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When my Inner Critic Tells Me I’m a Bad Parent…

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

It’s the end of another long day. I’ve just curled up in my bed and though sleep beckons, I want to write. I want to share.

This morning started off like many do, with my son laying on my arm, and my husbands alarms calling him to get up for work. He gave us both a kiss, with an extra for the bump, and was off. Theo Prana woke shortly after.

Like most days this week, TP cried for daddy but soon settled at the promise of cuddles and a milk bottle. Unlike most days however, he had decided to sleep in, and once his milk was finished, he was not a happy boy. The usual fights began, take the wet nappy off, teeth brushing, finding clothes for the day etc… I was rushing around and all my boy wanted was “up, mummy up”. He has been super clingy off late, and with a sore back and growing belly, I am struggling to carry him all the time.

One by one, things got ticked off the list, we were ready, with an on-the-go breakfast banana and all our things packed for the day.  A stressful morning to say the least! 

Finally out the house, I held back tears as we walked to play group. Mum guilt hit and it wasn’t even 9am. Our late wake up meant that I hadn’t let him take his time; I had rushed his getting ready, and snapped at him when he wasn’t fast enough. I began to go through the morning in my head, and my Inner Critic (IC) told me I was doing a terrible job.

Sound familiar? 

I know I’m not the only one who has these mornings; but sometimes when they come along, it is easy to feel alone; especially when my IC tries to win out over my rational voice. It eats away at me and if I let it, it can turn a bad moment into a bad day. So I tell it to be quiet, I breath and I talk to my son. We sing songs, and we look for birds and cars and marvel at the dogs that walk past us.

The truth is that nobody is doing a bad job.

When we give to our kids the best of us, when we try and try and try every single day, it is absolutely impossible for us to be doing a terrible job. Our kids don’t think so – at least not until they are teenagers normally – so why do we?

I think it’s because we second guess everything we do as parents. With all the books and advice around, it’s easy to overthink, and to forget we have a natural instinct for this life.

Parenting is a beautiful and chaotic mess, it is filled with laughter and tears, excitement and disappointment, joy and anger. There are many things in-between and many before and after, and every single part is precious.

Savoring hard moments is over-rated yes, but feeling them, and allowing them to teach us, even if that means crying on the walk to a playgroup. It’s the kind of day I know I’ll remember.

Xoxo

R

Morning sickness; what helped me.

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

Morning sickness, or pregnancy sickness is one of the tell-tale signs of early pregnancy; for at a significant percentage of women. It’s estimated, I have read, that around 2/3 women experience some form of morning sickness, some only for a few weeks, others until they deliver their babies.

For the lucky ones who don’t have this pleasure, well I envy you! For everyone else, though I am definitely no expert, I thought I’d share what helped me, because while with my first pregnancy I managed to cope fairly well, this time round, I really struggled to begin with.

Please consult a doctor before trying any of these remedies and do not use them if contradicted with any other medical circumstances.

I found out I was pregnant and about a week later, at approximately 6 weeks, the sickness hit, and got really very bad. I’m pretty sure I looked like I was seriously ill and my husband now tells me that he was actually quite worried because he hadn’t seen me struggle so much before. Despite having Theo Prana to look after and play with, I stayed home a lot, cancelled appointments, cried far too much, carried a sick bowl around or had my head in the toilet and at one point I actually wanted to be knocked out just to gain some relief. Thankfully, it took me around 3 weeks to go through several remedies and figure ones that worked for me, and ones that didn’t!

In this time, I also go a prescription for anti-nausea tablets, but I was told they wouldn’t recommend me taking them while breastfeeding (which I still am doing) so these were only for the worse case kind of days. In total, I’ve taken 3 tablets, each time because I was travelling and could not face sickness and travelling alone with an emotional toddler.

Here is what I learned about morning/pregnancy sickness, and what worked for me, and what didn’t.

