Motherhood is waking up hangover free (but more exhausted than you ever were after a night partying) on a Sunday morning

Motherhood is putting little one on the bed next to you so you can have just 20 more minutes sleep… then spending that time staring at their gorgeous little face in wonderment

Motherhood is never going to the toilet or showering without a tiny spectator in tow

Motherhood is wondering how you were ever late for anything pre-baby (seriously, what did you do with all that free time???)

Motherhood is finally sitting down to eat your “breakfast” at 6pm, one handed, whilst jiggling  a little person up and down on your knee. Then politely smiling and nodding at your partner (and resisting the urge to stab him with your fork) who comes home and tells you he’s been so busy at work he didn’t manage to eat lunch til 3pm (presumably he had both hands free to eat it with)

Motherhood is muttering “for fucks sake” under your breath 752 times a day – the exact amount of times you have to re-think your plans due to naps/nappy accidents/feeds/screaming fits

Motherhood is telling yourself you really need to start finding time to exercise, then realising that somedays it can be 5pm and you’ve not even found time to brush your teeth yet

Motherhood is losing your identity, then slowly rebuilding it piece by piece

Motherhood is wishing there was a way to transfer pain so your little one never has to feel it

Motherhood is never sleeping deep enough to miss the tiniest wimpier in the night

Motherhood is being sick/weed/pooped on and not batting an eyelid

Motherhood is feeling like you’re failing as a friend by forever having a little person in tow, but not being ready to leave them just yet

Motherhood is wondering how you’re supposed to be a good wife, when being a mother takes up all of your time

Motherhood is knowing the signs and symptoms of every possible ailment your baby could possibly have… and the google history to prove it

Motherhood is rewinding the same episode of a series 17 times because you keep missing what’s happened, then putting it on to watch in bed and promptly passing out

Motherhood is wondering how you will get through another screaming fit when your nerves are already frayed, then kissing your little one’s tears away and telling them how much you love them and it will all be ok when it inevitably happens

Motherhood is sitting in silence 30mins after you’ve turned the engine off in the car so you don’t disturb your little one’s nap

Motherhood pairing leggings or tights with all your summer dresses so your baby can have a new winter wardrobe

Motherhood is looking longingly at those creamfields tickets/adults only hotels/holidays online then navigating back to mothercare.com to spend the money on a new car seat instead

Motherhood is desperately wanting someone to help with little one, then having to restrain yourself from taking over when they do

Motherhood is wondering if you will ever have the concentration or desire to be successful in your career again

Motherhood is alternating between being excited about all the things that are still to come and feeling sad that the time has already passed so quickly

Motherhood is the most heart achingly difficult thing I have ever done

Motherhood is the most beautiful and amazing thing I have ever done

We’ve had some great news from the hospital this week – our little monkey only has to wear her harness for bed now!! Yayyyy!!! That means that we *should* just have another 6 weeks with the straps before they’re gone forever!! 

I was worried about how she’d adapt to being out of them for so long – when we went to 4 hours out she had days where she struggled with it and we ended up having to put them back on earlier than planned (I guess they’ve become a comfort to her) – but she’s been absolutely fine! And – added bonus – there have been no major tantrums when they’ve gone back on either!

We go to Cornwall on Sunday and I can’t wait to take her swimming (in the pool, not the sea 🤣🤣🤣) If her face when I put her in her rubber ring in the bath is anything to go by (and the screaming fit when I took her out of it 🙄🤦🏻‍♀️) she’s going to love it!!

She has had her harness 10 weeks now, I can’t believe how fast it’s gone! Mind you, I can’t believe how fast time is going in general!! Isla is 20weeks old now 😳 and weighs 13lb 10oz!!! Where has my teeny baby gone????

If you’re reading this and you’ve had a baby (and are thinking BULLSHIT!!!) stay with me… I’ll explain! If you’re reading this and you haven’t (and you’re thinking FINALLY – a good news story about the postpartum experience) don’t get too excited… I’ll explain 🤣🤣🤣

We all know that the postpartum experience is an interesting one! Especially for first time mums, you go from looking after yourself to suddenly also being responsible for keeping another tiny, helpless human being alive, happy and healthy!

