Cheryl Murfin

I work with new parents, brand spanking new parents who are very tired and are there any new parents out here or parents in general who've gone through this?

You know what I mean.

When you have a new baby, it's a form of insanity.

You're up all night, you're tired, your boobs leak, if you're the mom.

And so one of the benefits of my job or one of the things that happens with my job is I'll often get calls or texts from new parents.

Usually it's a new mom and she'll tell me some catastrophic thing that has happened.

Oh my God, I forgot to change the baby's diaper in the middle of the night and she probably has diaper rash.

Or, oh my God, the baby fell off the bed.

Or my most recent one I got yesterday was the baby is looking at me skeptically.

And so every time this happens, I get to reassure the new parents, you know, you are the best mom this baby ever had.

Which is true, and that makes them feel better.

And then...

And then I'll follow up with a story.

And I'll say, you know what, I'm going to tell you something that's going to make you feel really good about your parenting because you really are the best parent your baby ever had.

And I tell them a story about when I had my baby 23 years ago.

I was one of those very tired moms, and I didn't listen to my midwife when she told me I should stay in bed with my baby for a week and not do anything else.

I should not get up.

I should not go shopping or anything like that.

I decided that on the fourth day after my baby was born that I needed to go grocery shopping.

Even though my mother was there and she'd gone grocery shopping and she'd rearranged my linens and the closets and everything, I decided I needed to go grocery shopping.