I'm Touching Wood, But I Think Things Have Got Easier

I can finally say it: things really do get easier. Sometime around the 18 month mark things started to fall into place. It's hard to put my finger on exactly what has changed, but I feel better, calmer, more contented.

I wake up most mornings feeling rested, much like I used to do before I had a child. It's not that I don't get woken in the night, but the night feeding sessions are shorter and less frequent and they just don't seem to affect me like they used to. During the day Cave Baby doesn't stress me out as much as she did in the past. For a couple of months she seems to have become less clingy. It's just little things that make the difference; in the past, for example, she would scream if I put her down while I was getting my breakfast and now she's happy to potter around the kitchen instead. I can honestly say that I am now feeling like the person I was 20 months ago. And that is a good feeling.

I'm not writing here as much as I used to and that's because I don't have that same frustration inside me that needed to vent somewhere. I have come through the most difficult days with my first child and I can look back with a little distance at my experiences. I don't have that immediate sense of anger at the way society was telling me to bring up my child. I can see how and why different people are motivated to raise their children in different ways and I am confident that the close, loving care that I chose to lavish on my baby was the right thing for her. I can even talk objectively to new mothers about the pros and cons of attachment parenting without feeling that my choices need to be justified or defended.

I still want to shout from the rooftops how we need to hold, nurse and love our youngsters but I have found other ways to do it besides blogging. I help mothers to breastfeed at a support group and I provide friendship and support at a coffee morning. And I am about to embark on training to become a full-blown breastfeeding counsellor so I can provide real practical help to get more women breastfeeding. Most importantly, I have built a network of like-minded mothers who keep their babies close, sleep beside them at night and refuse to do anything remotely resembling crying it out. Finding support online was absolutely invaluable for me when I was deep in the hardest parts of my first year as a mother, but the real life support I now have is even more reassuring.

So if I'm not updating this blog quite as often, these are all the reasons. The challenges posed by a 20 month old toddler just aren't as immediate and stressful as those posed by a high needs, boob-loving, sleep-dodging baby. Having reached this point in my life as a mother, I am even finding myself telling new mothers how it will eventually get easier and more comfortable. I no longer feel the need to justify my decisions all the time because my daughter is the walking talking evidence that attachment parenting works (though I still hate the term).

So if you are reading this from the bottom of the pit of new baby exhaustion, please believe me when I say that you will eventually feel better. It might take a year, or 18 months or 2 years but you will some day feel like your old self again. Just knowing this is going to help me to survive the hard days that I still do occasionally have. But it also casts a new light on the idea of having another baby; when will I really be ready to submit myself to another 18 months of tiredness and anxiety? (By the way, there are no worries about having another one just yet because yes, I am still anovulatory).

Did you notice a point at which your life became easier? And did you find it hard to contemplate embarking on the whole baby adventure for a second time?