Nikki Walsh chats to Louise, mother-of-two.
“Oh, go with your instincts,” mothers said to me before I had the baby.
Then I had the baby.
“He’s very small, isn’t he?”
“What about formula?”
“There’s no such thing as colic.”
“Where’s his dodo? Arah you have to let him have a dodo.”
“He should be on solids. Boys need solids.”
Then there were the women on the street…
“That child needs a blanket.”
“Never let a baby overheat.”
“Have you no shoes for the child?”
I quickly learnt that no one was interested in my instincts; I was supposed to be doing whatever they were doing. Of course, if I had listened to my instincts I might have picked my baby up when it cried or let it sleep on me when I was tired – in short all the things they wanted to do but didn’t because they never listened to their instincts either.
And of course, two years on, with no instincts left to speak of, I’m at it too. The other night I found myself beside a woman who was about to have her first baby in Holles Street.
“An eye mask,” I said. “You’ll need an eye mask. And ear plugs. No one ever tells you that. And don’t wear polyester, you’ll boil alive. A good cotton nightdress…”
An hour later she mumbled something about needing the loo, and rose, white-faced from her chair.
I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it again.
Nikki Walsh is a writer and editor with a passion for what makes us tick. She lives in Dublin with her husband, her son and a heap of books, mostly on psychology.
Join Nikki next week for more mum rants.
