Christmas, a time for being with family, relaxing by the fire, enjoying the odd glass of something nice, opening gifts, eating food having a wonderful time.
See, I keep hearing the song that goes “it’s the mostwonderful time of the year” in my head while I’m running around like a headless chicken hoping I haven’t forgotten something or worse some one little.
As a mother your role at Christmas changes from pre-children. We need to be careful you don’t lose you inthe event. Especially if you are a brand-newmum. When excited relatives offer to take baby from you so you can cook or make yourself a drink. What we need to do is learn how to kindly reflect these well-meaning requests to become actually helpful to us mothers;
“actually, if you wouldn’t mind the kettle (bottle of drink) is over there, please feel free to make drinks I just need to take a moment or two with my little one”
“I’ve written a time plan out for the meal, my baby and I need to reconnect for a bit right now would you mind giving me some help?”
The fact is them doing it will take less time than if you did and then they probably will get a chance to meet your baby once you’ve met your babies need to be close to you.
Babies need to feed frequently, we are “carry mammals”, wecarry our babies we don’t “cache” them away like other species do. This means that we feed babies almost continuously, the make up of our milk means that its quickly digested and therefore the growing baby will request it more frequently. Breastmilk does this, it is normal.
Formula milk is digested differently and that is why a formula fed infant often has different feeding patterns. For those breastfeeding in a culture that doesn’t see it all that often its now usually seen as odd for a baby to feed very regularly but it’s so, so normal and its important we make sure we don’t pretend it isn’tby making sure we do reflect requests to have our baby taken from us when actually they probably want to feed in to positive requests to mean we still have hold of our baby.
Also, the wine thing, you can enjoy an alcoholic drink at Christmas here’s a linkto information on that.
Some of us also have to deal with the relatives with unhelpful comments. Lucy Ruddle has been doing some postabout these comments recently on her Facebook page:
Christmas nonsense you might hear from visitors no1:
Christmas nonsense you might hear from visitors no2
Christmas nonsense you might hear from visitors no3
Did you have unhelpful comments directed to you? How did/do you deal with them?
Be aware at this time of year or any time where you meet upwith lots of people who perhaps might make you feed less that feeding less can equal blocked ducts or mastitis. Keep an eye on things and make sure you offer feeds too as a distracted baby might also need the reminder to feed too!
Most of all remember you are wonderful and if you celebrate it, Merry Christmas.