Chances are you made some HUGE lifestyle changes when you were pregnant, and thought you had a good idea of what was to come once little one arrived (hello sleepless nights!)

What I guarantee you weren’t betting on is that having a baby would basically turn you back in to a teenager… as I said, allow me to explain…

• You learn A LOT about yourself when you have a baby. Suddenly everything that seemed so important to you before pales into insignificance compared to your new bundle of joy. Your priorities completely change. The qualities you wanted in a life partner change – that hardworking man you married suddenly seems like a selfish bastard when he puts the hours in at work instead of coming home to you (🤣don’t worry – they’re easy to retrain! 😉) So although you thought you’d figured all this shit out, you’ll re-evaluate everything! You’ll realise that you’re not the friend you thought you was, now your friends circle is contracting down faster than you did in the final stages of labour you’ll realise that maybe you should have made more effort when your other friends had babies – which brings me on nicely to my next point …
• You have to make new friends!!! No matter how social you are, how confident, having a baby for the first time puts you right back at ‘new girl’ territory. It’s a sad fact that you see your friends less – they say if you want to figure out who your real friends are ask for help moving or have a baby 🤷🏻‍♀️I actually don’t think it’s that simple, it’s not your friends’ fault that you can’t do everything that you did pre-baby. Nevertheless, you might suddenly find yourself in a position of being Billy no mates, and to rectify that (which you need to do – adult conversation is pretty paramount to your sanity!) you’re gonna have to put yourself out there and make new (other mummy!) friends! Good news is most of the other mummies are in the same position as you do it’s not toooooo bad
• However, like your teenage self, you’re likely to be pretty insecure about your body! Oh, what I’d give to go back to my teenage self and tell her to appreciate that body – no matter how fat she thinks she is… she has noooooo idea how much fatter she will get 😂😂😂And it’s not just the appearance. After having a baby my body feels alien to me, 4.5months on I’m still trying to reconnect with it, and it’s a steep learning curve!
• Especially in the bedroom!!! The things I thought I liked feel different now. I would have never, ever in a million years have guessed that having a baby could make me feel like a virgin all over again!
• Hormones. Oh, so many hormones! Remember those teenage moods?? Well, they’re back. And they’re bigger and stronger than ever. Mix that with the lack of sleep and there’s a good chance that you are now one moody bitch 🤷🏻‍♀️
• There’s also a good chance that your skin has taken a beating – I didn’t have spots as a teenager, but I do now!!!
• Finally – greasy hair. Now, at first I thought this was just for new mums, you know, cos there’s just no time to wash your hair. But oh no, no, no!!! If you spot a mummy with an older baby and are wondering why she might have greasy hair I think I can explain. It’s not that she doesn’t have time – she’s probably figured enough of a routine out by now to manage a shower… she has greasy hair because she’s too fucking terrified to wash it because every time she does massive clumps of it fall out 😭😭😭(not to worry though – your body will grow additional hair to make up for it – just not in the places it should be!)

So yeah… having a baby basically makes you a teenager again. In every way except the perky teenage body. God dammit.

One year ago today… I had the faintest squinter of a line!!! I’d had a miscarriage the month before… so I was TERRIFIED!! Gone was the excitement I’d felt the month before and instead I was full of apprehension… We were due to go to a festival the day after and on holiday the following week – would everything be ok this time? Was I going to start bleeding on the flight? Would flying put me at risk? Soooo many things to worry about!!

When I approached my husband and told him I thought I might be pregnant again he looked at me like I’d gone insane (it really was a squinter 🤣) but also – he really didn’t want to talk about it! It had only been a few weeks before that we’d sat and cried happy, excited tears for a line on a different test strip – those tears turned to ones of despair a few hours later when I started bleeding.

Our holiday was definitely interesting – I packed tests to take with me and I secretly tested every night to check everything was still ok!

