feeling sad

There's a downside to breastfeeding. I’ve got one word for you: attachment. Not the sprout’s attachment to me, more my attachment to him. It certainly wasn’t anything anyone told me about. The longest I have been away from the sprout since he was born is about 3 hours. And I was in tears by the time I got home. Trust me, it wasn’t from engorgement either. I just need to be close to him. Yet at the same time there is something missing in that closeness. I’m sad.

There, I’ve said it. That one little word that has been haunting me a lot lately, making me feel like a shit mother. I love my son. I love that he has thrived on being 100% exclusively breastfed. I grew him. I nourished him and satiated him and he is the little boy he is because I had a huge hand (errr… breast) in it. And I wouldn’t change that. I wouldn’t go back to the beginning and buy a pump or introduce bottles. I am firm in my choice. It is what has worked best for all of us.

But when you have a baby who won’t take a bottle and wants nothing to do with a soother it’s wearying. Only mum will do. I see friends whose babies happily take a bottle and they get to go to the movies, or get their hair done or go out and get to just be... instead of mom for a few hours. I haven’t cut my hair in two years. And I know I could say to the dude that I want to go to the salon, and here is the time I am going and would you watch the boy. I could do that. But then I’d have to leave my sweet little boy.
So I don’t make the appointment because then I would have committed to it. Instead I spend the time with the sprout. Watching him play, basking in his smiles, changing him when he’s wet, feeding him when he’s hungry and rocking him to sleep when he’s tired. And I am thankful every day that I have a job that allows me to be at home with my son, to experience this stage in his little life, to see him grow and learn and just figure out the world. But then the feelings of sadness start to creep in and I try to push them away. I’m fine. I am a mother. I have the most gorgeous boy in the world. There is no reason for me to feel this way.


Yet I do. Trapped in the circle of needing to spend time away from my son but unwilling to leave him.