New mummy blog: Not just ‘a baby’

As Honor’s one-month birthday approaches, and Adam and I begin to lift our heads out of the fog of the early days with a newborn, our new family dynamic is emerging.

Throughout my pregnancy, we spoke of ‘the baby’ all the time, planning and dreaming long into the night, about this little bundle who was about to enter our lives.

My point is that she was always just ‘a baby’ in our minds, a picture-perfect, adorable baby, but just a baby all the same. It was difficult to imagine that a little person, with her own likes, dislikes and character was on her way.

Of course even as a newborn, each baby is completely different, in their temperament and in how they look. A quick glance at my friends with babies would demonstrate this in an instant, so of course I realised it. It’s more that to look at your bump and make the leap from tiny baby inside (which at times is hard enough to believe) to a real person in his or her own right, was pushing it.

Was it made harder by us not knowing if we were expecting a girl or a boy? Possibly. People who opt to find out their baby’s sex do often say that they needed to know to help them bond with their baby. I don’t really believe that for us this was an issue – whether boy or girl, it was still just ‘a baby’.

[New Mummy: And so it all begins]
[New Mummy: The best baby ever, of course…]

Once here, it wasn’t long before Honor started to make herself known to us. We’ve learnt that the indignant screams mean hunger, whereas the half hearted protestations mean she’s tired. We’ve learnt that she’ll feed for hours if you let her, how she likes to be held, that she doesn’t like to be swaddled when she sleeps. They’re basic likes and needs but they’re the little starting points of her ever-developing character. She knows what she likes and makes sure we know it too.

All this analysis of our four-week-old baby led me down the thought process into that murky debate of nature versus nurture. How much of this little character we’re beginning to see is innate within her DNA and how much of it is being learned by our actions and responses? I stumbled across these thoughts in the hours after her birth, and found them too scary, too huge and daunting then. Nothing’s changed. I could feel the pressure bearing down and so chose not to dwell there for long.

As well as getting to know Honor as a person, Adam and I are also learning a lot about each other. For one thing, there’s nothing like a month of sleepless nights to bring out a whole new side in you. No matter how rosebed-like your marriage is, extreme tiredness and irritability can and will take its toll. Plus you’re never going to agree on every single aspect of childrearing. At least, Adam and I definitely aren’t. I suspect he thinks I’m too soft, and that I’m making it up when I say a mother is programmed to be helpless to ignore her baby’s cry. I think that he thinks I’ve read too many books, and I’m too quick to tell him what “they say”. Whereas I, on the other hand wish he’d read a few more.

But niggles aside, having Honor has brought us so very much closer. We did have (and still do have!) a great marriage. The difference is that now Honor’s here, we’re not just a marriage. We’re a family. And no number of months of sleepless nights can outweigh that.