A Touchy Subject

I am a pretty tactile person; I hug my friends and family; I have no problem with a PDA; I love nothing more than a snuggle with my baby B. BUT…! He has become super-duper-tactile and it is driving me CRAZY.

I feel so horrible admitting to this. I feel guilty, selfish and mean. It’s something I wasn’t expecting and I don’t know if its normal or not.

The thing is, his busy little hands do not stop moving, not for a second. And when we’re feeding or I’m rocking him to sleep all he wants to do is touch my face. This sounds sweet, and sometimes it is, but it’s mostly uncomfortable and often painful. He slaps, scratches, pulls and pokes.His nails are ridiculously sharp. Little fingers get in my eyes, up my nose and in my mouth. It is wild, it is out of control and it is relentless.

The worst bit of all is when we’re feeding and he kneads and pinches my boob. OWWWW! It really hurts and it makes me hate feeding him, especially when he’s biting as well. In the middle of the night, during the 5th feed, when I’m exhausted, frustrated and desperate, it is more than I can take. I’ve come so close to quitting breastfeeding so many times.

I don’t want to give up feeding him, I want to like it again. Plus I’m not sure I know how to parent without it. So I’m having to find ways through it and praying that this too, shall pass.

I’ve been shocked by just how irritated it makes me. I feel my blood start to boil, my skin crawl and every nerve in my body scream. I’ve had to clamp my mouth shut or I swear I would have bitten his little hand clean off. Sometimes I just have to put him down, ignore the indignant screams, and get my head together again. It makes me feel so horrible that I feel such rage towards my baby and I know I can’t let it get the better of me.

Things that help me stay calm enough to either finish the feed or get him to sleep are focussing on breathing slowly and deeply or softly singing a lullaby over and over. The best thing for feeding is to get lost in a good book and mentally escape the situation (Sarah Water’s ‘The Paying Guests’ is amazing). Or I try to stay really present and concentrate on how cute and little he is, how much he needs me, how much he can’t help what he’s doing.

I really hope I’m not the only mum to have felt like this. I’m going to guess I can’t be. It’s another difficult aspect of parenting that no one really talks about or warns us about. Being a mother is an incredibly physical thing. After growing and giving birth to our babies we then carry, cuddle and feed them day and night. Our tired, scarred, flabby bodies are no longer our own; we surrender them to our babies and use them to provide comfort, safety, nourishment and, if mine is anything to go by, entertainment. It’s an intense relationship with no boundaries and this is not something we are used to. As strong, modern women we are totally in control of our bodies, permitting them only to be touched on our terms and in the way we want. Then suddenly normal rules don’t apply. Tiny, grabby hands are everywhere and there’s nothing we can do about it. I can't imagine how hard that must be for women who are not naturally tactile or who are recovering from`abuse.

The mother-baby dyad is even more magical and deep than I expected but also more intrusive and all-consuming. We get walloped, climbed on and pinched, we lug our babies around til our arms ache, but we can also cuddle, squish and kiss their gorgeous, soft little bodies and that makes it all ok.