What half worked, or didn’t at all:

  • Eating frequently: for about 3 weeks it made no difference how much or often I ate or sipped water, I was sick with everything. However after I found ways to keep the nausea at bay, eating very small amounts of food did help, but as a snack eater anyway, it was not really much of a change from my usual diet.
  • Sleeping/resting: our body works so much harder during pregnancy that rest is essential. I think that’s how I managed to cope with my first pregnancy but this time round rest wasn’t much of an option with a 22 month old! He was as understanding as could be expected though, and despite the guilt I felt then, I know I have made up for a lot of days in by doing lots of days out while the good weather has lasted.
  • Ginger: commonly used as a natural remedy for nausea. I tried ginger tea and chewing on ginger: the tea helped but mostly because it was loaded with sugar, chewing on ginger made me feel worse.
  • Peppermint: commonly used for feelings of sickness. This is the worst one for me, it made me actually want to throw up even more. I’d smell peppermint and feel sick, in oil, tea, leaves or even peppermint chewing gum! I didn’t try to have any tablets, but I have read that this helps more effectively.
  • Fennel: like peppermint, this made me feel worse.
  • Cardamom essential oil: this half helped, but wasn’t something I used often because I found other remedies.

What worked for me:

  • Fresh air: I didn’t read this anywhere, perhaps because it’s obvious or perhaps because it isn’t something that works for others but getting out of the house really made a difference to me. I would walk with my son and spend hours just pushing him around and singing songs or looking at the flowers, birds, buses etc and I would feel almost normal. Conversely, days we stayed in went from bad to worse.
  • Controlled breathing: just counting 4 in and 4 out helped a lot. I tried various forms of pranayama but honestly nothing lasted long apart from the 4×4 which I mostly did when my son was breastfeeding. This helped because the feeling of sickness would increase while he fed, but I never managed long before asking him to stop because along with sickness, breastfeeding in the early months of this pregnancy caused me some significant anxiety.
  • Lemon: the citrus smell is said to help reduce feelings of sickness in pregnancy, usually either through an oil or by slicing a lemon and inhaling the slices. This one helped! I had a bottle of lemon essential oil so I made a roller-ball by diluting it with fractionated coconut and would roll it on my wrists and below my ears. Smelling it really helped, but only for a very short while.
  • Grapefruit: similar to lemon, the citrus is meant to ease feelings of nausea. This was my absolute savior. I sadly lost my bottle of grapefruit essential oil on holiday but for around 6 weeks I would dilute and dab it on my skin and on the scarf or top I was wearing. It didn’t mean I wasn’t feeling sick, but it helped me carry on and actually function normally, without a sick bowl attached to my arm.

I never tried things like acupuncture so have no idea about it, but I hope that sharing what I learned makes a small difference; even if this list helps just one person.

Xoxo

R

#Mumlife isn’t easy…

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

Finding inspiration to write is not always easy, not is it easy to find time when a good idea hits. These past couple of weeks I have had several “I could do a blog post about that” moments, but inevitably the time passes and I haven’t managed to open up my laptop. Add on to that the fact that TP is extremely possessive of my phone when it is out, these moments pass.

Thinking about that though, about how fleeting moments are, and about how quickly time slips away, is itself, something to share. Recently this has come up a lot for me; the hours and days we wish away. At 27 weeks pregnant now, with a 25 month old, I will be the first to admit that I take a lot of it for granted. I ‘just know’ that tomorrow we can make up for today, or that after nap-time we can do something fun, or that the weather will be better next week for us to go out walking more. I assume that I will continue to be able to run around after my son, and pick him up, throw him around and let him ride ‘monkey’ on my back down the stairs. He sits on my belly and we joke he is sitting on his sister as he climbs onto my shoulders.

On the other side of it though, are the long hours where I thank god and the BBC for Mr Tumble and let TP sit through many, many episodes just so I can eat and cook and do the washing and check my email and maybe if I’m lucky go to the loo before he gets up and demands attention. There are 5am starts and 10pm bedtimes, the food strikes or tantrums for anything other than marshmallows, the milk hunger to the point my nipples feel they might fall off, and the hitting and biting that is his current method of expressing upset and anger. These are moments that I want to pass quickly, because staying present and accepting is hard, it’s easier to wish the hour away and want to ‘move on’ to the next thing on our schedule.

