The days are long, but the years – the years are so, so short.
As a new mum, you will hear people telling you this – especially mums with children who are now school age and bigger. While it can be hard to see it from where you are, where days and nights are a blur, and you seem to get nothing done but holding, feeding and changing your baby, know this: You will miss these newborn days with all your heart some day.
So, soak it in. Allow yourself to slow down – right now everything else can wait. The washing, the visits, the dishes – it can all be done at a later moment when your baby isn’t just wanting to sleep on you.
Because you will come to realise soon, that having a baby sleep on your chest or in your arms, it is pretty much the most amazing thing in the world.
This Facebook post has been doing the rounds again and just sums it up so beautifully – why we should just slow down a little – and savour this precious, precious time:
Here is her text in full:
What if we saw children sleeping on us as a positive? What if we viewed the babies who refuse to go down to nap as a sign that we need to slow down?
What if we changed our perceptions on contact naps, and instead viewed them as an opportunity to relax?
Baby has just fallen asleep on me. I spend a few minutes browsing Facebook and then, my mind wonders towards the dishes piling up in the sink. The pile of laundry stacked up in the bathroom. The dust that has settled on the tv. I start to feel guilty. I start thinking about work that could be done. Or food that needs to be cooked. I try to put baby down, but no way. Baby is having NONE of it.
But what if, just say, WHAT IF this is how it is SUPPOSED to be? Alright yes, we know that evolutionary babies are designed to want to be close to their mothers, but what if that is also meant to work out for the mother to rest too. It’s meant to be for OUR benefit.
To sit back for just a moment, and forget about everything else going on in life.
To take in the beauty of our children, and REST.
Rest our minds.
And rest our bodies.
Childbirth has put our bodies under some serious stress. And there are always a million things that need to be done before the day is over. Perhaps our babies and children needing us to be still with them is natures way of telling us to slow down for just a moment.
Take the opportunity.
