I met up with a friend today, who has a little boy the same age as Oscar. She’s just had her second baby and this was their first outing out with the NCT girls. It was fantastic to see her and great to see how well they’re all doing. It was also marvelous to get a tiny baby cuddle with the new addition to the gang, baby Mia. She was a teeny tiny baby at birth and is still relatively small now. I held her on my chest and shh shh shh’d her to sleep when she woke. It made me remember just how tiny Oscar was and how much I loved him napping during the day in my arms or on my chest.
I remember fretting, as all new mothers are want to do, that I shouldn’t be holding him to sleep, and wasn’t it a terrible waste of time, just sitting there, when I could be doing more productive things. I remember I aired these thoughts on FB and among the replies, a friend with older children told me just to carrying on, because as soon as he could move, I’d never sit still again! I owe more to that friend than I can explain. I followed her advice and cuddled and cuddled my son in the early months. Which was lucky, as he rolled at 16 weeks and could crawl by 6 months, (unusually early in both instances). And sitting around cuddling fast became a distant memory.
Holding baby Mia made me realise just how much has changed in the past year. My tiny baby (above) is now a strapping young boy, teetering on the edge of toddlerhood. His early months were so full of fear and stress and indecision, that those memories I have of sitting for an hour or more just holding him are particularly precious to me. It’s advice I’d give to any new mother.
It still doesn’t make me want to do it again though. But that’s a post for another day.