Yet these are also the moments I think back on with a wry smile, because the cuddles and healing that happen after are often the best hugs and cutest conversations. So why do I wish them away?

Because I am tired.

Because I am embarrassed.

Because they make me feel like I am raising a ‘trouble’ child.

Because accepting and dealing with the harder minutes is not easy. Parenthood is not easy.

But it is worth it.

From April to August; An Unplanned Break from Blogging

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

My son is currently asleep for his daily nap and I have a To-Do List as long as my arm but today, after months away, I wanted to blog. I have thought so much about why I stopped, why I lost it on my list of priorities and how I miss typing away and sharing my life.

I lost touch with a lot of things over the last few months, adjusting to life with Harrison home, falling pregnant and facing the parenting struggles (and adventures) that come with having a 2 year old. The days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, where I chose to watch useless television or even worse, scroll my Facebook and Instagram feeds, pretending that it was a good use of my time! How easy it is to get sucked into wasting precious minutes mindlessly on these apps. I love the ability to share and connect, but not the ease with which we are trapped into staying on the platform longer and longer.

Turning off my phone, or at least my internet recently has helped, maybe that is why I have found my way back to the keyboard. Or perhaps it was the gentle push from my mother this weekend, reminding me that writing has been a great way to care for myself, express and evaluate, let go of emotions and heal from experiences. If I want to express myself, share my life constructively, and unpack the emotional backpack I am carrying, writing is a much better idea that Facebook scrolling isn’t it?  So here we are, hopefully this time for a long time.

I won’t attempt to relieve all that has gone on since April, but I will fill in all the important bits, at least the big ones; like my little brother moving to Australia, my best friend in Scotland moving away for a year, and TP losing his best buddy (her daughter). My anxiety over TPs birth trauma made an appearance (which I am slowly trying to heal) while we were on our first ever family holiday, and we have had members of both sides of the family come to visit. TPs speech is incredible now, and I learned that even in Scotland, a paddling pool or variation of one is an asset on the hot days. H bought a bike and is using it, and I am driving around a lot more comfortable, albeit locally. We have also begun to really enjoy cooking from scratch and learning how to love the kitchen. The rest, well it’s history, but the future is still waiting, holding stories and laughter and love for us to share.

You might have also caught that I am pregnant – yep! – 25 weeks currently, and a big part of the reason I stopped writing. There were a few weeks in the first trimester I walked around permanently holding either a sick bowl or bag, and crying because I wasn’t able to do much else. But it passed, after a lot of trial and error I found a couple of pregnancy sickness tricks to keep it at bay (another post about this will come) and finally we are over it (mostly!).

Apart from that tiny detail, my first born, Theo Prana turned 2 this July, making me officially the mum of a wild toddler who is the biggest light in my life but also makes me want to curl up under the blanket with a tub of ice-cream and hide. Nobody can prepare you for parenthood and each stage has its challenges, but toddlerhood is by far the most testing. That said, we are working on finding the balance, and thankfully H is very on board with a lot of the peaceful parenting ideas I propose, so we are a team rather than giving TP mixed signals by being confused ourselves.

We also started cloth nappies, and reusable wipes, and as a family (sometimes actually led more by H than myself) trying to cut down our plastic consumption and be less wasteful. This has been an amazing development for us because we both feel like as TP gets older and understands more, we want him to know we did our best for the planet, and we didn’t stay ignorant. It is hard, sometimes we forget, sometimes even though we remember, we cannot afford the ‘planet friendly’ options, but every little bit we do makes a difference in the big picture, like the butterfly who’s wings flapping could be felt across the earth, each step we make, is a step forward.

Oh and lastly, we are moving house! Still a little while to go, so I won’t share much on it yet, but I guess that is also kind of a big reason I have felt like life is so busy, because we have had a few really major things to adjust to. All good thankfully and I am so grateful for that.

