by Sammy Lee

My pursuit of a natural birth set me up for natural mothering.

I see this so clearly now. 

And while I learnt to avoid interventions when birthing , I didn’t know to avoid inventions while mothering. 

That was until I became one. 

You see… we’re told to set up the nursery, buy the cot, use swaddles, ‘soothe’ with pacifiers, monitor through screens, that separation is ‘good’ for our babies.

I thought my baby would sleep through the night, and that this was some kind of goal to enable as quickly as possible, some kind of success to celebrate once it happened. 

But my mothering experience didn’t require any of these things or match up to such unrealistic expectations.

I just followed my instincts, which I learnt to trust.

I gained knowledge about what was biologically normal, so I could work with, instead of against…us.

I questioned everything. 

I felt confusion, rage, and anger as to how much we, as a culture, have led mothers astray, imposing unrealistic expectations on our infants that are detrimental to long term mental and physical wellbeing. 

Expectations that are, quite frankly, stealing so much joy from the sacred experience.

I found myself rebelling against any product that would try to mimic me or create separation between my baby’s body and mine.

I rebelled against anything that enabled distance at a time when we most needed to stay close. 

I only embraced practices that kept us together.

I chose babywearing, bedsharing, breastfeeding on demand and will until these things are no longer right for us.

And while the pressure to fit back into a previous version of myself felt like the thing to do, the friction between that version and the new me spoke loud and clear. 

My baby didn’t need me to ‘bounce back’ or be busy. She didn’t need my focus on a former world, she needed our world, this world right here. 

My baby needed me to heal, to nurture and nourish her, us. For it was she that made me a we.

The array of interventions would have allowed separation, but at what cost? 

My experience of staying close has been the most joyous chapter of my life and essential for breastfeeding to flow and keep flowing for over three years now.

Embracing this natural way of mothering has meant nothing has been stolen, no cuddles missed, no contact forgone, no expression ignored, no physical comfort denied, no necessary nurture forgotten…

I am completely in awe of the feminine body, my feminine body. 

I have honoured what is biologically normal for her, us, as just like with birth, why would I wish to disrupt what I am designed for, if I can help it…?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sammy Lee is a mother of two, in Australia. She is a Natural Mothering Advocate (and Raised Good Ambassador for Gather). She shares her mothering musings via @by.sammylee and is on a mission to provoke thought and questioning of what we have normalised to help us return to more natural ways of parenting. She wants the awareness of fertility, experience of pregnancy, and rites of passage of birth and mothering to be better for her daughter and the mothers (and bubbas) coming through. She writes Natural Mothering musings to help process her experience + to provoke questioning, to help us to return to more natural ways of parenting. You can find her on Instagram at @by.sammylee and inside Gather.