To every other parent out there that is sick of Instagram, sleep consultants, the latest “tech” and every other marketing material that tells you how to parent- sometimes you can tell them all to stuff it. You’re not always wrong.