Until the next time, 

XOXO

R

August 2019 – a rougher night in motherhood.

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

Authors Note:  A little note up here to say that in my effort to cleanse this site and (hopefully) write again, I am trashing and posting things I have drafted on here.  I don’t believe in hiding the hardship – even, and especially when it is ugly. This post below was written on an ugly night – but it happened and we survived. May it serve as a reminder than even when the world feels like it may crumble; time can heal as long as we keep showing up to let it. 

 

August 19th 2019 

Being okay is such bullshit sometimes. Wanting the life I have and actually enjoying it are very different things, and loving my kid but resenting the hard moments is real as fuck. But we don’t talk things like this because its not acceptable. Mum’s are meant to be over the moon in love with their kids all the time right? Especially if we choose to stay at home.

No. Staying at home is yes, a choice, but also a necessity for us. I am always going to love my kid, I am always going to show up for my family, but it is such utter crap that I am meant to smile and be okay while I do it. Sometimes I want to cry, other times I want to scream, tonight I wanted to hop on a train to anywhere and disappear for a few hours… But I don’t do any of those things. None of us do. Instead, we breathe deep, go for a walk if needed or grab a glass (/bottle) of wine, and bury all the feelings. It’s eaiser to be numb. Because if we felt the overwhelming love and hurt and exhaustion then I think we might crack. I certainly would. I glimpsed those feelings tonight and instead of facing them, I called some family to catch up, to pretend, because its a hell of a lot easier than confronting the emotions. I don’t have time to unpack my own shit… not when I know my toddler will need me in an hour!

“It takes 10 times longer to put yourself back together than it does to fall apart.”

Easier to shove our feelings away right ?

Except that’s wrong too. No winning here. If we feel and show up a mess we’re failing, if we don’t show up at all because the feelings got us, then we’ve failed, if we’re okay then we must be hiding something, and if we’re hiding something then we’re doing it wrong again.

I am tired of it all. And I am ranting but it feels good. I love my life, but I also don’t love it all the time. I love my son but I also wish I’d get some breathing room. I want to be a great mum, but I also want to be a person who isn’t mum all the time. All these things are allowed… And it’s bullshit to believe differently.

Goodnight.

Life with a Toddler: Night Weaning

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

Letting go of your baby is one of the hardest things a parent will have to do. Allowing them to grow is a beautiful form of torture because while your heart soars for them, it also aches. I am lucky to be a stay at home mum, so I get a lot of time with my toddler, but as a result, letting him go isn’t something I find easy.

My personal parenting journey has been a bit everywhere honestly. I spent the majority of my pregnancy and first year of my son’s life away from my husband, and 8 months into 2nd year of Theo Prana’s life, his dad has missed over half of that time. None of this has been by choice per say, it’s just the way life is for military families; we count our blessings where we can and we know how to make the most of time together.

Even together though, I have been the main carer and it began reflecting in the way that Theo Prana would settle, play and interact. Harrison has been back just over a month now and we moved from Daddy being the fun person who would play all the time, to the person who plays sometimes and keeps coming and going. It wasn’t fair on Harrison, and it was exhausting me. I want to raise my son to know that mummy and daddy can both fix things, feed him, settle him and provide security, even if one is around more than the other; we are both his parents and we both provide for him. That said, I had got used to being in control of the way things ran, so last week, by a little bit of a mess up and a huge nudge from a friend, I left Harrison to do Theo Prana’s bedtime routine – something I have done almost every single night of his life.

I should mention that Theo Prana still nursed to sleep by this point too, and co-slept; the boys were thrown into the deep end, and the water was rough.

They struggled… Harrison will probably remember that as one of the worst evenings he’s had in a long time. Luckily, Theo Prana won’t remember it in the long-term; toddlers are forgiving.

1 week later, Harrison is at work all week and Theo Prana keeps asking for Daddy both day and night. He is almost entirely night weaned with very few complaints until the early hours where I am sure he’s thirsty but refuses water. It feels like a miracle.

