The Mama I Thought I'd Be

"I'm a baby-wearing mama."

"We're doing baby-led weaning."

"Cloth diapering hasn't been bad.  In fact, we love it!"

"She's exclusively breastfed."

[Totally NOT giving a picture for that one.]

I was going to write a post about being the type of mother I didn't picture myself as being.  I was going to write about how we do this and that and the other thing, and that even though I never thought we'd be doing these things, we're liking it.  And then I read this post [language warning] and the disconnected pieces of things I had been feeling fell into place.

Some things that I'm pretty sure Handsome has been trying to tell me for weeks/months now, but don't tell him I said that.

Its this: it doesn't matter.  First of all, if I may be so bold, none of it matters enough to hold on to. BLW?  Not gospel.  Cloth diapering?  Not the hill to die on.  Even the breast v. bottle debate isn't important enough to judge others over.  I attended a La Leche Legeaue meeting, where one woman was near tears because she wasn't able to BF her daughter.  Said she felt like a failure.  While the attendees gave her suggestions for how to up her supply, no one addressed her feelings of failure.  This is not an attack on the LLL peeps, but it is something that really struck with me, especially since I didn't speak up and offer encouragement either.  I really wish I would have.  

In case you're reading this, Momma with the sweet 6# baby girl - You are NOT a failure because you aren't breastfeeding.  No one is grading you. 

I have been so quick to find something I like and totally identify myself with it.  I've gotten lost in the crunchy mama blogland, where everyone wears their baby and infant carseats cause paralysis and your baby will only be a gourmet if they're allowed to throw cucumbers on the floor at will.  I think I liked it because of that ole' Type A rising up in me: If accept a label, that label has rules you can follow, and then you can know that you're doing it right.  And like every mama, I want so badly to do it right.

But these rules, they don't allow for real life.  These labels, they have served only to alienate me from friends  ("Oh, we're not doing purees, so I don't know how much you should be feeding her..." "Are diapers expensive?  I wouldn't know..." etc.) and make things difficult to explain to babysitters.  I have found one other person, out of the approximately 3,816 friends who had babies the same time as I did, who does with her daughter most of the things that we do with RG.  She knows what a Mei Tai is and how to get stains out of cloth diapers.  She knows all of the acronyms, like EBF and STTN.  But she's the only one.  While its nice to have someone who is drawn to the same things you are, I realized that I had lost sight of something crucial: there's wiggle room. [Lucky for her, I figured this out before I turned all stalker-type-A on her and followed her around with a notepad, so I could do all of the things she does.  Hypothetically.]

This revelation isn't going to change much of what we do.  I still like baby wearing, and cloth diapering has saved us LOADS of cash.  I'm not planning on giving my girl formula - its just not something that we need or want to do.  But I've saved a sample box, and if we had to use it, we wouldn't be ruining our baby.  If a puree sounds easier in the moment, or if I want to, I'll feed it to my girl, and she'll be fine (and full, and possibly less messy).  Sometimes, I'm going to use a stroller.  

I realize that (a) this is completely non-earth-shattering for pretty much everyone but me, and (b) that most of you didn't even know that some of these things were a "thing".  But for me, this is a load off.  This is releasing the pressure to follow all of these self-imposed rules.  It feel similar to when I put away the "how to train your baby books" and took all of (yes, as in more than one) the timer apps off of my phone.  This is me, making my way towards REALLY being the mama I thought I'd be: attentive and intentional, yet relaxed and laid-back, enjoying mama-ing.  Because for me, that is how I'll know I'm doing it "right".

<3 M.