Karen said, re: frequent night nsg. by toddler: "3) Hard to put this in
words, but the most powerful coping tool I had was what I refer to as
floating down stream...I would reach a point where I thought I was going to
lose my mind..."
"Floating downstream" is a key concept I try to share with the many new
mothers I am called to work with who are suffering so very much in those
earliest weeks with a new baby. So many of the women I see here in this
academically high-powered town are truly struggling with the change in
life/identity that happens with the birth of their (usually) first baby.
They call me with a "breastfeeding problem"; I go, I see, I talk, and very
often it is clear to me that the baby is actually doing just fine, but the
mother is just finding it so difficult that she really can't believe that
this is what it's like to have a new baby in the house. These are women who
are accustomed to being competent, organized, in-control, highly functional
in their lives. They know they want to breastfeed because they've done all
the reading and kept up on the excellent "reasons", but they are really
thrown for a loop by just the normal overwhelming-ness of life with a baby.
"Floating downstream" is another prong of my "don't fight with the baby"
campaign. Truly, with a newborn that's just about all you can do anyway -
there is absolutely nothing to be gained by thinking you can bend this
little soul to your will. Utterly pointless; you can plan strategy for
dealing with the things that are troubling you, but you can't make the baby
do one single thing differently unless it happens to meet the baby's needs
as well. At the same time, there's a huge relief to be found in just
learning to go with the flow for now. I remember this so vividly from my own
"birth" as a mother - my intense memory of that process is the reason I do
what I do today.
I see it so, so often that I sometimes begin to wonder if *I'm* really nuts.
Here's a baby who's just doing its best to get its needs tended to, and a
mother who just hasn't caught the rhythm yet, or learned to "float
downstream" in the current of baby-time, and the result is a tense,
distraught household worrying about the wrong things! I don't know how to
"fix it", but I know that many find some relief in learning that in fact
they & the baby are both doing a beautiful job with the breastfeeding, but
that the learning to "float downstream" part is what's causing them trouble
right now. They think they're the only one who has ever felt so distressed,
that everyone else has it all mastered, that everyone else's babies sleep
better, or nurse more predictably, or whatever it is.
The other time being able to go with the flow is incredibly useful is when
your kids are teenagers. If you haven't learned to float downstream by then,
you will go crazy! If you haven't learned to choose your issues and trust in
the process and in your own good mothering by then, you will surely lose
even more sleep than when your baby wakes 10 times a night!
Cathy Bargar RN, IBCLC
Ithaca NY
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