Mum-of-three Jordan Harrell didn't have an easy time with babies.
All three had some form of health problems, constantly crying.
Writing on Love What Matters, Harrell said that eat baby came with their own unique set of problems:
"There was a lot of colic and crying and ear infections and food allergies and little-to-no sleep."
Harrell was driven mad with the crying, often resulting in tears of disappointment and frustration herself:
"There were a few nights I wasn't sure I could take it anymore. I wanted it to stop and told the baby as much. They never listened.
So the crying would go from a solo to a duet, me and the baby swaying in dramatic harmony, alternating heaves as we wondered who would be able to reign it in first."
Wondering why all three of her babies had been difficult, she would question her mothering ability:
"A lot of those nights, I felt like such a failure. THREE hard babies? That seems illogical. Surely, the common denominator is their flipping ill-equipped mother."
But in these moments Harrell would think back to a story her own mother had told her. Her brother, Justin, had been a difficult baby, "colicky and clingy". One day they were at church when Justin began to cry, their mum quickly brought him to the back to try and calm him down.
Sitting next to her was an other woman holding a baby. It was sleeping peacefully and didn't make a peep even as Justin screamed. The conversation that her mother and the woman had next still comforts Harrell to this day:
"'What's your secret? How is he so easygoing?' my mother half-joked, half pleaded."
'Well, he's actually not mine. I'm his foster mom, and it's not so much that he's easygoing. He just spent the first few months of his life crying non-stop with no response. Nobody ever came. The crying didn't work for him. So he stopped. And now, he never cries.
Your son's crying is a good thing. It means he trusts you, trusts that you'll come.'"
A crying baby, Harrell realised, is not a sign of failure. It's their way of communicating that they trust you, that they know you'll come comfort them, come pick them up:
"So on those really bad nights, when I was so sure this was my fault, I would replay that conversation in my head. His crying is a good thing.
He's crying because he knows I'll answer."
She reminds all the other "mamas of hard babies" out there not to blame themselves, but to remember that crying is a sign of love:
"They're not crying because you're a bad mum.
They're crying because you're such a good one."
