Secret Fears of New Mommies

The initial phase of motherhood is the scariest. Everything from a sneeze to baby’s first fever is frightful. Cutting the baby’s nails is like waking on a tightrope, and sometimes changing baby’s clothes can make you rush to the doctor! I spoke to 8 mothers to talk about their absurd fears concerning their babies and how they got over it.

Being a new mother means being on a high alert all the time. The baby’s crying too much? Something’s wrong. The baby is too quiet today; something’s not right. Too many hiccups, no burps, too many burps, sweaty head, diaper rash, colic, not sleeping, sleeping too much … well, the list is practically endless. While all of them seem very reasonable and rational at that time, let’s admit that most of them are quite irrational! Take a look:

Fear of Baby Theft

For Swati Bali Jain, an entrepreneur, ‘anxiety’ and ‘motherhood’ are two sides of the same coin. Her fears began the moment her son, Kairav, was born. “The first time when the nurses took my baby away for a bath and vaccination, I stood outside and peeped into the nursery feeling like the whole world is trying to take my baby away. This did not stop even after bringing him home. I remember waking up in middle of my sleep so many times, just to check the latch of my house main door as I feared that someone would take him away while I was asleep!” shares Swati, who now has bigger fears of Kairav running out on his own as he is now two years old.

Falling off the bed

Like Swati, Vijaya Rathore (a media professional) too wakes up in the middle of the night several times. Reason? Horrible nightmares about her baby falling from the bed. “Yes, that’s my biggest fear these days and I don’t think it’s irrational. We all know that babies fall and that’s how they learn, but for the baby to fall from the bed in the presence of parents is awful. This fear has found home in my conscious and subconscious mind. However, it is a pleasure to wake up and find the little one sleeping or playing next to me. Sometimes, reality is much better than dreams.”

Guilt of serving alcohol to the little one

Little Vaidehi was only three months old when she felt sick (well, colicky actually). Her mother, Pragya Joshi, had no other option but to try homeopathic medicine as nothing else seemed to work. “I haven’t been a believer in homeopathy really. But I gave in when everyone around me recommended it to cure my baby’s ill health (gas, basically). Now, I have a habit of smelling and tasting everything before I put it in my baby’s mouth. So, when I smelt the medicine I couldn’t help feeling anxious. I couldn’t stop crying for hours because it smelt like alcohol and it made me feel extremely guilty!” shares Pragya, Senior Manager, Eupheus Learning.

Incidentally, Pragya spent a lot of time reading online researches and discussing the issue on forums and groups on social media to finally accept that she wasn’t actually giving alcohol to her baby. She carried the weight of the guilt for five months before that happened!

Baby, please don’t forget me!

Shivangi Sharma Kalia was proud to be a sane mommy in her initial months. But that was until she joined back office. “My real fear came in when I joined back office (was actually a relief, I needed to get out), I experienced what is now called FOMO (fear of missing out). I could not imagine not knowing what those 8 hours of my little girl’s life were like. I feared she would forget me. I used to trap her in my room when I reached back so all her time was mine. But over the years I realised, a mother is always a mother for a child. My daughter yearns for me to get back home on her firm instructions: “at the earliest”.

Did I just break my baby?

With a new born, everything is dangerous – nail cutters, plastic, sharp objects, and even clothes! Kalpana Sharma says changing her baby, Thea’s clothes was scary for her. “She was a few days old. I was little jittery changing her clothes. I gently stretched her hand to make her wear something warm when I heard a slight sound. I immediately rushed her to the doctor because I feared I dislocated her arm!”

Hunger Mania

We know how obsessed moms are about food. For Indian moms, almost any problem can be solved with a full tummy. But this one takes the cake: Nupur Chandra, a marketing professional, confesses to her early obsession about feeding her new born. So, you are told about the two-hour feeding schedule by the doctors at hospital when you become a mother but of course, the rule isn’t written in stone. It was for Nupur, though. “If the baby slept for over two hours, I used to start panicking. I used to dread the thought of him lying hungry. My imagination used to run wild thinking something bad would happen to him. So, I used to start dream feeding him and of course, ended making him wake up agitated! It took me four to five months to train my mind that if he is sleeping I should let him sleep peacefully instead of disturbing him!”

Counting Breaths

The fear that the baby is going to stop breathing and pass away in their sleep is a common one. The fear of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) kept new mother Moushmi Sinha up all night for almost six months! “I would keep checking for my baby’s breath to ensure she was okay. The fear was so strong that I would imagine the worse even as I lay down to sleep. It seems silly now to not sleep in whatever little time I got in the phase when a new mother is already sleep deprived!”

Am I a bad mommy?

Breast milk is best for the baby. But does a low supply mean you aren’t a good mother? Darshpreet Raheja, who delivered her baby this January, feared so. “Everyone, except you, knows the right way you should be bringing up your child. And that leads to several irrational fears. When I gave birth to my son, I obviously wanted to breast feed my child exclusively. But it turned out that I wasn’t producing enough milk. How did I know it? Well, people around me kept checking when I would get milk. ‘Mix cow milk and water and give it to the baby’, said a family member on the fifth day since the baby wouldn’t stop crying. And I couldn’t stop crying thinking I am inadequate and a failure as a mother!

After a fortnight, the doctor asked me to increase the formula dose since my baby wasn’t gaining enough weight. The dosage increased as did my fears about being a bad mommy. But once my baby started gaining weight, I decided to let go of my fears. My son prefers bottle to breast sometimes but it is okay. Sometimes it’s best to let go and accept the reality. No one asks Steve jobs or Steven Spielberg whether they were breast fed or formula fed! So it’s really silly as long as your child is healthy and happy,” she expresses.

Edited excerpt of this article was first published in the March issue of Child India Magazine