It's time to talk about Step 4 in Dealing With Barriers to Self-Care
STEP 4: Getting Realistic
If you’re reading this while holding your newborn and feeling like, “I can barely take a quick shower, let alone plan out a priority list for myself,” remember, there is a season. Even though it’s tempting to wish away this moment, to hurry ahead to more balance, you may just need to be still for now. Your priorities and your bandwidth may change as your kids grow and your work demands change. What seemed impossible to me as a new mom is a daily part of my life now that my kids are a little older. It’s just a fact that our self-care options may change depending on the stage of motherhood we’re in and that’s perfectly okay.
It’s so normal to wish away the painful parts of parenting.
There are plenty of precious moments at each stage of parenthood but there are also plenty more moments of pure stress and strife. The real danger isn’t just with wishing the nasty or all-consuming parts away. It’s with these two common missteps: (1) trying to fix every natural developmental stage our child goes through and (2) expecting the transition through those stages to progress in a straight line, instead of a messy zig-zag.
Parenting from a “fix-it” mentality is a trap every parent
falls into from time to time.
I see it a lot in my practice. While a lot of new parents understand pretty quickly that feeding troubles and sleepless nights are just part of the game, many have difficulty as each developmental stage (and headache) arises. They look for solutions to problems that can’t be fixed, that have to just be waited out. And, while I’m impressed by their tenacious desire and willingness to problem-solve, sometimes I think they’ve been misled along the way by their friends and by society.
No one tells them this crucial parenting pearl:
yes, we can prevent and address a lot of health issues
that come up for newborns and young kids but some
things (like cluster feeding, sleep regressions and colic)
are more about muddling through with the right
perspective than they are about finding
quick-fix solutions.
Some things just take time to get better. Major caveat here: if you have a serious health concern about your child and are worried about their safety or about potential illness, contact your doctor right away.
We also struggle with set-backs and regressions.
When an elementary school child seems to more and more even-keeled, then has a period of heightened emotions and tantrums akin to the early toddler years, we tend to get immediately stressed. When a child has been sleeping through the night for an extended period of time, then suddenly has a season of sleep regression, it can feel like a major step back. It’s hard to wait on the mini storms and developmental detours of childhood to pass without rushing in to make adjustments. We forget that child development and the parenting experience do not move smoothly along a set curve. Often kids take one step backward before they catapult forward emotionally, physically, and cognitively. Because it’s unpredictable, parenting is painful.
Please don’t misunderstand me. There are amazing, chart-topping experiences sprinkled in between the pain points. Like last night, when my eldest scampered up the stairs to sit through her baby sister’s bedtime story and song, crooning right alongside me to “Good Night My Someone,” my husband grinning as the two shared a hug and an Eskimo kiss. I tried my hardest to seal our fleeting seconds of peace into my memory, onto my parenting balance sheet.
So why is it so hard for us to get okay with the place we are in our motherhood journeys?
The more I struggle in my own house and watch others do the same, the more clearly I see the true reason. The rest of our lives, on the surface, have some semblance of controllability. All of our two-hour grocery delivery options and pick-up dry-cleaning services trick us into thinking that, if we just complain to the right customer-service agent or do the right google search, we can fix most anything. We can get anything faster if we just pay more for it. Resolution is an easy click away. When we look deeper, though, nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to the challenges of non-consumer life.
There are seasons.
Seasons of struggle. Seasons of celebration. Seasons of muddling through. And, seasons of letting it ride — just being okay with the stage of motherhood we’re in now.