Thankfully, everything was ok and one year on our little munchkin is still here, healthy and happy. And I know I am so very blessed to have her in my life ♥️♥️♥️♥️

This morning I got up, procrastinated for far too long over whether I should do my exercises… eventually decided to do them… had a shower, was washing my hair (feeling pretty proud of my achievements so far 🤣) and then noticed that I appear to have morphed in to a giant moulting Labrador. Like, seriously, WTF!!!

Just incase the –

*Stretch marks

*Raging hormones

*Destroyed vagina/sliced open core

*Pittance that is maternity pay

*Postpartum body (which feels completely disconnected to you)

*Mom guilt about returning to work/not returning to work

– aren’t enough, someone obviously thought us women needed a bit more to deal with… cue the postpartum hairloss!

Isla is 19weeks old. I thought I’d got away with this shit!!

I’m telling you if this chunk of hair doesn’t weigh a stone I’m not going to be a happy bunny!!!!

Isla is not the only one who’s been a brave girl this week!!!

I think there are very few people who know me who would describe me as shy – I work in HR so talking to people is a big part of what I do, HOWEVER, I do really struggle with my confidence at times, and I’ll be honest, it’s at an all time low after having Isla.

I have a weird fixation on whether people will judge me by how I look, so when I’m not feeling great in my body I have a horrible habit of not really going out much. Logically, I know it’s ridiculous and I know that no one other than me really gives a shit about how flabby my tummy is, but I just can’t shake it off. (I was like this pre-Isla – I put my midwife appointment off for as long as I could in the hope that I’d lose a few pounds before having to step on the scales!! My postpartum body is just making it worse!)

Up until this week I hadn’t booked or taken Isla to a single baby class (she’s 18 weeks old this week!). In a moment of braveness I have booked up our September!! We’ll be going to baby massage on Tuesdays and Rhythm Time classes on Thursdays. Even braver still – I saw a post on our community Facebook group for the local mums to meet up and have lunch… and… I went!!! All the other mums already knew each other, in fact, they’d just all been to a baby class together, so it was extra nerve wracking being the new girl, but I didn’t die, Isla got to meet some other babies for the first time and – dare I say it – I had a lovely afternoon!

I didn’t catch anyone looking at me in disgust once 🤣 everyone was really lovely! And today we’ve had an invite for Isla to a first birthday party pushed through the door from one of the babies ♥️♥️♥️ Too cute!!!

I may just dodge becoming a hermit yet 🙌🏼

We had Isla’s check up for her hips today… and we’ve been told she can go to 4 hours out of her harness every day now!! Even better is that we’ve only got to do this for 2 weeks and then we can go to nighttime only wear 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼 I am so, so proud of her, she’s done so well in it (I know she doesn’t actually have to do anything but still 🤣)

As happy as I am that we’ll hopefully be saying goodbye to her harness very soon, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about it too! We can have the 4 hours out however we want – so can do 1 block of 4 hours, or split it in to 2 x 2 hour blocks or 4 x 1 hour blocks, etc, by the time I got back from the hospital today the only option left was one long stretch… and it ended in tears!! I think she gets so excited about being out that she feels like she has to kick her little legs as fast as she can – ok for an hour, but after 3 hours of it she was exhausted! Tried to get her to nap, but it’s literally like she can’t control those little legs 😂😂😂 ended up putting the harness back on half hour early as she was very grumpy and overtired. I’m sure she’ll adapt to it fairly quickly (I hope so anyway!!)

What I really, really hope though is that she continues to love wriggling! And that I never, EVER take it for granted how lovely it is to watch her do it! The hour out of her harness is by far my favourite part of every day (maybe paired with waking up and seeing her lovely smiles – god knows where she got her morning person attitude from cos it definitely isn’t from me or daddy!!). I don’t ever want to forget how special it is, or lose any of the joy I get from watching her! At the moment it’s an hour filled with so many smiles, giggles and more recently happy tears (goddamn hormones are wreaking havoc at the moment!!)

