If advice were a flock of seagulls, then a pregnant woman would be a hot chip at the beach.
Nothing attracts advice like a small child, or the potential of one.
I was driven distracted, pregnant with my first baby, with advice. Of course, all of it was well meaning, but none of it was helpful, particularly the unsought type.
And so, I swore I would never ever give a pregnant woman or a fellow mother any kind of advice. I was determined to be that one friend or acquaintance you could count on to just listen and nod. I did not want to add to the problem.
In fact when I was asked, “have you got any advice?” I would answer, “my only advice is don’t listen to any advice.”
I hope I have managed to keep this promise to myself. (And if you know me, and I haven’t, I am eternally sorry.)
But, now that I have finished having babies and as I slowly put the identity of new mother behind me, I find myself ever more silently shouting advice to women in my head while outwardly listening and nodding.
I am desperate to offer my wisdom to every new mother and mother-to-be I meet.
“Don’t listen to the midwives. Dummies are miraculous.”
“Have you thought about calmbirth? It’s really helpful.”
“If you’re after cloth nappies, I can totally recommend a brand.”
“No, you really should swaddle that baby. She’ll sleep much better if you do.”
“DO NOT ROCK THAT BABY TO SLEEP.”
Shit.
I have become my own worst nightmare.
This is even more of a problem, because I have been blessed with the world’s easiest babies. I have no true insight into the hell of a sleepless, crying, cranky infant. I didn’t have any of those.
I listen to my girlfriends pour out their (completely justified) woes about waking several times a night to settle their children, while my internal dialogue runs a million miles an hour from ‘here, I have the solution’, to ‘OMG, Alys, you have no idea,’ to ‘just shut up, shut up, shut up.’
There is one place, though, where I can indulge my secret advice-compulsion shame, and that’s Facebook Mummy Groups.
These groups are ready-made meccas for women like me. I have so much pointless, useless, unhelpful advice to offer unsuspecting mothers who genuinely ask, ‘which dummy should I give my four week old’ (The cherry soother, from Big W. It’s like crack for babies.) and ‘my baby is waking every night at 4am, what should I do?’ (It’s cold. Put an extra blanket on before you go to bed.)
Is this what happens? Am I normal? Well, I assume I’m normal given how much advice there is out there.
What is it that happens to us, that turns us into these advice-proffering automatons?
I can only assume that in the same way we eventually forget the pain of contractions, and the burn of pushing a baby out of our bodies, we also forget the tsunami of unsought for, unhelpful advice that threatened to overwhelm us just a few short years ago.
Let this be my apology, in advance, to all my unsuspecting friends and acquaintances. I will try to hold back. But if I suddenly shout, “have you thought about topping her up with formula” at you, know this, my heart is in the right place even though I freely admit, I am the worst.
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