Let's continue on a little more with Baby Week, shall we?
On last Monday's post, my beautiful friend (and new mama) Laura left this note in the comments:
" . . . like maybe someone could tell me where that line is between Trusting Your Instincts and Trusting In Conventional Wisdom?"
I've been thinking that over quite a bit in the past week. I think it is very, very common in those early weeks and months to wonder what this magical Mommy Instinct is and just how helpful can it be? In my experience, finding and heeding an internal mothering instinct is an art - something that may take some practice in the beginning for some, but that will feel more natural with time.
Your mothering instinct can be trusted to tell you when everything is right. Your mothering instinct can be trusted to alert you when something is wrong. But in our culture, we have so many voices speaking so many opinions, it can be hard to know what is instinct and what is an opinion of someone else which we have internalized.
I have found that my own Mommy Instinct can be read as either smiling or frowning. (Stay with me here.) When all is right with baby and the rest of the family, when we have found solutions that work for us, when we settle into life rhythms that, although are perhaps not the ideal we had always imagined but bring peace and a sense of right-ness to our family nonetheless, then my Mommy Instinct smiles a warm, heart-happy grin.
But all of us who have weathered some parenting trials know that there are times when things are definitely not right. Baby is discontent, Daddy doesn't have the answers, other little ones in the home are hurting, and Mama is sinking. Maybe there's some colic or reflux or any number of things happening, but one thing is for sure - we have a problem. Your Mommy Instinct will throw up some great big red flags to alert you to this.
If your Mommy Instinct is smiling most of the time, may I suggest that you don't need any conventional wisdom? You already have the wisdom you need for that particular day/month/phase.
If your Mommy Instinct is frowning, it's time to open the Mommy Tool Box and attempt to find a good solution. You know what is so frustrating about being a new mama? That Mommy Tool Box? It's a little bit empty. So this is where you start to (carefully, selectively) ask around and begin building up a Tool Box O' Resources that will serve you well on the journey ahead.
Here's an example from my own life. It's no secret that we had many sleep issues when Dacey was a baby. The main issue was that I had internalized some advice that "baby should sleep XX minutes per nap, X a day, and be sleeping through the night by XX weeks of age." Now, if I were to do it all over again, I would not consider her sleep issues to be problems. I know now that babies eat when they're hungry and sleep when they're tired and it's all pretty simple.
But.
It was a problem for me at that time. I didn't have a single tool in my Mommy Tool Box with which to fix it, so I asked some friends and read some books. The advice of friends was somewhat-helpful and somewhat-not. When I tried to follow the advice of some and let Dacey cry-it-out (more accurately scream-it-out because this went far beyond crying) at the time I had ordained as nap time, my Mommy Instinct went into meltdown mode. Racing pulse, shaking hands, irresistible compulsion to rescue her - the whole bit. It was like a ticker tape parade of red flags all over the place. I knew that tool wouldn't work for us.
So I read some books. And I will be dadgummed but what I didn't find some super helpful information and advice. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child served as a tremendously helpful tool for teaching me some basic information about infant sleep. True, his stance on cry-it-out is different than mine, but at that point, I had already ruled it out as a solution, so I was able to incorporate his other words of wisdom about sleep. I learned about infant sleep cycles and the importance of early baby bedtimes and reasonable and developmentally appropriate awake times and how to recognize sleepy cues. So much stuff that my Mommy Instinct just wasn't able to teach me.
(And these days I would probably be more likely to recommend No Cry Sleep Solution to friends - it's a LOT of the same information plus non-CIO techniques to promote infant sleep.)
I'm sure every mama could tell story after story of situations that came up that were clearly problems, but what to do?
So, Laura, my response to your (really great and truly relevant) question would be to first stop and assess how much you actually need the Conventional Wisdom. You've got the basics down pat. I mean, just look at the preciousness. You feed her, you change her diapers, you listen to what she is telling you and you respond. You are a pro at the essentials here, I can assure you of that. But yes, situations will come along where you need some outside resources. So you investigate, you dig a little, you ask around, you filter it through what you think might work, you experiment, you learn.
The voice of that mothering instinct will get louder with time and practice, and you'll grow into being more at-ease with trusting it. I promise.
Who else can weigh in on this question for my wonderful friend? What say you? Where do you find the balance between instinct and conventional wisdom?
