Can You Die Of Sleep Deprivation... Lessons For a First Time Mum

Written by Hannah Jezeph for her blog, Braingoround.

You can follow her on Facebook here!

I’m looking into my kitchen as I type. I can see the hoover on the floor, it’s wires all wiggly-wiggly, snaking across the floor (“a trip-hazard” my sensible brain is saying) – it’s not even plugged in.

I can see washing up that “won’t do itself” (or so my sensible brain is saying). In my living room I can see our dog Mooka lying on the rug (AGAIN – No matter how many times I tell him to get his stinky body onto his bed he prefers our lovely rug!) I can see baby accoutrement scattered across the floor, sofa and table and the sofa cushions sliding off the sofa in a haphazard fashion. The obsessive control-freak-needs-everything-neat-and-tidy Hannan in me could be freaking out right now.

But then I can also see George playing a tickling game with a teeny-tiny human, and I can hear her laughing. I can see Mooka getting up to go and sniff her, and see her smiling and reaching out for him. And suddenly everything else pales into insignificance. Because that teeny-tiny human is called Elsie, and she grew in my actual body and came out almost 9 months ago, the newest part of our family, and the reason I’m learning to let go of my need to have everything “neat and pretty and tidy and perfect”.

This is a summary of my emotional journey into motherhood…

Lesson 1:

“Ok, so your waters are going!” The doctor said cheerfully, as if this was the best news we could hear 6 weeks before my due date on a casual Sunday night. “Oh! Ok… So…” was my response. “So… we will look to get baby out…next week. Oh, and you’ll be having a C-section…Bye!” And off she went. Not really, she did stay and talk to us about what was going to happen but I didn’t hear much of the next bit of info as I was trying to digest the fact that we would be having our baby 5 weeks early, and by C-section no less!

And so began 2 weeks of constant monitoring!

We hadn’t bought baby clothes (at least not in the teeny size we’d need), hadn’t set up a baby room, hadn’t packed a hospital bag, I hadn’t even finished work! We had at least written a birth plan, but we may as well not have, considering we were planning a natural-drug-free-hypnobirthing-water-birth plan and I was going be having…well…not that!

The next thing

I knew, I was being set up on the ante-natal ward and told to rest and keep the baby in as long as possible, and so that night I spent my time practicing my relaxing breathing (so hypnobirthing came in very handy after all!) and trying to make a mental list of all the things I had to do to prepare, freaking out, returning to relaxing breathing etc etc…

By the morning, I had come to terms with the fact that we were going to be meeting our baby in a week and had cobbled together a to-do list to give to George.

And then the consultants did the rounds.

It turns out that when your waters go early you fall into one of two teams: Team A who think it is more important that baby cooks for as long as possible and that you must hold on until the due date… or Team B who think the risk of infection is too great to hold on and you should try and get baby out (particularly if the baby can reach 35 weeks). This meant that every morning, each new consultant we saw had a different opinion about what to do with us, ranging from “We are going to try and get you to term but don’t go into labour please”, to “We will have this baby out tomorrow ok?” We even had one ask us why we had ‘asked’ for an early C-Section…!?

Waiting to go into theatre!

Each morning we braced ourselves for the next opinion, never quite knowing what was going to happen, which for a control-freak like me was unbearable, until one day, after having been in the hospital for almost a week we were actually asked… WE were asked what we wanted to do.

So we weighed up all the advice we had been given and decided to meet our baby on the day she turned 35 weeks.

And we did! I had the most beautiful Caesarean Section and our baby was born to the dulcet sounds of Sigur Ros. Despite being a preemie she did extremely well and didn’t need much neonatal support at all. We spent the next week in hospital before bringing Elsie India Rose home with us.

And that was Lesson 1: You can make a birth plan but baby won’t read it!

