Right after I delivered the twins, amongst all the congratulatory wishes, I received a message reminding me not to forget myself in the process of becoming a mother. And at that time, I didn’t understand what the message meant. Fast-forward 10 months later and without my knowledge I did.
As dramatic as that sounds, it’s very easy for a stay-at-home mother to lose contact with her former self. A dear friend described this to me as a sort of shrinking of your world as it starts to fully revolve around your little one. I’m not complaining; this is the destiny I’ve chosen and I’m glad that I made this decision to commit myself fully to my children.
As a wife and mother, it’s natural to take a back seat and ensure that your family is taken care of, but sometimes we forget to come back to the driver seat of our own needs.
When my husband asked me to join him on a working trip to New York, I bit the bullet and said yes even though it meant leaving our babies behind for the very first time. Somehow I knew that this trip was necessary for me, for my husband and for our kids. What I didn’t know was that I’d come home a changed woman.
The time away gave me time to breathe, reflect and recharge. The new positivity in me started to attract other good things and I’m finally getting my life back. Our babies are turning one this month and as they are getting more manageable, I can start adding things back into my life.
So how did I manage to leave my babies with my mother for 10 days without outside help? I’ll let you in on a little secret: sleep training. Apart from being blessed with babies who are pretty easy to manage, they have also been on a strict routine since they were three or four months old. Some think sleep training is a cruel way to treat your babies but because I started following their cues so early, there wasn’t much crying involved.
Another thing that helped me immensely with the separation anxiety was the magic of FaceTime and Skype. The first two days was hard, seeing your children on a screen and not being able to touch them. It got easier though and it wasn’t long before I could go a day with only Facetime once or twice, maximum.
The husband and I actually contemplated bringing our 10-month-old babies to New York but a friend immediately retorted by saying, “No! Don’t be those people with the screaming kids on a 30-hour plane ride!” I agreed because the whole purpose of going away was to get closer and to recharge. I can’t imagine the horror upon horrors that would have unfolded if we actually traveled with the bubs.
Don’t get me wrong, at the beginning just the thought of leaving the kids made me cry, every time I looked at them and they looked back and smiled at me I cried. There’s no guilt like one of a mother who is leaving her kids for the first time. But from the get-go, every single person told me to go and enjoy myself.
So if you ever get the opportunity to get away without the kids, just get up and do it.
I did and I’m glad.
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January Low, recent mother of twins, takes each day as it comes – because no parenting book could have prepared her for this!
