10/26/2024
It's ok to ask new parents, "how is feeding going?" 🫒
It is not necessary to ask a new parent how they are feeding their baby to care about the effort-full, emotional, and round the clock task that is nourishing their baby. How we feed our babies is unique to us, our experiences, stories we have heard, and other mothers we have witnessed throughout our lives.
It's an offering we give from our collection of experiences, an overflow from our experience of birth, our desires, our inner and outer resources, and our support systems. It is rarely a single choice. Its a winding journey that carries through our postpartum window. It is a dance of giving and receiving, being nourished and nourishing, working and surrendering.
In our modern world where mothers are often overstressed, overstretched, undernourished, and missing their village, we can be supportive in asking about their experience without assigning meaning to it. When we ask, "how is feeding going," we show care and honor the work amd the journey of the parent while also opening up a portal for listening and relating. We give the mother the opportunity to share without judgement.
We seem to be in a cultural pattern of either asking "how is breastfeeding going" which ignites a sense of pass/fail, or not asking at all. Ask the question openly, and hear what may be shared with you.
Then make them a meal and refill her water because nourishing another is big, beautiful, body-full, heart-centered work.
