What I would tell my first time Mum self
With the upcoming birth of our second child I have been doing a lot of thinking lately.. Writing this was initially meant as a form of therapy for myself, but after I had finished it, I realised it might speak to others. I had undiagnosed post natal anxiety after the birth of my son. I put this down to having my gut tell me one thing and society telling me the complete opposite with regards to how I should respond to my frequent feeder and waker. I had an extremely brief touch with sleep training, which didn't feel right and only made my anxiety worse as it was painful for both me and my baby and I couldn't understand how I would be able to follow my instincts once my baby was "trained" and had times of increased needs. This didn't stop me however, from feeling anxious about following my gut. I continued to feel anxious that my baby's intense needs were my fault, that at some point I had created a rod for my own back, but I couldn't understand ...