If you have a newborn, you know that you have said good bye to deep slumber for some time, at least the first few months. For starters, your baby needs to be fed every two or three hours. Secondly, you are still recovering from the delivery – whether it was normal or cesarean. Thirdly, the baby may soil his nappy often so you need to be watchful. And most importantly, you cannot just switch on and switch off your “sleep button”. Once you are up to tend to your baby, you do not fall back to sleep immediately, although that is the only thing you want to do 😉 So what do you do? You think! You have so much think now – some of them scary, some of them exciting, some of them invoking both joy and sorrow!
10 Thoughts You Have In The Middle Of the Night When You Have A Newborn
Here are 10 most common thoughts moms of newborns have in the middle of the night! Let us know if we have missed out on any!
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- “Okay, this is more difficult than I thought”: This is something that hits most first-time moms right in the middle of their faces. No matter how much you think you are prepared (thanks to friends, families, books and online reading), you would still be overwhelmed by the amount of work you as a mom need to do for your baby. And the award for most exhausting mommy work goes to night time feeding of the little ones!
- “Am I doing anything wrong?”: All moms second guess all their baby choices. And that is because everyone seems to have different opinions about how babies should be taken care of. All these conflicting opinions mean that you are constantly at doubt if you are feeding the baby on time, bathing him/her right, burping after feed properly, and putting the child into sleep correctly and so on
- “How can he (the husband) sleep so peacefully? This is not fair”: In most homes, husbands, owing to their day jobs, are given a “get out of jail” kind of pass every night. They get to sleep because they need to be up and working in the morning while in theory moms can sleep when babies sleep during the day. As moms, we know how less sleep we get during the day. So when you see your husband all smug and cozy and snoring away, you get no less than murderous thoughts about him!!
- “Dear God, I am thankful for this little bundle of joy. But I am not having another!”: At the peak of exhaustion will be when you swear by all Gods known and unknown that you will never have another kid as you cannot physically and mentally go through the current experience ever again!
- “I am going to be a great mother and ensure my baby grows up to be smart and polite and respectable”: You try to make up your mind about what kind of mom you want to be. And how you would raise the child in the best way possible. Where would you school her? What extracurricular activities will you put her in? How you would make your kid and her friends say that you are the coolest mom ever. Plans, plans and more plans
- “I am tired. I am sad. But motherhood isn’t all that bad too”: The midnight thoughts are not all dark and sad though. You love your child. You are proud of what you have accomplished. You feel euphoric. You feel incredibly happy
- “Is that a wheez? Should I take the baby to doctor tomorrow?”: There is also worry. Is my child breathing well? Is he sleeping properly? Is there a wheezing sound? Should I take my child to doctor to confirm?
- “I have to do SO MUCH tomorrow”: Planning again, but much more short term. Motherhood comes with endless to-do lists mainly because being a mommy is not the only thing you are doing. You need to finish household chores, supervise maids, take care of family’s food, ensure house is clean, be a good wife, be a good daughter and daughter-in-law, while also being a super-mommy
- “I am so tired I should be sleeping, not thinking”: As minutes tick by, you realize that you have lesser and lesser time to sleep that night and you try to brush away all the other thoughts and focus only on sleeping
- “Oh my God, did the baby move? Is he/she gonna wake up again now?”: And just as you put your midnight thoughts to rest, and slowly slip to an exhaustive sleep, you hear a small coo, a light fluttering of arms, followed by heavy duty crying. It is time to wake up again for the next feeding/ changing nappy session!
Happy sleepless yet thoughtful nights! 🙂