I can’t upload videos to here (you have to pay extra to do that – my pittance of SMP doesn’t stretch to that 😂) but if you go on my Instagram ( my account name is firsttimemumming… orrrr this link might work! https://www.instagram.com/p/B1wT2pGlIdn/?igshid=1p7pnxfaa8xs8 ) you’ll see just how happy she is wriggling! It’s literally the best thing ever ♥️♥️♥️

That being said – I am SO EXCITED that we’ll finally be able to take her swimming now!!! Eeeeeeeek!!! Fun times ahead 🥰

I’m on a roll now. I’d just like to share mummy vs daddy’s morning routine…

We’ll start with daddy’s because it’s easier…

– wake up

– go get coffee

– make self bowl of cereal

– bring cereal upstairs and eat it in bed whilst playing with phone

– moan at mummy that he doesn’t know why he bothers making her a coffee because she never drinks it

Vs mummy’s…

– wake up

– change Isla’s bum

– Express breast milk

– warm bottle

– feed Isla

– change Isla’s bum again after her morning poo

– continue to feed Isla

– go to drink coffee then realise it’s gone cold

This is standard. But today… ohhhh… daddy disappeared for half hour… Mummy ASSUMED he’d gone out to collect the shopping and get her the breakfast he’d told her he would on his way back… after 30mins daddy shouted upstairs to ask if mummy needed anything when he was out.

Intrigued, mummy started walking down the stairs at the same time as asking daddy what he had been doing. Daddy told mummy he’d been doing the washing up, but mummy heard him turn the tap on as he said it. When mummy got downstairs she found daddy having himself a second breakfast without a care in the world.

Mummy was pissed off. Daddy couldn’t understand why. Mummy considered stabbing daddy, but at the last minute managed to restrain herself.

GIVE. ME. STRENGTH.

*RANT ALERT*

Just before I launch in to this, you need to know that I’ve held off writing this down for a good 2 weeks… that’s how long this has been simmering! I feel like I use all of my patience up on my little one and there’s not much left for anyone else. I wasn’t going to write it down, but if I don’t I think I might actually self combust. So here goes…

Few weeks ago we took Isla to see the mother-in-law, now I do need to mention a few things here… (although you’d probably be more in my favour if I didn’t 🤣 ) She is 81. She has been widowed 4 years. And she has cancer which cannot be cured. Also, my husband is an only child, and she doesn’t really have any other family. Anywayyyy… despite all that, I am really, really, REALLY struggling to bite my tongue with her at the minute.

I get the same few comments every time I visit, they include:

“She always cries when she comes here”

“I don’t think she likes coming here”

“She doesn’t like me”

“Do you think you can force a smile out for me?” (Isla, not me 😂 )

On our last visit though she really outdid herself. I took Isla’s playmat with us so that she could have her “wriggle hour” (hour with her pavlik harness off) at her gran’s house. I thought she’d like to see it, well, cos it’s freaking adorable. Turns out I shouldn’t have bothered, as I had a few additional comments thrown in…

“Her feet are cold, she should be wearing socks” (the harness has little booties attached so no, she should not!)

“Should you be doing that? You’ll damage her hips” (when I wriggled my daughter’s legs while we were playing)

“Are you supposed to give her cold milk?” (It wasn’t cold, I’d expressed it before we left the house, but that’s besides the point)

And the icing on the cake…

“I have never, NEVER known a baby to cry as much as Isla” (she cried for like 2 minutes after happily wriggling for 30mins because she was hungry, and well… she’s a baby and can’t talk yet!!!)

So, at this point I’d lost my cool, and I’ll admit I answered back, not how I wanted to, just with a strained laugh and the comment “well how many babies do you know?”

Anyway, all of this led to a text message to my husband to say that she was “devastated” after the visit as the atmosphere had been so terrible, he went round to see her and told her that sometimes her comments could be upsetting, she caveated this with “is Becki ok? Do you think she has postnatal depression?” 🤬🤬🤬

Anyway, I knew I needed to be the bigger person here, was happy that hubby had told her her comment had upset me, and so I text her to arrange to go round… this is where it gets fun!!!

