Breastfeeding and super moms

A patient came in last week who confessed that she is a recovering "Super Mom"  I wasn't familiar with the term, so she explained that it refers to new moms who do everything perfectly.  Ok, I know a few of these exotic and rare women who look well-rested, have perfect babies that sleep and breastfeed without even a trace of difficulty,  their houses are clean and picked up, they can squeeze in exercise every day and have a happy marriage with a wonderful perfect man, who's never been laid off, picks up his dirty clothes and manages to get up with the baby at 4 am.

What happened I wondered?  "Well, I couldn't sustain it,"  she revealed. "I managed to be perfect for about 4 days, and felt that I was on top of the world.  If I could do it, well of course, so should everyone else. I was breastfeeding on demand.  I  pumped every day so that my mom could give her a bottle in the evening, and I got a little break, where I could eat with a fork, go to the bathroom, talk to my husband about his day and exercise. It was perfect, it wasn't easy, but it wasn't that hard, and I didn't know what other people were complaining about. Then, I remembered that my parents were there, helping me be perfect.  That's why the laundry was done, and there was food in the fridge, and I had been exercising, sleeping, breastfeeding, eating well, having snacks and pumping."

Then her world crashed around her, when her husband went on a business trip and her parents left.  "Exercise?  You have to be kidding, I didn't make it out of my bathrobe. Feed myself?  I could just about manage to feed the baby."  She wondered where the other 3 people were now.  Her husband, her mother and her father were gone, and it was just her and the baby. There was no time to shower, the laundry pile was growing, she was grabbing snacks and wolfing them down with one hand while breastfeeding and spilling crumbs on the baby's head  Then she started to feel inadequate and doubted herself. She felt that she wasn't as good a mom as she wanted to be. What was wrong with her?  Why couldn't she do it on her own like the other moms in her New Mom's Group?  They seemed to be doing just fine without any help.  Or were they?