Ugh. Being the first of your friends to have a baby is hard. And sometimes downs right annoying.
I'm 22, and most of the girls I was friends with prior to my pregnancy, I've known since grade school. So yes, I'll call them girls and not women. They just don't get it. Whether they have siblings, cousins, coworkers, or whoever they know that have had babies, they just don't get it. Most of them have disappeared from my life, and understandably so - if I didn't have my daughter and knew someone who just had a baby, I would still want to live my life the way I had been, and not have to worry about being able to hangout with my friend because she now has to schedule everything around her baby. I get it. I get it that you don't get it yet.
I also understand that most girls don't know what they should/should not say to someone who just recently had a baby. There are sensitive subjects that you stay away from, and then there are things that a postpartum mom would give anything to hear.
Telling a new mom that she shouldn't be bottle feeding her child yet because they'll get nipple confusion is a no-no. See, you weren't there last night when this mama got absolutely zero sleep, because her baby girl was up all night screaming in hunger and couldn't latch herself to her mama. She is feeding her child, and she's doing the best she can. If latching is absolutely not working one night, you pump and feed the baby a bottle because that baby NEEDS to eat, no matter how it's done. One day of bottle feeding won't doom a breastfeeding relationship (at least it wouldn't for most babies and mamas).
Something a new mom would LOVE to hear though would be, "Oh my gosh, you look beautiful." Now let's be real here, I probably look like a train wreck. Sleep in my eyes, unwashed face, and hair that's been tied up in the same bun for the last four days, REGARDLESS, you tell that mama she looks beautiful. Tell her motherhood looks good on her and tell her she is doing a great job. Because she is.
But all of this unknowing innocence my young, childless girlfriends have is okay with me. Because when they have babies, I get to bake them a lasagna and bring it over when they're a week into motherhood. I get to come over and say, "Look at you! You are absolutely glowing." I get to tell them to go shower or take a nap while I take care of the baby.
I get to make them feel the way I wanted to feel when I had my little girl. And letting someone feel that way, even though I didn't get that, will be worth the wait.
I'm going to get the "Are you sure?" question when I offer to help, or the "You really don't have to do that," comment. But I do have to. This is what being a mama is all about, it's that nurturing thing. Helping out my friends in this way, however many years down the road is going to repay me from all the crap I had to figure out on my own. I get to be the experienced mama that my friends will run to when they don't know why baby is constantly crying. I get to be the one they share things with, because they KNOW that I'll appreciate a hundred pictures of their first smiles, because I know how it feels when people say "My god, more pictures?!" in a negative way.
I get to be the woman who tells other mamas that THEY ARE DOING SUCH A GREAT JOB.
Because they are.
Those moments will definitely be worth the wait.