I’ve been round this week, and instead of the apology that I was naively expecting I got…

“I was worried about you the other week, you seemed stressed” to which I said “well, my dad HAD just had a heart attack and there were just a few comments that upset me as you know” to which she replied “well, when you asked how many babies I know, I have known lots of babies in my time. And as for your dad, well I have cancer, you have your mum, your dad, Paul and your brother, I have no one (I can’t remember the exact words of the next bit but in my head they translated to “so it’s not as bad as me, get over it”) I was also hit with “I always wanted a big family, 4 boys, although what’s that saying? ‘A daughter is a daughter for all of her life, but a son is only a son until he finds a wife’ and that’s very true”

So yeah, I’m smiling and nodding and possibly rocking in a corner by now too and slowly burning from the inside.

I know I’m going to hell for bitching about this. I’ve accepted it. It’s fine. So yeah, give me strength!!!!

🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

Ok, so sex… That will be what got most of us in to this mess!!! And yet it’s still a surprisingly controversial topic of conversation. We MIGHT talk about when the best time to do-the-deed is to conceive (when the smiley face flashes on the ovulation stick… no need to waste those swimmers any other time 😂🤷🏻‍♀️) we might even talk about sex DURING pregnancy, but we don’t really talk about it after the baby is born – other than the awkward conversation with the dr at your 6 week check up where you’re informed it’s now medically safe to do it, and do you need any info on contraception. So it’s back to business as usual. A private, behind closed doors business!

Except it’s not really business as usual is it? For what it’s worth, this is what I think about it…

1. In the words of Sweet Brown… Ain’t nobody got time for that!!! I mean, seriously!!! Babies take up A LOT of time. And when you’re not feeding them, burping them, playing with them or soothing them to sleep I can bet that you’re running round tidying up after them, maybe showering (if you’re lucky) or possibly feeding yourself (if you’re really lucky). Orrrrr you might be sleeping yourself. And I can tell you now there’s no way I’m giving up my much needed sleep or (not so much needed) food! And sex without showering is just gross!

2. If/When you DO decide to take the plunge (or allow your partner to, so to speak!) it will probably require a bit of planning. For a number of reasons really, if you’re anything like me you’ll want to make sure that you’ve planned in a some time for a good shower so you can shave, as that may have slipped off your self maintenance routine (I’ve got showering down to a fine no-longer-than-5-minutes art and shaving is NOT a part of that!) It’s not quite the military operation of trying to conceive sex, more like planning a surprise party – it’s not a natural turn of events, it requires planning, everyone knows it’s going to happen, including the “surprised” person, but everyone’s happy to go along with it and act their part

3. It’s a bit like a game of operation – touch the wrong bits and trust me you’ll know about it! Breastfeeding??? Remember when your nipples were just for fun? Yeah well now if you try and get them involved in this party they’re gonna make a mess. I mean milk baths might be your thing, in which case crack on!

4. It’s kinda like losing your virginity all over again. Having a baby has seriously knocked my (already pretty shit) body confidence! So using my body for anything other than caring for the tiny human that destroyed it was genuinely nerve wracking. Ridiculous really given that my hubby literally saw me cut open in the operating theatre… even a big mum tum overhang is an improvement on that, right?

5. It’s also kinda like the Sahara desert… it’s a mirage. You THINK there’s fluid on the horizon, but it’s just an illusion! 🤷🏻‍♀️ Seriously, it feels like everything’s functioning as normal right up to the point that you realise it’s not!!

And if all that’s not enough you also have to prepare yourself for the fact that at some point during the act your little one WILL make some kind of noise. It might be a cry, it might be a giggle, it might be a fart… I can’t tell you what noise it will be but I CAN tell you whatever it is, it WILL be off-putting!!

There are times when I feel a bit guilty that there’s been such a disruption to my husband in the bedroom department… but then I remember that men just have to have 10minutes of fun to make a baby. Us women have to spend 9months growing the baby, stretching our bodies to their limits in every sense. That we bear the marks and scars of it forever. And when I remember all that I don’t feel so guilty anymore. In fact I kinda wanna parade round naked as a method of punishment – like “LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO ME!!” But then I might need his help in making another one at some point, so best not 🤣🤣🤣