What I’ve learnt from night feeding.

Night Feeding. It’s a part of motherhood whether we like it or not.

It’s also the part of motherhood that I find causes mums the most amount of stress.

Questions about your baby’s sleeping patterns are endless. Is she a good baby? Does he sleep through the night? My baby sleep 7pm-7am, doesn’t yours? (and the look that accompanies that question)

It’s enough to make you want to poke out your eyeballs. These questions also have the power to make you feel like a terrible (even the worst) mother.

In reality, you’re doing an amazing job! Night waking and feeding are a natural part of this whole parenting gig. Babies need to be fed, feel safe and be nurtured, waking frequently at night achieves these things.

Now, I’m a mum of two (a 4 year old and 1 year old). I have a bit of an idea of how this whole scenario feels. My 4 year old has *just* started sleeping through the night consistently. My 1 year old has not slept through the night, and I don’t see it happening anytime soon. Am I a failure? I don’t think so, I’m mothering my babies the way that aligns with my core.

Needless to say, I’ve had a few quiet hours during the night to contemplate life. I realised very early on that the key to thriving during this season is…….surrendering.

Surrender to your child.

Surrender and let go of expectations.

Surrender to the need to have a full night sleep. One day, your child will be sleeping through and eventually not need you. Enjoy the time with them.

Once I was able to surrender during the night, amazing things started to happen.

I started to enjoy the time one-on-one with my baby.

I realised that a lack of sleep was ok. I could function much better than I ever realised.

I felt more and more in love with the little babe in my arms.

And on the business side of life, when I surrendered my biggest and greatest ideas came to me.

This business (and this blog post for that matter) was one of those ideas. I was feeding away just in my own thoughts and the idea for a marketplace of ecourses for creatives just entered my mind. Once baby was back to sleep, I ran and grabbed my journal and started writing. I wrote a lot! In a short half an hour, this whole business was outlined, I knew what I wanted it to be and my vision became very clear.

I wanted to create a space and community for women and mothers where resources were plentiful so they could start their own business and discover another side of them that maybe was missing. I want them to feel like they are contributing to the family in an additional way. I want them to find something that fires them up and gives them another purpose (I’m not saying that not creating a business means you have no purpose. I just know that many mothers need that something for them) within their life. I also want women to have the choice. The choice to have a family, stay with with the kids and like us, unschool and hopefully one day travel whilst still creating an income.

I can honestly say that without surrendering and embracing the night time feeds, this would not have happened.

If I had of been fighting every night, there would not have been space to think, dream and make this vision a reality.

For this, I’m eternally grateful.