How Do You Find Your Own Mother Instincts?

When I was young, I always wondered how this Mother's Instincts works. Does it just switched on once your give birth? Or it is some kind of talent? Do you need to train it? What is this anyway?

Here is a list of what it may be:

1. It is your mother's own voice in your head telling you if your parenting skills is right or wrong.
2. It is your naggy side telling you how you should 'parent' your kid.
3. It is silence. You just don't hear it.
4. It is a reflex thing, just like how you knock something on your knee and your knee jerks.
5. It's a gut feeling.
6. It is common sense which is not so common anymore.



Which is it to you?

Here is a list which MAY help you find your mother instincts.

1. Believe in yourself that you can do it.
2. Believe you have common sense, and your common sense is right.
3. Observe the animals around you and observe how they care for their offsprings. In general, they try to keep their offsprings away from harm such as:
- Hide them away from other animals or other beings which could be a threat to them. For humans, these threats are strangers. So hide your babies at home.
- When they are young, feed only milk. This applies to humans too. You don't see few weeks old kitten eating fresh killed mice from the drain.
- The mothercats & motherdogs always snuggle their kitten & puppies to keep them warm. For humans, it is important to keep our babies warm by swaddling or snuggling them.
- Mothercats would hiss at her kittens when they are being aggresive to her during their play time. This is teaching them about consequence. For a human point of view, we should know when to set boundaries and do not give in to every 'wants' and give appropriate consequence whenever needed. I'm still struggling at this!
- etc
4. Try to spend as much time with your baby. The more time spent with your baby, the more you would understand your baby better. You will then be able to notice if there is changes in behaviour of your baby if anything happens. An example would be usually your baby is very happy and cheerful, but one day her mood is slightly off which could be due to a fever/ tummy upset/ broke her nail, cannot fart, cannot smell her mommy etc.
5. Never give up to try being a good parent.

I wouldn't say that my mother instincts totally kicked in after I gave birth, but believing in myself that I can be a good mother, observing nature and spending as much time with my baby has helped me a lot to understand my baby and solving many baby issues.

I hope you have found your motherly instincts, if not I hope this may have helped you. Good luck and don't give up!