I’m a stay at home mom so I’m with my son 24/7. I take little man everywhere with me, and even though he is only 2 and a half months old, he’s my little sidekick. I love him so much, and he adds so much happiness to my life.
Listen to “Episode 8: Things to Stop Feeling Guilty About” on Spreaker.
Even though my son is my pretty much my world, this week has been really hard. This week, I started actually breastfeeding him a little more instead of bottle feeding him every time. For over a month, I was only bottle feeding him 4 ounces of my milk every 3 hours due to mastitis and milk blisters. Once I started breastfeeding more, he got so clingy, and he started wanting to feed all the time. He got hungrier quicker too, and sometimes he just cried so he could latch and then would go to sleep. I’ve hardly been able to get anything done. By the end of the week I realized that I need to breastfeed him in the mornings, nights and whenever we’re out. Other than that, I bottle-feed him. It’s just what works for us.
I said all of that to explain why I needed a little break yesterday. My boyfriend knew I needed to have some fun so we arranged to let my mom take care of JJ today while we went to Wet’n’Wild! We’ve gone every summer for two years now so it’s one of our favorite Summer places! So this morning, we dropped JJ off with his grandma and took off. I didn’t know if I could make it work, but I used my hand pump and pumped on the way there and on the way back. I made it happen!
I started out excited to get a break, but then I felt guilty that I was thinking like that. I had a really great time with my boyfriend, but I was torn between being excited to have quality time with my boyfriend, and guilty because I missed my baby. I went back and forth with those feelings the whole time, but I didn’t tell my boyfriend because I wanted us to enjoy our time. I would see people walk around with their babies and felt like I should have brought JJ, but there would have been nothing there for him. He wouldn’t have even known the difference.
When we went to my mom’s to get him, I was so happy to see him. I got him right away and hugged him so tight. Honestly, that was the longest we’ve been apart. I think he was happy to see me too because he started smiling and kicking his legs. I spent the rest of the day just playing with him, talking to him and cuddling him.
Even though I felt that mommy guilt, I think it was still important to get away with my boyfriend for a few hours. We haven’t had fun like that in a while because I was pregnant for 9 months and then we had a newborn. So it’s been almost a year since we have done anything extra fun like that. We needed it. I knew my son was being taken care of, so I kinda wish that I would have loosened up a little more. I think all mommies deserve a break even if a little mommy guilt comes along with it. Feeling that guilt just means we love our babies.