Lesson 2:

I’d read the books, Googled the parenting blogs, joined the Facebook groups for breastfeeding and asked friends. I felt ready. We’d decided to breast feed. We’d decided to avoid using a dummy for fear of the inevitable ‘weaning her off dummy’ stage later on. We’d decided we weren’t going to be those anxious parents who google everything. How hilarious.

Breast feeding was hard. Elsie, being prem, lacked the latching and sucking reflexes required to breast feed, resulting in me having to express and bottle feed for the first couple months. Then, when she was a bit stronger, she learnt to latch and part of me wished she hadn’t. Oh the pain… But then she got the hang of it and I got the hang of it and before long I realised I’d fed her in a café without anxiety, pain or Elsie having the screaming ab-dabs. Then, once she realised how comforting feeding was she wanted to do it All. The. Time. All the time. At all times. At first, it worked out perfectly, because all I wanted to do was snuggle with her on the sofa and watch box sets. But after a couple of weeks, I realized how much I missed the outside world, visiting friends, walking, the sunshine, etc… So my friend brought round one of her daughter’s sterilized dummies for Elsie to try. I was standing at the sink washing up, talking to George as he sat with Elsie. I was going over my pros and cons for having a dummy (remember: control freak-obsessive-researcher) and George interrupted me exclaiming, “She likes it!” I turned to see Elsie sucking contentedly away and that was that. It got me and my nipples through a month of her needing to suck to soothe and now she only really needs it at nap times to get to sleep.

And then there was the Googling.. Oh the Googling! It would start with a quick “Just to make sure” and quickly became a “I need to know” before settling on a “Google knows best and must always be consulted”. It didn’t help that I had Baby Blues for about 2 months after Elsie’s birth, making reasonable and rational thinking very difficult and allowing anxiety to reign supreme. But then I discovered this mantra which saved me:

“All babies are different and you know your baby best.”

The more I spoke it the more I believed it. And the more I believed it the less I Googled. Now, I only Google sometimes and only after thinking rationally, “I know my baby – what do I feel in my gut”.

And Lesson 2 became: My baby will tell me what’s up – go with her needs!

Lesson 3:

I’ve never been competitive. I’ve always enjoyed the game more than whether I win or lose. This extends into life too I guess. I’ve never looked at people who can run faster than me, or sing better than me and thought, “I must get better so I can beat them!” Thankfully I’ve always felt a sense of comfort that we are all created unique and are stronger at some things than others. However, even the least competitive among us might have moments of insecurity when it comes to their children. One of my best friends had a baby at the same time I had Elsie and it has been the most wonderful thing ever. We’ve gone to baby groups together, been at the end of the phone when we’re in tears after a sleepless night, and there to remind each other we are actually good Mummies and are doing a fab job! However, it did allow little seeds of insecurity to sneak into my head early on when I saw my baby’s bestie reaching milestones before my baby. I spent a lot of time working on that insecurity. I never wanted to be ‘That Mum’… I’ve encountered ‘That Mum’ in my job as a teacher – the one who pushes and pushes their child to make the next developmental step before they are ready. The Mum who puts pressure on their child to be THE BEST at all things, constantly enforcing feelings of inadequacy on a child who should be playing games and living their best life. I knew that babies born early can be slightly delayed in their development and also that unless there is a problem I need to address, she will get there in her own time. George and I are here to support her as she grows, wait patiently for her to show readiness for the next stage and when the moment is right, provide that challenge she might need to get her moving forward (literally at this point as she’s starting to show an interest in leaning forward and towards crawling!!)