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Here is how we did it:

*Disclaimer: I am not telling anyone else this will work for them, just sharing my experience. If it resonates, great! If not, that’s okay too… we did what the universe allowed us to do, and what felt right for our family.

Day 1: Bedtime routine went out the window, I was having a rough day, so I told H he could handle things from here and went upstairs to our spare room where my friend was staying. I had a meltdown because of how exhausted I was, and then we listened to the boys watch ‘In the Night Garden’, have a bath, read and finally, go bed. It took 45 minutes to settle Theo Prana. The first night in over a year he had been away from me at bedtime. I spent the first part of the night in his cot and got involved at 2:30am and we co-slept again.

Day 2: Harrison took the lead, and told me to go hide in the spare room again while the bath was running. He did the night routine and half the night; getting to sleep took less than 20 minutes. I slept in the cot again, and got involved at 4:30am, getting back into our bed.

Day 3: I spent the night at a hotel. I slept from 10pm until 6am almost entirely without waking – it was bliss!

Harrison and Theo Prana spent the night on their own, with Theo waking at 3:15am for a short while and climbing into the cot because it smelt like me. It broke my heart to hear but he settled with his dad, and I think this was a huge leap for them both.

Day 4: I put him to bed. Milk downstairs, not upstairs, he screamed and kicked for 50 minutes. I caved at 4:45am and gave him milk.

Day 5: I changed the routine. I fed him in bed, read a book and had him help me plaster over my nipples and say goodnight. It took less than 20 minutes and he slept for 7 hours without needing comfort. He fed again at 6am.

Day 6: Saying goodnight to the milk leads to complaints but not severe; he slept on and off and got milk at 6:45am.

Day 7 (today): Am beginning to think he is having a bit of anxiety over saying goodnight to the milk. Will work on it over the next few days/weeks with extra cuddles and lots of reassurance. He fell asleep in minutes today, was exhausted.

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Somehow, we have managed to begin our night weaning process and it is hard but it is working. We have needed this for months now, so I am hoping that this allows me a little extra rest and a break from 4am hunger pangs! I love the fact our nursing journey can continue, but it takes a toll, so this allows us to have the best of both: rest and nursing without making him ‘cry it out’ or suffer. He knew (and knows) he is safe and we will hold him, and that makes a big difference.

If you are trying to do something similar, hang in there! It feels so incredibly difficult but you will be glad you stuck it out – I know I am already, and it is motivating me to keep going.

A Childhood Memory

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

Recently a friend asked me to think back to one childhood memory that stood out. No thinking, just do it.

I urge you try.

What did you come up with?

Was it something Happy? Exciting? Sad? Angry? Shameful?

My memory was a happy one, one that brought a smile to my lips. This was actually the reason my friend had asked to me to think back, to remind me that even though life seems hard sometimes, overall, my life has been pretty damn amazing.

It got me thinking about how much our childhood influences the way we raise our children. If you had a perfectly happy childhood, you try and replicate the same for your kids. Similarly, studies suggest that people who were raised in unhappy households tend to pass on this cycle to their children. Most of us are somewhere in the middle, with good bits and bad bits; with the hope that the good outweighs the bad, the happiness is prominent than the sadness.

But, as Alfie Kohn points out:

To get better at the craft of raising children, we need to be open to seeing what’s unpleasant in order to evaluate what our parents did right and where we might be able to improve on their approach.

We learn from the way we were parented and pass it on, or we take what we have learned and adapt it.

My memory was catching butterflies. This is what I wrote when I thought about it: 

We are walking around a field of sorts, it is not green, rather yellow-ish because of the warmth. It’s the 4 of us, with Sid and I holding nets and jars, I think they are empty at the moment; we are looking for butterflies. It’s a family outing. I remember feeling happy. 

Next thing I remember is the fascination of watching a butterfly, inside the jar we have, the one that is meant to be especially designed for them – now that I am older, I highly doubt this, but I remember believing it. The butterfly is sitting on a twig or something we have but inside the jar, it is colourful and beautiful. We admire it, and then let it go. it flies away and we keep walking.

