3 Simple Things I Wish Someone Had Said to Me as a New Mother

And one I really wish they hadn’t

After my first son was born, postpartum depression felt like drowning in a dark ocean while your friends partied on the deck of a cruise ship.

It started with some random weeping. I stopped liking the taste of food.

And then before I knew it, tears would stream down my face uncontrollably every evening at exactly 5:30 PM as I watched the sun go down from our front window.

I was crying, I explained to my husband, because the day was becoming night.

In addition to my weeping and sudden disinterest in food, I was terrified of my baby. I remember staring at him and wanting so much to feel love for him, but all I felt was worry and resentment.

My midwife soon picked up that something was wrong at my 6-week checkup. She handed me the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, and I sobbed after the first question:

I have been able to laugh and see the funny side of things…

a. as much as I always could

b. not quite so much now

c. definitely not so much now

d. not at all

“My answer is no… I have not at all been able to do that!” I sobbed.

Luckily, my midwife intervened. I went on antidepressant medication, and I started seeing a therapist.

The sundown stopped causing uncontrollable weeping.

My son smiled for the first time, and then he made cooing noises, and I slowly began to fall in love with him.

6 years later, I have other struggles as a mom. I have two sons now, and my firstborn has special needs. Parenthood can be confusing and lonely.

But my love is on full blast now, and even that can be painful in itself.

When I greet a friend who is still in those very raw days of early parenthood, I try to tell them the things that I wished someone had said to me.

I try to give space to validate their feelings so they don’t feel alone in this.

And I absolutely never say the thing I hate that people say to new mothers. I’ll get to that later.

Here are few things I wish someone had told me when I was in this stage of my parenting journey.

1. It’s okay if you miss your old life.

I always reassure new moms that it’s okay to have a little regret. In the early days of parenthood, all of the mundane parts of your former life can come tumbling back to you like a nostalgic movie montage.

My movie montage of pre-child life included watching Netflix, waking up by my own free will, and walking through doorways without being terrified of breaking a baby’s head.

In my case, I longed for those days and wished I wasn’t where I was, trying to get a newborn to sleep at 2 in the morning.

During late-night breastfeeding sessions, I would stare at pictures on social media of friends out at social gatherings and feel a million miles away from being a real human being. I wanted my old self back. I felt incredibly jealous of my friends without kids.

But guess what? This gets better, I tell new parents. And it did for me too.

Why? Amnesia.

The good news about your old life when you have kids is that pretty soon it disappears from your memory.

You slowly come to terms with this idea of being fully responsible for another human, and with that comes acceptance that you’ve given up some freedom.

It does get better, this nostalgia for the past. But it doesn’t mean it isn’t hard.

2. It’s okay if every second of this feels hard right now.

There are many people who will talk about how wonderful it is to hold a newborn in your arms, and how these are some of the happiest days of your life.

First of all, it’s not really cool for anyone to tell you something is the happiest day of your life. That’s for you to decide.

Secondly, it’s not normal to go this long without sleep. What you’re experiencing right now is a form of torture.

Before newborns can smile at you and make eye contact, they are basically little animals who need round-the-clock attention without giving much in return.

Add to the mix difficulties like breastfeeding trouble, colic, acid reflux, and postpartum depression, and you’re in for a ride that feels hard pretty much all the time.

I tell friends it’s okay if you’re basically surviving hour by hour here. It gets better eventually, but that doesn’t mean the initial months don’t feel like a struggle for basic survival.

Of course, I also urge anyone who feels those lingering baby blues to talk to their doctor. Antidepressants helped me so much, and being on them for my second son’s birth made that experience much more manageable.

3. It’s okay if you don’t love your baby yet.

A parent-child relationship is a relationship that can take time to develop.

I know some mothers do feel an instant bond with their babies. But it’s important for all of us to recognize that meeting your baby isn’t always a “love at first sight” situation.

For me, it took months to get to know my son and develop a bond with him. The feelings started developing once he first made eye contact, when he smiled at me for real, and when we started communicating.

I try to reassure parents that the feelings will come on your own terms. Love can take time, and no one but you can determine what your timeline is with your baby.

This leads me to my very least favorite thing people say to new mothers. It’s something that’s been said to me after both of my births.

“Isn’t being a mom the most love you’ve ever felt in your life?”

No, it’s not. That was my high school boyfriend, who wrote his initials on each and every one of the 500 mix CD’s I took with me to college.

My son is only a few days old, and he entered the world by pounding a sledgehammer repeatedly against my lower spine. He can’t focus on me with his eyes, and he wakes up every hour and a half screaming. Give me a second here.

I recognize that statements like these are usually made with good intentions. But I think what made me so uncomfortable about this was that it was assigning me how I was supposed to feel about one of the most complicated periods of my life.

Instead of asking me how I was doing after a difficult birth, or if I needed them to make me a smoothie, they reminded me instead that I should be bursting with positive feelings like all the other moms in the history of time.

And instead, I felt like I was crumbling into a million pieces and barely holding on.

I know that people usually mean well when they dole out their wisdom to new mothers. But they also can cause harm, because they can sometimes invalidate how a new mother is actually feeling.

When I’m around a new mother, I try to fit in a few less popular bits of wisdom. My hope is that I can reassure them that whatever they are feeling right now — whether it’s intense love or regret or nostalgia over watching Netflix in bed — is okay.

Parenting is the wildest ride I’ve ever been on. It makes sense to tread with caution around those who are still buckling themselves in.

More from Michelle A. Cmarik…