My husband and I once attended a course called, “Preparation for Parenting” with our Church. We were psyched. About to learn everything there was to know. We would raise unique, perfect, world changing individuals.
Our children would be perfect
They would sleep well. Eat all their vegetables. Hit all their milestones. Say “please” and “thank-you” without being prompted. They would never throw tantrums. Especially not in public. They would be kind to their friends and yet have a wonderful dose of personality and world-changing initiative. They would save the rhinos. Cure HIV. Play every sport as well as two or three musical instruments each. They would ace Math and Science and go on to raise perfect little individuals like themselves as our grandchildren.
We were ready.
Unfortunately, it turned out that the entire course was dedicated to establishing the perfect routine for your newborn in order to get them to sleep through at eight weeks. There was nothing on parenting, really. Just something called “parent directed feeding”. Supposedly the answer to all our needs. Once our precious newborns were sleeping through the night we would be able to get enough sleep to get our heads screwed on correctly once again and tackle the larger, “parenting” issue.
We never attended the last evening, which was a pity. On the last evening the message was supposedly that if you have a challenging birth, a premature baby or an infant who is in any small way not “normal” for whatever reason, then all the rules go out the window. In that case, you should just do whatever it takes to survive without doing something you regret to your child or to each-other.
In the case that you had anything other than the perfect birth and baby, it seemed, all bets were off.
But who? Tell me… who… has the perfect baby? Pregnancy? Birth?
Our eldest son was born with underdeveloped lungs. He spent the first ten days of his life in NeoNatal ICU. We couldn’t hold him for the first five days because, in order to get all the drugs he needed into his little system, they had had to open up his belly button and connect several drips and all manner of wires to him. Not to mention the breathing apparatus and the heart monitoring equipment.
He couldn’t breastfeed for the first week. It was a miracle that he did at all. He had to move from tube feeding (my expressed milk) to a bottle when he was a bit stronger (still my milk) and eventually, best case, to my breast.
We stood by our little boy’s hospital bed and prayed. Sang songs to him. We prayed some more. Grateful he was alive.
Each day we asked, “How long until we can take him home?” …and each day we left the hospital without him.
We went home to our empty flat. We cried out in pain and frustration. Then we turned around and went back to the hospital. I expressed milk in the maternity ward behind a curtain. We stood by his bedside again.
I will never forget the moment I held him for the first time. He was so tiny in my arms. So fragile. So warm with his soft shock of brown hair and curled up tiny hands. Reaching. Clasping. Well enough to be held at last.
I have NEVER known love like that. He was so beautiful. My boy.
And, yes, all the “perfect” rules went out the window.
Some time later, my husband asked friends who had attended the Preparation for Parenting Course with us if any-one had ever managed to get a baby to sleep through at eight weeks. There was one couple who had: The facilitators of the course. They had pulled it off with their third child. Thanks. Thanks ever so much.
I have a friend who had two water births.
No drugs. Just her, her husband, her doula and the baby. And of course the birthing pool. It was beautiful. I know because I went to see her afterwards and I have never seen a more perfect birth scenario in my life. She, her husband and the baby were sharing a beautiful room with a garden view. The birthing pool had been cleaned away and all that was left was a beautiful, satisfied mom, a healthy baby and a proud, glowing father. It was as close to perfect as anything I have ever seen.
A few months later she called me in a panic. “We can’t break her fever. I think we have to give her Calpol. How can live with myself?!”
I smiled through my tears. Our eldest son was six months old at the time. He had had intravenous antibiotics at birth. Life saving medicine that kick started his lungs and came with a little teddy bear to put in your child’s cot. Antihistamine, painkillers and everything in between. All at less than a day old.
Today, at age seven, he is the healthiest, most wonderful little man you will ever have the privilege of meeting. Believe me. All you have to do is look into his shiny eyes as he shakes your hand and introduces himself with a grin and you’ll see what I mean.
“My friend,” I said through my gentle tears at her pain and my own, “You are an amazing mum. You’ve had the most perfect experience. Your little girl is SO lucky to have never needed medicine. But it won’t kill her, I promise. You’ll be fine. She’ll be fine. Just give her five mls and put her down to sleep.”
There is no perfect baby.
No matter your birth plan, there is no perfect birth.
There is definitely no such thing as a perfect child. Or parent. Or parenting book.
There is no such thing as a one-size-fits all routine / parenting guide / manual for your little one.
Nothing can prepare you for parenting. Nothing can prepare you for the sleepless nights. The hormones rushing through your body at warp speed. For the judgement… Your own. Others’. The media’s. Even the judgement you experience from the books you read, the antenatal courses you attend and your parents’ advice.
All the rules will go out the window. Believe me, they will. Especially if you’re reading this before having kids.
No matter how perfect you think you, your body or your baby are… something will go wrong. It will be hard. But you will make it through somehow.