This is one of my favourite memories, and I am sure it has very little to do with the butterflies and a lot to do with the fact it was a family trip. We did a lot of them and even though I know we squabbled, and were hungry or tired or both, I don’t remember those bits. The bits that stick are the feelings of warmth, of excitement and of joy; they are the kind of thing I want to pass on to my child. We learn from our parents and we better our own parenting from them; I’m pretty sure if we do that, then generations get better and we raise good people to keep the world running.

Thanks for reading,

Xoxo

R

Hello April

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

Somehow we are now in the 4th month of 2019 and it is flying! March was an extremely busy month for us, with lots of highs and some lows too.

Harrison got back home in the first couple of weeks so we have been readjusting to life as a family of 3 again, while working around his shifts and terrible sleep pattern. Theo Prana absolutely adores his Daddy though and they are building a strong bond; one I hope we can foster as time goes on, so Theo knows that his dad is just as much of a parent as Mummy is. It’s been us 2 for a long time, on and off but on our own regardless, so this transition has been a long time coming.

Apart from bringing H back, March brought us lots of play-time, puddles and towards the end a little bit of better weather; a new car (which was much needed) and some driving lessons for me so I will be back on the road soon! I finished my photography course and started a new yoga one, we all went on a 4 day flying visit to see my in-laws and booked holidays for the next couple of months too!

We ended the month on Mothers Day which was lovely, and I was really looking forward to H’s birthday on the 1st (not a April fools joke, I promise!). Alas, I ended up with a sickness bug so spent all day feeling utterly rubbish after a night of D&V – the worst 24 hours I’ve had in a few months!

That said, this month is going to bring amazing things – I can feel it. I would love to say I’ll commit to more blog posts, but I know that I am doing the best I can so for now, I’ll be content with that. I have friends visiting next week and the week after, a week down in Norfolk after Easter and most importantly, a toddler who day-in-day-out brings extreme joy. He is talking more, and I am understanding what he wants. He is incredibly strong-willed, which isn’t much of a surprise really, but definitely means I have moments where I want to melt down with him, but then he will kiss me, or hug me or stroke my arm and its worth every single hard moment.

As he grows bigger, I try to take more photos, be in more photos and live away from my phone/camera (contradictory but effective). I do have days where I wish I could be more than mum, but being mum brings such incredible fulfilment that I know I am exactly where I am meant to be right now.

April is going to bring blessings, I am not sure what kind or when, but I am waiting, watching and listening for them. I hope you are too.

XOXO

R

Dear Mummy, on days parenting feels like a chore, remember this:

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

Dear Mummy,

I can’t tell you yet, but I see how hard you are working. Some things I won’t understand for a long time, but I do understand that keeping me alive, healthy and happy is a tough job, so thank you.

I love you too. 

Some days are fantastic, some days are long, some days are happy and some days are sad. We have many different types of days together, but the work you do and love you give remains the same: thank you.

Dear Mummy, thank you for all the things you do that get unnoticed.

Thank you for keeping me safe at night, for cuddling me and for kindly waking me up in morning, for helping me changed to get ready for the day. Thank you for letting me choose my trousers, and the colour of my shirt. I like choosing my clothes for the day.

Thank you for feeding me breakfast, and understanding that maybe it is because I had a lot of dinner so I am not very hungry this morning. I know I seem difficult when I turn away from the food, but it’s only because I don’t know how else to tell you I’m full. Thank you for not forcing me to eat at mealtimes.

Thank you for taking the extra time so I can explore as we walk wherever we are going to. I like learning when we are outside.

Thank you for holding me while I nap. I know I am safe in your arms and lying next to you. Thank you for the cuddles when I wake up scared too.

Thank you for hugging me.

Thank you for playing with me

Thank you for reading to me.

Thank you for making bathtime and dinner fun.

Thank you for taking care of me even when your sick.

Thank you for looking after me when I am sick.

Thank you for being in my corner always.

Thank you mum…for everything.

I love you.