Cranberry Moms

Mom and Shi sleeping

“One of the greatest gifts we can give our children is teaching them to listen to their intuition by learning to listen to our own”

I really look forward to getting the mail each day during the winter months.  It give me a reason to take the girls outside each day even if it is just for a few moments. This week Natural Life magazine arrived and I was delighted by the headline articles.  One of the past issues highlighted the importance of trusting our mothering intuition, something which I had struggled with myself as a new mom.  As the article mentions ” Women are often torn between their intuition and the societal messages they receive about how to care for their children.”  I couldn’t agree more.  When I had Charlotte prematurely, I was inundated with the procedures and protocol of the NICU, which is in stark contrast of many of my thoughts about mothering.  Charlotte came home after two weeks and I felt lost, helpless and struggled to find my own mothering instincts to help guide me in caring for her.  I felt like I was drowning in a sea of societal messages about what I should and shouldn’t do with her and eventually Mothering Magazine became by life jacket.  So often, I didn’t know whether to trust my heart or turn to the internet for an answer to my questions.  Some of the basic questions after a baby is born such as: How often to feed her? where should she sleep? how often should I wear her? what vaccines should she get? can cause any new mom to feel anxious and overwhelmed. And what I learned is to Trust Yourself!

“The fact that we are constantly being reminded to ‘ask the expert’ or to make sure every choice we make has been cleared by our doctor does not serve our children well” While in the NICU we were discouraged to sleep with our new and tiny daughter, Charlotte.  I hadn’t make up my mind about cosleeping but something about the idea of sleeping with Charlotte just felt right. When we brought her home that first night in January, I was so worried about sleeping with her because of the advice from the ‘experts’ not to that I tried to put her in a co-sleeper with my hand on her chest.  After about an hour of sleeping Charlotte woke up and I pulled her into bed and curled up next to her for the rest of the night.  After that night I never looked back and we co-slept with her for a year.  Many night she would start out in her crib and then by the first wake up we would gladly bring her into our bed. My co-sleeping experience with Charlotte is just one of the many things I struggled with as a new mom – do I go with my “gut feeling” which said to co-sleep or go with the expert advice and keep her out of my bed? I chose the former. I do turn to experts and doctors for many questions but I also look deep into my own soul and heart to help guide me as a mother. In our society of instant answer and expert options, it is so easy to think we always have to turn to others for answers to our mothering questions.  In fact, some of the best decisions and advice we can get from trusting ourselves, our intuition and the advice and help from our mommy friends!

I would love to hear your stories of when you trusted your own mothering intuition to help guide you as a mom!