In a baby activity group a while back I heard a Mum ask in a panic how old another baby was, as this baby was crawling around. The baby’s Mum told her and the woman looked physically relieved and said “Oh OK phew! We have time yet then!” and you know, it made me sad. And challenged me. I’ve recently been trying really hard to stop my mouth saying things like “No teeth yet unfortunately” or “Elsie still isn’t rolling!!” because my girl has got this. And if she’s anything like her Daddy she will leave it till the very last moment then wow us all with an impressive display of crawling! (And as for the teeth, as a breast-feeding Mama I can only be glad they aren’t here yet… gums are hard enough thanks!!) As I’ve mentioned in a previous blog, a friend once reminded me that “Comparison is the thief of joy”. My baby isn’t clapping yet – my best friend’s baby is (and it’s the sweetest thing EVER!) My baby has zero teeth – Some of my mum group’s babies have two or three. My baby is still quite stationary – and for this I am thankful – the PS4 is still safe on the lower shelf! It’s all good! Don’t compare, retain your joy. And find that one friend who gets it – for me it’s my bestie who had a baby at the same time as me – We keep each other grounded with the reminder that our babies are moving forward in their own perfect way.

Sitting up like a boss!

And so lesson 3 has been: Let babies be babies, and don’t let comparison steal your joy! (And also, babies can chew and swallow a surprising amount of whole foods with absolutely no teeth whatsoever!)

Which leads me to my final lesson, Lesson 4: I’m extremely opinionated.

It’s a strength in many ways but also a massive weakness that I’ve been trying to tame over recent years. I’m learning that just because someone has a different opinion to me, it doesn’t mean I’m wrong, it doesn’t mean they’re wrong, it doesn’t mean they hate me… (I’m very sensitive, Despite getting lots better lately, I have been known to feel hurt and rejected if someone declines my offer of a brew..!) This lesson has been particularly important since becoming a Mum. George and I have had to make a ton of decisions about how we are going to raise our daughter. Some are pretty standard, are widely accepted as the norm, such as deciding we will never ever smack, tap or hurt her in any way when she grows up and gets all sassy. Others are less widely known and have caused great surprises to some people, such as giving our 6 month old entire foods rather than pureed food, presented the same way George and I are eating and watching (with nervousness initially!) as she learns to chew and then swallow. It took several viewings of Elsie demolishing fingers of toast and pieces of pasta before I could convince my Mum that she wasn’t going choke on it!

Fun with baby-led weaning…

But I am not right and I am not wrong. There is no definitive ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Only ‘right for my baby’.

There are a million ways to raise a child;

Co-sleeping vs basket next to bed vs baby in cot in their own room.

Disposable nappies vs reusables.

Breast vs bottle.

Dummy vs no dummy.

Controlled crying vs Feeding to sleep.

Baby led weaning vs Traditional weaning.

And although I’ve been told so many times that George and I need to make the best choice for our baby without being distracted by what others are doing, it took many months of anxiety, guilt, hours of reading, and a TON of Googling before I came to the right answers. It’s All On Us… We need to respond to our baby with what she needs not what the Baby Whisperer, Supernanny, or any of the SuperMom Bloggers tell us, although their opinions are great to read for inspiration along the way to making your decision! And we need to stand by our decisions, whilst being open to the fact that others may disagree. The first time I gave Elsie a bottle before bed, to help her sleep, or so the Doctor had advised, I cried. Why?! Because I’d read so many Breast-Feeding Warrior posts on Facebook that I felt I was somehow doing her an injustice. Looking back I can see what an emotionally anxious time it was for me, coming out of a period of the Baby Blues and being an anxious person anyway, but now I know it was and is right for Elsie to be combination fed and she adores her evening bottle with her Daddy.

So lesson 4: Honestly, “All babies are different” – I needed to print it out and stick it all over my house! It is THE mantra to live by as a new Mummy! Elsie needs what Elsie needs!

There are a million more lessons to be learned as I continue on my journey of Motherhood and I am honestly excited to learn them! I’m 100% sure I will learn them through making mistakes, messing up, crying, Googling, and trial and error but they shall be learnt one way or another! And if my house becomes even more untidy, even more messy, and even more chaotic, you know what? I don’t even mind.

Anyway, must dash, got to Google ‘How to get porridge out of dog hair’… See? Lessons to be learned every day!

Love, Hannah xx