Are we feeding her too much? Are we feeding her too little? Is she gaining enough weight? Is she gaining too much weight? I should know this kind of stuff. I'm her mom- this is my job. Hey, what is this? Is this a diaper rash? How often am I supposed to change her diaper anyways? Is this diaper breaking her out? Do we need to buy the expensive diapers? Or maybe we should switch to cloth? Do these diapers still stink? Am I burping her enough? Why is she spitting up so much? Is it something I'm doing? Is this because I chose not to breastfeed? I should have breastfed. She's going to have attachment issues because I didn't love her enough to breastfeed her. I should have worked harder. I should have wanted to breastfeed. What kind of mom plans on formula feeding? When should we start cereal and baby food? Do we wait until four months or six months? I don't want to give my kid a peanut allergy. But, she seems like she wants to eat now. She's only two months old. How do I hold off for four more months? Do we use commercial baby food or make our own? Baby led weaning? I'm supposed to let my kid feed herself? Am I doing tummy time enough? Are we being social enough? Are we raising her to be too introverted? What are we doing? What SHOULD I be doing?
It all begins to get a little overwhelming, and I begin to "should" on myself as a former psychologist I saw would say. The shame spiral begins and I spiral away into the land of things that I think that I "should be doing", that I "would be doing if I was a good mom". I begin to convince myself that I'm terrible horrible mother (which does absolutely no good, by the way). So, then I go to the internet to research and try to find out all of the things that I "should do" to be a "good mom". But, due to the obsessive nature I have, I take all of the writings of the "mommy doctors" super-psycho-seriously and convince myself that I'm an even-more-terrible-horrible mom. I mean, what kind of mom would consider feeding their kid anything but pure breastmilk? That formula stuff is just poison. I'm setting my kid up for a life of obesity and allergies. And...the shame spiral spirals again.
This process just repeats itself over and over again until I just want to be sick. To make things more fun, different sites have different information. Different organizations, different countries- they all recommend different things. Feed your kid this. Don't feed your kid that. Wait until four months to feed your kid. Wait until six months. Wait until they can cook their own filet mignon. Feed your kid rice cereal. Avoid all gluten. Give your kid a PB&J. Start with applesauce. Start with vegetables or your kid won't like them because they taste bad, so they won't ever eat them and they'll only eat sugar and then they'll get ADD/ADHD/Austism and DIE. Do you want a dead kid? I didn't think so. Never ever let them taste the wonderful deliciousness of natural sugars. It just gets exhausting.
I think I've decided to move on past the mommy doctors, though. They don't have an MD after their name- their only qualification is that they had a kid before me and they think that they know everything. In all honesty, I think I'm moving past a lot of the doctor-doctors as well. They might have an MD after their name, but many of them are fear mongering monsters that are being paid of by organizations to say a certain line of thinking. You can get "research" to prove almost anything these days. When one pediatrics group says research says that you must hold off on solids until six months and then two months later decides that four months is the magical threshold and then decides that it's actually twelve months, I have to question things. I have to question ones' motivation for speaking on the matter.
In the end, I'm Sarah's mommy. T is Sarah's daddy. God gave us brains and we were made to use them. Just because something is right for one child doesn't mean that it is right for all of them. I'm not a bad mom just because I gave Sarah a taste of chocolate froyo when she was six weeks old. Or that lick of a pretzel when she was two weeks old. Or letting her nom on pizza crust just after a month old. Nothing bad happened. She didn't die. In fact, she gave me a pretty cute, gummy smile. She will let us know if she's hungry. She'll scream if we aren't feeding her enough. If we want to give her a taste of something (within reason), we will. If she starts grabbing or reaching for food, we'll start giving her food. We don't need a group of "doctors" or doctors to tell us when to do these things- it's a basic human instinct. When I feel it in my "mommy gut"- I'll know that its the right thing to do. I don't have to feel guilty because we formula feed- it was the best choice for Sarah, and all of the involved parties (myself, T, Sarah's pediatrician, my OB) agreed that it was was needed to happen after she was born. I'm not less of a mom because I don't provide her with milk from my breasts- I give her the food she needs with the nutrients she needs, she's thriving- we are all good!
Obviously, feeding your kid real poison is bad. Doctor's recommendations need to be taken into consideration. But, here's the deal- doctor's recommendations are just that- recommendations. I'm the mama. Within reason, I get to make these decisions. So make them I will. Don't try to make me feel guilty- as of this moment, I'm not giving the "mommy doctors" that kind of power over me, my happiness, or my child. I'm putting those critical thinking skills, those decision making skills to work and deciding what is best for my child. And if that means formula, so be it. If that means rice cereal, so be it. If it means feeding her tastes of food at two months, so be it. If it means not depriving her of the yummy foods of life, so be it. I'm the mommy. I make the decisions.
