What is a Rod for your Back Anyway?

A lot of advice that new Mums are given revolves around ‘bad habits’, specifically about not creating them. When I first had Darcie she was a very cuddly baby who clearly needed a lot of physical attention to the extent that she would cry as soon as I put her down even when she was sleeping. To be honest this was hard as it meant that the whole ‘sleep when the baby sleeps’ thing went completely out the window, it was just sleep whenever somebody else can hold the baby which wasn’t that easy either as she was breastfeeding basically 24/7. Throughout this time I was told time and time again that I was ‘creating bad habits’ and ‘making a rod for my own back’. The latter became my nemesis, any time I heard those words even when not aimed at me my blood would boil but there was enough going on at that point (the whole having a newborn thing) that I didn’t really dwell on it too much. But nearly 8 months later I suppose you could say I’ve had the time to dwell.