There is a reason you don’t get between a mother bear and her cubs. And it’s one you perhaps only truly realise when you have a baby yourself. The primal, lay-down-my-life for my child instinct is so powerful, that it can really surprise you. As mothers we’re hard wired to look out for anything that can attack our baby, and protect them against it. But without sabre-toothed tigers roaming around, the dangers are not so clear-cut. Having never been an anxious person before, post birth I was on hyper alert for anything sub optimal; mainly in my own parenting skills. I’d tie myself in knots over nap schedules, walking up to 25 km a day to get my baby to sleep. If she didn’t, I’d be destroyed, replaying over and over what I could have done better in my head, convinced (not least by the stupid baby books I read) that I was setting her up for future developmental problems.
So, I totally get the anger and heart-shattering disappointment new mum, Lynn Wojton has said she feels after her nanny fed her baby a bottle of formula, when she wanted to exclusively breastfeed. The New York cosmetic nurse made headlines this week as she filed a lawsuit against her former doula, whom she had employed after the birth of her daughter to help her at home. Wojton had instructed doula Marcia Chase-Marshall to wake her up at night in the bedroom all three slept in, when the baby needed feeding. According to the lawsuit, Chase-Marshall woke Wojton up on the first two nights; but on the third night gave the baby a bottle of formula. Wolton only realised in the morning when she woke up after a full night’s sleep. “This is not what I wanted — this is not what I want — for my baby,” Wojton told the New York Post. “I cried for an hour, honestly.”
I know that feeling where you think that one misstep might have ruined your baby’s future health and happiness forever. It comes from a place of deep insecurity, unknowing and sleep deprivation. My friends who are second-time mothers say that anxiety almost magically lifts with baby number two: they know there are ups and downs, and they have the confidence from having already kept at least one little human alive. When I left my daughter with my own mother, I left her with reams of notes of timings, as if she (a mother of three) had never taken care of a baby.
We haven’t heard Chase-Marshall’s side of the story yet. Wojton claims that the nanny used a bottle of formula to save her the trouble of waking the sleeping mother – and to allow herself to get back to sleep quicker (and bear in mind that the job of a nanny who is with you 24hours a day is almost as brutal as being a new mother). Perhaps instead, she saw how wrung out Wojton was and wanted to give her the gift of a full night’s sleep. It was the wrong decision, of course. Wojton as the mother should always have the final say in how she wants to care for her child. But while the relationship between the doula and the mother was unfixable, was approximately 50ml of formula worth $10,000 in damages, as Wojton is now claiming? Or the stress of going through a lawsuit?
Undoubtedly part of the issue is the contention between bottle and breast – one for another column, but safe to say an extremely emotive issue. But Wojton’s story boils down to an issue of trust between parent and caregiver, and that’s something all parents eventually have to face. When you have a baby, there comes a point when you have to concede some control to someone else. You won’t be there calling all the shots. The person you entrust your child with has to have your trust. You have to communicate your wishes extremely clearly, but also be prepared for them to do things slightly differently, safe in the understanding that they only want the best for your baby too (if you’ve trusted the right person). It’s impossibly hard sometimes, and something I still struggle with. But as the old saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child. And one missed nap, one banned biscuit , dare I say one bottle of formula, isn’t going to set your baby up for a life time of difficulties.