Yesterday I finally broke.
I have been isolating at home basically since AJ was born in January. We limited the amount of time we had outside to protect her until she had her six week shots and then waited another 2 weeks. By the end of that I was ready to start getting out and doing things like going to the library, play group, etc.
But by then the COVID-19 pandemic had hit Australia's shores and the social distancing started.
At first it was ok. I was a home body anyway. Staying at home was totally fine by me, especially as it protected myself from catching this illness that had the potential to do a lot of harm to my body as I'm an asthmatic. Then we moved and suddenly I was in a new town and knew no one except for AJ's Dad.
Months have passed and slowly I met our doctors and maternal and child health nurse, but still knew no other mothers or kids. Then just as it looked like there was a light at the end of the door, the door was slammed shut when Melbourne became a COVID-19 hot spot and once again I found myself facing months of isolation.
I've managed to handle it as well as I have thanks to my Facebook Mum's groups. I have an amazing support network of amazing Mum's and talking with them through the day has helped enormously.
But yesterday I finally had enough and what broke me really had nothing to do with the isolation.
You see ever since AJ was 2 months old she has been a chronic cat napper. Normally she'll sleep for 30 minutes and if I leave her in her bed for 10-15 she'll go back to sleep. However, lately she's only been seeping 30 minutes and then shes up and ready to play. Amazingly she has been handling it well and has been having a blast during her 2 hour wake periods.
I on the other hand have not been dealing with it as well. It's been hard trying to get her to have a bottle and then have solids and start that routine. We normally have an eat, play, sleep routine and with the catnapping it's made it really had to do solids. You maybe wonder why and that is because we do solids 30-40 minutes after a bottle. So when she's only sleeping for 30 minutes and having a bottle every 3 hours, it makes things difficult to then have solids when she is exhausted by the time she has a bottle.
On top of that I have been trying to focus my time while she is awake on her and then getting things I need to get done around the house and on my blog and in my Etsy shop done while she is sleeping. But that is hard to do in 30 minutes when you also need to eat. So it's either not eat and get the laundry and some office work done or eat and get nothing else done.
Yesterday I hit my breaking limit.
After two unsuccessful attempts at trying to get her to go back to sleep during her nap time, I placed AJ down in the lounge room to play, went to the kitchen to make her a bottle, and I broke down.
I stood in the kitchen and sobbed for five minutes, just letting all the frustration over the past 6 months out.
The loneliness. The isolation. The introverted exhaustion that comes from the days when the only way I can get her to sleep longer is to have her sleep on me. The feeling like I'm failing because while AJ is an amazing sleeper at night during the day I was getting nothing else done except be with her. The guilt that T was having to pick up a lot of the slack. The frustration over trying multiple different things and having none of them work.
And honestly the crying made me feel a lot better. I let out a lot of emotion that I didn't realise that I was holding inside me.
I finished making Arielle's bottle, went back into the lounge and enjoyed those feeding cuddles.
Looking back on yesterday I know that it's probably not the end of those feelings but what I also need to remember is that we're in the middle of a global pandemic. I've had to throw away a lot of hopes and dreams regarding how I wanted this year to go and I'm not the only one. So many other people are in similar situation where they've had to look at what they wanted to do and reevaluate because it's just not possible any more.
Doe that make the feelings that I had yesterday any less valid. No. But we're in a situation where nothing is normal and it's going to take us a while to get back to our normal.
That means that until then we need to be a little kinder on ourselves.
We need to allow ourselves to have these feelings, work through them and know that they are valid during a time that we haven't really seen since the Spanish Flu. Yes there have been pandemics since then, but not ones that have hit the world as much as COVID-19 has.
So now I'm going to take the time to be a bit kinder to myself. Instead of looking at all the things that I didn't get done, I should look at the things I did get done and feel accomplished with that.
Yes, I didn't get the laundry folded or put away but I spent my day with my daughter and helped her learn so many things.
Yes, she's not sleeping well during the day but she is sleeping well at night so the day sleep will come.
No, I didn't get to work on something for my Etsy store but it's not going to be that way forever.
Beating myself up over something that right now I can't control isn't going to be healthy for myself or for AJ.
And you know what, it's not healthy for you to do the same either. If you need to step away, make sure that your kids are safe and do it, honestly you'll feel better afterwards.
And Mama, be kind to your self.
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