Understanding your priorities
Fresh bedding ahhh…..
It’s a nice feeling right? Usually I’m happy enough with just fresh sheets, I’m not convinced the effort of ironing is worth it, since after the first night they’re all screwed up and creased anyway, I also look out for sheets which don’t need ironing when I buy them. I very rarely iron, to the point my six year old ask “what’s that?” Whenever I use it 🫣 #sorrymum
This duvet cover however is a pain in the butt, it never looks nice unless it’s ironed.
I remember a day shortly after my son was born when I’d made it my day’s task to change the bedsheets. I stripped the bed, washed it, even remembered to get it in the tumble dryer so it’d be dry in time. Unfortunately, that’s as far as I got. Distracted with feeding, nappies, my daughters demands and the whole bedtime fiasco (or “routine” as some people call it). At the time, pre-covid days, my husband would return home from work about 7.30pm. We ate dinner and we’re settling down to watch a series on Netflix when I remembered the unmade bed. He said he’d go and sort it, whilst I breastfed our cluster feeding baby.
When bedtime came, probably 8pm, I walked in to the bedroom and saw the bed and was filled with rage, it looked an absolute state. I stomped off with the baby to seethe and fuel my irate thoughts all night, he probably slept soundly and uninterrupted in the bundle of creases all night, I did not.
Two days later I remember the midwife came to visit at home. I must’ve spent an hour ranting about the “fking duvet cover that looked like a fking rag, what was the point in doing a bl**dy job if you’re going to do such a sh*t one”, I even made her come up the stairs to look at it 🙈 I appreciate now, four years later my reaction to the creased duvet cover, that ordinarily I’d tolerate was irrational and completely disproportionate to the situation. It wasn’t important, but it was important to me, in that moment.
I don’t doubt that my husband has no recollection of this day and this annecdote will come as a complete surprise. The bed was made, it was fit for purpose and could be slept in. But the point was that for me, it was my only goal of the day and I’d failed to achieve it.
Had we employed the help of a postnatal doula, she would have heard how important it was to me to get the bed made, that it was my priority for the day to have a neat bed in a fresh and tidy bedroom. She’d have perhaps held the baby, entertained my daughter or ironed the cover for me so I could finish the job or done it for me.
Doulas aren’t housekeepers or cleaners but we do what it takes to give you what you need on that day, in that moment.
