Alina Merkau: Why we don’t always have to be perfect as mothers

Whether an annoyed look from strangers in the restaurant, when the child just can’t stop crying, or the perfectly staged Instagram pictures showing a picturesque mom-baby time – the pressure to be a “perfect” mom is enormous. Sat1 breakfast television presenter Alina Merkau told us in an interview why we don’t always have to be “perfect” and what really matters.

A few days ago, Alina Merkau posted a story on her Instagram channel in which she almost confessed that she would no longer breastfeed her little son Carlo after a few weeks, but instead give him the bottle. She says: “I would also have liked to have done it perfectly” and by that she means breastfeeding. This is what her video was about: the perfect mom is breastfeeding. But sometimes that just doesn’t work.

Brigitte.de: You said in your Instagram story that you are now giving your little son Carlo the bottle. What was the problem?

Alina Merkau: At first I didn’t worry about breastfeeding because it worked wonderfully for Rosa. Carlo then often had stomach pains and screamed a lot as a result. I noticed right from the start that he often choked. Then you try everything to do better: you breastfeed from the left, from the right, lying down, sitting, then there are abdominal massages – you check off a list of what feels like 150 points that you can do and that brings stress in the baby-mom-everyday life.

How long did you go on like this?

Over several weeks. And then I decided to give him the bottle. Not so much because I thought it was the solution, but more because I thought I needed a break now and then start all over again. And then we noticed that he drinks well, he is fuller as a result, he was relaxed and happily hung his hands – which he had never done before. I found that he and I got stressed again and again when I put him to my chest.

So you kept trying after you gave him the bottle?

Yes, until at some point I thought to myself that I should stop putting this stress on myself, that it has to work. I breastfed him for ten weeks and now I no longer breastfeed him. For us that means that we are happy. He no longer screams, he no longer has a stomach ache, I have a happy baby. In the end my husband is also happy because he is allowed to give the bottle and is therefore self-sufficient with him.

So this break was actually a very good idea.

Yes, but of course I would have liked to continue breastfeeding. I thought breastfeeding at Rosa was something very beautiful. If that works out well, then this is the greatest thing in the world for mom and baby. Only when that doesn’t work does it become a stress factor.

In your Instagram story, it almost sounded like you were making a confession when you told your followers about it. Why was that like that?

I think many claim to always want to give 100 percent to themselves. And of course when it comes to this topic you have the “perfect mom” with the “perfect milk” and the “perfectly drinking child” in mind. I do believe that social media play a role. Because everywhere you see babies sleeping happily and mothers breastfeeding. And that puts you under pressure. It used to be different.

What is different today

We have constant control and constant comparison through apps, Google, forums and the like and are therefore often more anxious. Which is a shame because I think that we lose our intuition a little as a result. We pant after a picture and forget to see what is the best in our own life.

And now Carlo is apparently much happier and more satisfied. This is actually what you want to achieve as a mom.

Exactly, that should be 100 percent: a happy baby and a relaxed mom. But I am glad that I commented on it publicly. The feedback was huge. So many mothers have written to me, from 60-year-olds with four children to 19-year-olds with their first baby. There were a lot of women there who were just glad that someone like me had such a problem. According to the motto: together you are less alone. And I was happy that I was able to give some of the people the feeling that they are not bad moms because things are not going 100 percent right now.

Now it is the same with you that you are even more public than other mommies. You are being watched much more in all areas. What is the feedback like there?

Of course I get criticism from time to time. But I have to say that I became safer with the second child. At Rosa I met more and I thought about messages more than I do now. But that doesn’t mean that this news leaves me completely indifferent today. For example, I get messages from mothers telling me not to work so that the baby can have more rest. But now, at the end of the day, people see two or three minutes of my day. They don’t even see that I might lie at home all afternoon cuddling up.

What would you wish for there?

I think in the end I would like to see people understand other ways of life, and strangely enough, mothers are very strict with each other. Because of course you always want to defend your path in life a little, we all want the very best for our children. But every woman has different circumstances, different options.

So mothers are very strict with one another?

Yes, sometimes. One example is the classic “housewife” versus “working mum”. One does not materialize, the other is too little there for the children. But that’s nonsense. Both have their raison d’etre and do it right.

How is it with you?

I would call myself a “Working Mum”, even if I have the feeling that this term has more of a negative connotation. I believe that working and being a mother are not mutually exclusive. Personally, it was shown to me that my mother goes to work. So the image of a working woman was always something completely normal for me. But there was also a time when I thought I would do it differently for myself. I used to be able to imagine staying at home with the children. And then Rosa came along and after a few weeks I felt that it wasn’t. In the same way, other women who were previously successful in their jobs may feel that they no longer want that. That’s a bit of learning by doing.

Was that again with Carlo, that you thought I would stay at home for now?

Yes, I thought, now I can take some time off. But after a few weeks I’m back to work because it’s the right thing for me personally. But I am also privileged to have founded “PilaME”, our own company for online prevention training, with my husband and my physio-pilates trainer. But my children also have an influence on this: Without them, the postgraduate training course or Pilates for pregnant women might not have come about. In addition, when we’re in the office together, three people take care of Carlo, that’s luxury.

What would you advise young parents to do?

I think first and foremost it is important to put your cell phone away and not be so influenced by Instagram and Co. Better to stay in the small cosmos. The children give you the best feedback. And the second best feedback comes from the people who are closest to you. This is a tip that I will give to my own daughter at some point: stay more with yourself and in your own environment.

Source used: Interview with Alina Merkau

This article first appeared on Eltern.de

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