Of Endless Guilt Trips

I now know the toughest part of motherhood and it is not taking care of the baby. It is ignoring unsolicited advice from all and sundry. Of course, there are people who mean well and leave it to you to take their advice are not. But I have a problem with the lot who advise you and should you care to overlook their advice, will take you on a endless guilt trip.

As a first time mother, I have had my share of anxieties and insecurities. Am I holding the baby correctly? Is my milk enough for him? Am I doing enough to reach his milestones? Why does he keep falling sick? I had a tough couple of months with Chickoo constantly down with cough, cold, fever and endless bouts of crying. It is heartbreaking to see your baby suffer and what is worse is that the poor thing is incapable of communicating the cause of his suffering.

I have tried to steer clear of the guilt trip but there are always people around who will remind you of all the wrong things you have done to make Chickoo suffer. I am going to list them out and just.. let it go. I have been carrying it around for too long so here goes :

• He is giving you a hard time because you gave birth during an inauspicious time

Chickoo was born under a nakshatra which is considered not so good. On arguing that I have no control over the delivery timings, I was reminded that I had a C-section and could have opted for better timings. It was an EMERGENCY C-section, for heaven's sake!

• He suffers from cold because you refuse to tie a scarf

I am well aware of the forty day restriction wherein you are supposed to follow a lot of things and one of them is tying a scarf ALL THE TIME so that you don't catch a cold. I skipped it sometimes because it was soooooo hot that I would have fallen sick from the heat! People even prophesied that he would forever be sick because of my stubbornness. How mean can you get, eh? 

• He has colic because of your eating habits

So I decided to have a bit of spicy food for a change. And all hell breaks loose

• You will go blind because you use the mobile too much

Not many know, but I needed the distraction to get over postpartum blues. My internet surfing actually saved my sanity.

• Baby has less milk because you don't cover while nursing

I love watching my baby nurse - we make eye contact and smile during our long nursing sessions. Surely, this cannot be achieved while I have covered him up like a crime scene? Owing to Chickoo's nasal block during cold, we had a few days of nursing strike. I was on the verge of tears and this statement opened the floodgates. I wept silently every single night until the situation got better. 

I could go on but I decided to list these ones since they came from persons whom I considered to be close enough to me. I am glad for motherhood because it made me aware of a different aspect of their personalities. No mother would ever do things which would harm the baby and yet, people will make you feel guilty. It only saddens me because I do not think I will share the same level of bonding with these people in the future but I am glad for the realization. Here's to detox post motherhood!