First time Daya!

Hello loyal reader,

Guess what?

1.Tomorrow I expect a revolution. I expect to sleep through the night, not to hear a single cry. I expect to clean a nappy every said hours without delays. I expect for feeding times and amounts to be perfect.

I also expect a miracle to happen where I feel on top of the world. Where the female hormones are all under control, and of course where I become  as fit as a model.

Since the day my baby opened his eyes into the world whoever I meet reminds me of the chla (forty). Everything you say they reaffirm it will be all okay by the Chla.  Basically, the chla marks the day where the child is exactly forty days-old. In my case, tomorrow. However, anyone who has a baby (I think) can confirm it will only be a dream for this magic to happen overnight.  But this, my dearest reader is one of the five things I have learned as soon as I became a daya (mother) in my Kurdish society.  Shall we get to know what else I have heard?!

2. Everyone has a say believes they have the God given right to have a say in how you raise the baby! The number of times I have heard comments like “This room is so cold… It’s so hot. ..Put the heater off, no close the door… Open the door… Take off his sox, put on the jumper.” Some people go as far as taking a layer of the baby’s clothes off without even asking. Because come on, they have had five kids, and this is only your first! So what do you know in how to raise a child. Ummm.. excuse me?!

3. Where appropriate I, unfortunately, argue and answer back to what I am not convinced with. So many of the remarks, I believe, are baseless. “But why?” I ask, “That’s how its supposed to be,” Sorry, first time mummy (who apparently knows nothing about raising a child) isn’t convinced.

4. Ahhhh, this is a big one. Swaddling. “Oh My God! You don’t swaddle!!!!” Argh!! Here we go again, for the hundredth time make me feel like I have killed my baby alive. “How could you not??!!!! His bones won’t be strong, the shape of his head will be long.”

5. Finally, the first question after “Hi, how are you, congratulations!” is “how does he sleep?” Ahhhhh. What do I say to this? The conversation to this question lasts a while and in the end: day, xamt nabet, dway chla-kay chak abet (he will be fine after his forty days)…. and tomorrow is our big 40!! Tomorrow, my dearest reader, I expect to sleep the night through.

In the meantime while experience can talk, I will still resort to my Baby Center App and Mr. Google. The times have changed. As for you baby boy, a big congratulations to you and me for making it for our big forty days.