When I got pregnant for the first time, I felt ill-equipped to look after a baby. I didn’t know anything – how to change a diaper, make milk or bathe a baby.

I had read articles and seen some tutorials, even asked many people how to look after a newborn. Their replies were always the same: “Don’t worry, use your mother’s instinct."

“But what if I don’t have a mother’s instinct?” I would ask.

“Aiyah, sure have one lah, it will come when baby is here!" was the common reply.

But when the baby arrived, I still didn’t have it. The nurses showed me the basics of caring for the child, and my confinement nanny guided me too – but when it was time for her to leave, I was as clueless as I was at the beginning. I felt totally useless.

But one tip stayed with me. I had asked the nanny, "Why don't I know how to do anything?"

To which she said, "Looking after a baby is like cooking. Some people just know how to do it, others need practice. You just need practice."

Her answer hit me hard, because like child caregiving, I also did not have a natural aptitude for cooking.

I never cooked much, even after getting married and moving out. It was only when I was pregnant and working from home did I decide to cook lunch every day because I had grown tired of the food from the nearby coffeeshop, and it would also allow me to have more control over my nutrition.

I started with porridge. It seemed the easiest – rice and my choice of meat and fibre in one pot for minimal washing up. Cooking was a science, wasn't it? Every meal just had to be a combination of carbohydrates, protein and fibre, and I would be okay.

But the porridge did not turn out well. I overestimated how much rice I needed and burnt the base because I didn’t stir the pot. My carrots were too chunky to have a nice texture and everything tasted like soya sauce.

Instead of giving up, I decided to make small adjustments the following try. Less rice. Dice the carrots smaller. Use salt and pepper instead of soya sauce. Experiment with herbs like coriander. Add the occasional mushrooms or peanuts for more flavour and texture.

After weeks of experimenting, I eventually quite liked my own porridge – lightly flavoured, not overly laden with soya sauce, and most importantly, containing nutrients from three major food groups.

Looking after a baby is just like cooking.

It was okay even if I didn't feel like a natural-born mother and have that "mother's instinct". It was okay if I needed practice to be perfect at caring for my child.

Because the truth is, no parent will ever be perfect. It is all about practice, practice, practice.

If you don't know how to change a diaper, change a diaper 20 times. If you don't know how to make milk, make milk 20 times (by the seventh time, you should feel the difference).

If you don't trust yourself to accurately "gauge" the right temperature of bath water or milk or whether your baby is having a fever – use a thermometer! There's no shame getting help from a device, even when others aren't using it.

After all, it's your baby and you are the mother, so you do what makes you feel comfortable.

Maybe for some of us, our "mother's instinct" will never come. Maybe we will never feel that aptitude for being a mother.

But there are so many things we can do to keep getting better at it. As parents, we can practise, observe and make the necessary adjustments.

And one day, over time, we'll realise we're more confident now than when we first began.

The author is a 35-year-old first-time mother writing under a pseudonym for confidentiality.

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