Honest motherhood diary.

Mum guilt is not really a term I heard much or thought about before having a baby or even pregnant. It’s something you’re not warned about, or explained how much the feeling impacts you with these intense wave of emotions.

And for literally anything…

Am I a good enough parent?

Is she happy enough?

Do I do enough educational activities?

Have we played enough games today?

Have I taught her anything today?

Do I stay in the house today or go out and leave it a mess? I’m too tired to take her out today… If we don’t she will get bored so I’ll take her anyway and hope she sleeps tonight. So I take her out knowing I’ve got a pile laundry to do, get the other bottles sterilised, hoovering, clothes sat on the stairs needing to be put away, bedding to change etc etc and we’ll take my f’kin vitamins seen as though we don’t sleep much these days 🤣.

Then it gets to night time, she’s been fed, bathed freshly washed p.j’s… goes down perfectly at 8pm absolutely shattered.. “I’ve done it! Amazing, piece of piss”

10pm comes around… BOOM !!! Wide awake ready to party…. OR the teeth, now Aura has 8 teeth already, she’s just gone 9months of age so at this rate we’ve been teething since birth, honestly my poor baby never gets a break. So then we approached the knackered half our where she’s fighting it and ready to go to sleep and eventually we sleep.

Then the teething have us up a lot through night and TRUST ME when I say we’ve tried every remedy going ( if you’re un aware these are my aware top faves to soothe a teething baby; calpol, anbesol, ashtons & parsons, bongela, cuddles from mama or dada). So then the the multiple wakes in the night toll onto the next day.. neither of us barley slept so when it gets to 7am and we should be getting up…

What do we do cuddle an sleep in till 9am. so then next night comes around and she’s not tired, so I question everything I’ve done that day…

and in the back of my mind I know we should of got up earlier this morning but I’m not going to lie I was I knackered. And yeah I know it’s the teeth that’s had us kept up thought the night recently and the but I’m Aura’s mum, it’s my responsibility to keep her in routine, to get everything right.

I’m so tired, part of me thinks.. do I text a friend to vent or will they just think she can’t cope and that’s motherhood “what did I expect?” Or do I text a mum friend or will I get the “you need to do this and you need to do that” so I put my phone away.

And trust me when I say Aura is the best thing that happened to me I absolutely love being her mama and I’ll happily admit, for us newborn stage and was easy. On the boob an she slept great, but then all the teeth started coming through and all these different develop mental milestones and the sleep regressions… its a lot it is, worth every single second too.

I’ll be honest, I’m happy with my parenting choices and I know I do everything I can to meet Aura’s needs… but it’s the middle of the nights when the sleep deprivation kicks in and the list of things I know I need to do, where I question myself…

So mother to mother. Let’s take a step back, take a deep breath, it’s okay. It’s okay to not have a Sophie Hinchcliffe house everyday, it’s okay for our routine to get disrupted, we’re not military officers were nurturers and it’s okay to live on coffee feeling exhausted. I’m sure one day we will miss it, an we won’t remember how tired we was or the list of jobs we had to do but how happy our babies make us an how much they brighten our day,

If you’re a parent here’s your reminders

• You’re a bad bitch!

• You’re perfect!

• Your baby is perfect!

• No one is judging you and if they are fuck em’!

• Give yourself a break - physically an mentally - Literally get a babysitter for a night and a bottle of Prosecco and don’t feel bad or guilty about it!

Don’t forget to love yourself too you wouldn’t want your little child to grow up and forget to love themselves so if you can’t do it for you, do it for them. Set an example (I think this maybe a topic for a mother day) <—- that was a typo but I’m leaving it here, LOL!

Mol xxxxx