It's Just a Phase

We’re often told it’s just a phase.

The wakeful nights.

The constant needing.

The wanting to be close to us.

And in some of my most desperate moments I have clung to that saying.

“It’s just a phase”

“It’s just a phase”

“It’s just a phase”

I have clung to the hope of something passing, only to see the beauty in it later on.

I had the notion planted early on in my head of good babies and bad babies.

Habits and independence.

It’s confusing as mothers these days because we try to see the bigger picture ahead of us and we try to understand while looking behind us and all the while we’re spinning around too dizzy to focus on what’s happening right in front of us.

What they need from us, in that moment.

And it makes me sad to think that for many nights when I sat next to their cot, lay down beside them, pulled them into bed or fed them to sleep that I worried.

Worried I was failing by responding.

I won’t over romanticise some of those harder nights. Yes there were tears at times.

But surrendering to what felt right for us both would have been easier if I hadn’t been fed the nonsense that between the hours of 7pm and 7am their needs were redundant. I needed to know that this was biologically normal and I wasn’t creating rods for my back.

She still wants a cuddle before bed time.

He still holds my hand as he drifts off.

They’re right about one thing though.

These are phases.

I hope this one lasts a while.