One year: a letter to my daughter

Emily reflects on the first year with her daughter: the traumatic start, the bonding process and finding her own parenting style. Read her thoughts in this heartfelt letter to her little girl.

We didn’t get off to the best start. That’s not to say we didn’t get along. But I’m almost ashamed to admit that I wasn’t filled with a flood of joyous emotion and tears the moment we met.

I first heard you cry from behind the screen of an operating table and I desperately wanted to know what was happening to you and to hold you. I imagined you being poked and prodded and wanted you safe in my arms.

When you were placed on me it was at the very top of my chest, now on the other side of the operating screen, and I felt overwhelmed by how intense this was and how insecure you felt on my body and I was worried you were going to fall from me.

I wanted to ask someone to take you but I didn’t know quite how. How could I ask someone to take my baby away? There are photos of us in the postnatal ward and my face looks sad, vacant and exhausted.

I see you in a photo looking up at this detached face and feel so sorry I’m not returning your gaze. 36 hours of pain, drugs and trauma have sent me somewhere else, far from the warm glow of the textbook golden hour I so wanted. Sitting in a hospital bathroom thinking “someone is going to have to kill me, that’s the only way this is going to end” wasn’t part of the labour I had imagined. Bleak to say the least.

No, the love I have for you now, a kind of love I have never felt before, has come from many, many hours spent together. 8760 hours in fact, an entire year, minus a few solo toilet breaks, showers, swims etc.

Innumerable hours of you sleeping and feeding on my body, hours of studying your face as you sleep, hours of more and more understanding of what you are trying to tell me with your body. A mind-shattering amount of sleep deprivation. Everyone says you won’t get any sleep but I had no idea what this really meant.

Some nights I would be awake holding you until 4 or 5am, after multiple failed attempts to put you down in the Moses basket, when I might finally get some sleep. Those were brutal, torturous nights - I can remember desperately trying to stay awake while holding you in my arms, waiting for you to fall into a deep enough sleep to tolerate the basket, so afraid that I would fall asleep myself and drop you from my arms. Fighting the sleep inducing effects of breastfeeding and the warm comfort of you sleeping on my chest.

One night I became aware of some sort of insect on the bedding next to me. Oh god, was it a bed bug? It was pulsating and moving with a strange quality I had never seen before? I couldn’t quite make it out, but whatever it was it had too many legs and what was it going to do to my baby? It was only the next day, when the sun had risen, that I realised it was simply a harmless piece of fluff. I wish I had trusted my instincts and let myself drift to sleep with you sleeping on my chest, something that had felt so right and comfortable but we had been told would put you at risk.

My mental health of course was of little consequence.I would be lying if I didn’t say that this past year has been a tough one. It took some time for the tears to stop, for the anxiety loop that our traumatic birth sent me on to break, for me to feel confident and strong enough to trust my instincts and to ignore the constant murmurings of our depressingly low nurture culture.

You have spent every single nap and night since your birth sleeping on me or within arms reach and I lost far too much time questioning whether I was doing something wrong by wanting you so close. Why was I the only parent I knew who was unable to get their baby to sleep in a cot? Why couldn’t I brush my teeth or take a shower or do anything without you in my arms?

“You shouldn’t feed to sleep”, they would say. “Babies sleep better when they’re alone.” I never told these people how deeply wrong those statements felt to me. I feel angry and bitter now at how wrong I was made to feel. Parenting was hard because of the choices I was making, not because parenting IS hard. It is frankly cruel to make women who respond to their babies feel like they are failing at parenting for doing so. Mothers need to be supported, not gaslighted. But I am learning to let go of that pain now too, and realising how much of the anguish may be triggered by my own experiences growing up. From a need to feel seen and loved, just like my little baby girl.

There was a time when I counted this year down, uncertain that I would make it through the stress, pain and discomfort of breastfeeding and handle the terrifying responsibility of keeping you alive and safe. We have come so far, little one. Your tiny arms and hands no longer fight frantically at my chest as you feed, they gently stroke my breasts and your eyes roll in your head with pleasure. Yes, we could do with fewer nipple pinches and without the occasional bite now you have teeth, but getting to this point of relative comfort and seeing you consistently put on weight exactly as expected feels like an epic achievement.

Motherhood requires an immense amount of patience, kindness and selflessness and I know I do not always get it right. Being needed so intensely 24/7 can be exhausting and overwhelming. But this phase won’t last forever. I am working on being better at sitting still and being present in the moment, my focus on you, not my phone, not the washing, not the myriad of hobbies my past-self enjoyed. It is the hardest job I have ever done, but I am confident that you are safe, happy, and healthy and we will always do our best to respond to your needs.

Motherhood doesn’t have to be lonely, but feeling like the anomaly among your peers when it comes to parenting choices can be an isolating experience. We have gone against the tide and shaken the world of parenting with such natural yet controversial acts of contact naps, bedsharing, and simply following your cues for when and how long you sleep and feed. We have accepted that you are a baby and you have a growing and developing brain that simply isn’t ready for or capable of the kind of independence and emotional stability that our world expects of you.

We have watched you turn into a beautiful smiling girl who has awed us with her tenacity, bravery, strength and tenderness. I have watched my partner blossom into a beautiful daddy who cares for you with such love, enjoys snuggling with you as much as I do, and brings you so much joy and laughter through his silly games and play. Our worlds have been forever changed and we could not imagine life without you. Even if we do long for a lie in, once in a while.