As many of you know I became a mother quite recently, three months ago to be exact. These three months were some of the hardest ones in my entire life, but also a time where I learned a lot about myself and other people.

You can expect that my blog will change in the future, depending on my free time and recent events. But I will always try to keep my mind open for new experiences and lessons.

Photo by my very talented husband

Being a parent is hard:

I never imagined that such a tiny person, aka baby, would demand so much attention. As a nursing mother it looked like I was feeding him around the clock the first month, day and night. Sometimes I hardly had time to eat or take a shower, but I did have time to read while he was nursing (since it took him about 40 minutes, every 2 hours in the beginning). In one of those long, lonely nights while he was eating, I stumbled upon a text (in my native language) and found it very interesting. It was about some tribes where it's perfectly ok for the whole tribe to take care of one and every baby. So, not only parents had the "burden" of looking after the little ones, but every member was equally responsible for the well being of every child.

I suppose that makes sense in close communities, where you depend on each other. But what about modern society?
For example, my husband and I had no help with the baby, we did it all alone. Was it hard, yes. Would I change it, no.

Unwanted advice

The fact that we did it all alone doesn't mean we knew what we were doing. We read as much as we could and decided to lean on our instincts as parents, especially my instinct as a mother. That on the other hand didn't stop (almost) everyone else from giving advice.

Most of the advice came from relatives (via text or phone call), but some were from complete strangers on the street. The advice was there, but actual help wasn't.

Some sound ridiculous even now:

"He is crying because he is hungry" (even when he just ate)
"You dressed him too much/little"
"Pick him up/don't get him used to being held"
"He has to eat every three hours, never before"

So, one would assume that it really does take a village to raise a child, but in modern society only empty advice remained from that practice. No one offered much needed help around the house, preparing food or taking care of the baby so that I could catch on some sleep. I would welcome that kind of help any day, where giving advice when no one asked for it, only aggravated my sleep-deprived brain more.

I felt like I was doing something or everything wrong, and even when I tried my hardest someone was displeased with my parenting.

Only you know your child

Let's be honest, some people will have much more experience in raising a child than you, but that on the other hand doesn't mean that they know it all. There are no two same people in this world and there are no two same babies. I came to realize that since someone grew in my body for nine months I knew him better then anyone.

So we continued doing things mostly based on our feelings and it got us this far just fine.

Does it take a village? Yes!
But sometimes a village is three people and one dog :)

With love,
Tamara