‘How are you finding motherhood?’ People would ask shortly after the arrival of my first baby.
‘So great,’ I lied, fighting back the tears. ‘Best thing ever.’
The truth is, I felt like crap.
But I had seen the smiling new mums on Facebook and Instagram holding tiny babies in their arms. I had read the glossy parenting magazines. I knew how I should be feeling. I should be glowing with happiness at the arrival of a beautiful, healthy child. So why wasn’t I?
Tearfulness, anxiety, loss of or increased appetite, exhaustion, lack of motivation and irritability are all symptoms of sleep-deprivation.
They are also symptoms of depression.
This coupled with the fact that depression can lead to exhaustion and exhaustion can make you feel low is why so many cases of postnatal depression go undiagnosed.
The mother often believes she is just totally and utterly shattered and that she’d be fine if she could JUST GET SOME BLOODY SLEEP! Continue reading
It is the summer holidays and so NO school run for six weeks.
It is the summer holidays so no school for six weeks…
I have been nagged almost to death and feeling a bit weird about my youngest starting school in September but amazingly I have not completely lost my shit – yet. However, it is only Day five.
Here is one thing i have learnt his week
ME: Right, you go first!
4YO: Who are you?
ME: No, remember you have to guess who I have on my card? That’s the game.
4YO: OK. Are you Captain Barnacles?
ME: No.
4YO: Are you a banana?
Lesson 1: A baby’s guide to life outside the womb
The biggest mistake new parents make is to forget where babies come from.
I am serious! Instead of taking any time to consider the fact that they have just dragged us from the comfort of our peaceful womb palace into HELL, they are too busy discussing stuff like, ‘who does she look like?’ and ‘I think she has your nose’ and ‘oh look at her tiny fingers’ to think about what we might NEED during this time.
Is it any wonder we scream our heads off when the Baby Getter Outerer takes us away from our Womb Container?
Is it really a surprise that we cry when you put us down in a cot, all by our little old selves??
‘Where the hell is my womb?’ We are thinking. “Where is the human I have been attached to for all of my life? The one who grew me. We are part of each other. I am her, and she is me and I am not sure it is possible to survive without her. Plus she got the milk and that shit is good.” Continue reading
TIRED MUM: Dear Google, can you die from sleep deprivation?
GOOGLE: In the 1980s, a researcher named Allan Rechtschaffen conducted a series of ground-breaking experiments on rats who died. After 32 days of total sleep deprivation, all the rats were dead.’
TIRED MUM: But what about humans? Google, what are the effects of sleep-deprivation on humans?
GOOGLE: Regular poor sleep puts you at risk of various conditions, including depression, heart disease and diabetes – and it shortens your life expectancy.
TIRED MUM: Oh god!
GOOGLE: Oh and it might make you obese.
TIRED MUM: Anything else?
GOOGLE: Hallucinations, possible brain damage…
TIRED MUM: OK, ok stop. I don’t want to hear anymore. So what can I do? I can stop this, right? Google, how can I prevent the effects of sleep deprivation?
GOOGLE: Get some sleep.
TIRED MUM: But I have a baby!
Dear Children.
I am writing to inform you that I am taking a leave of absence from Mornings.
When I agreed to manage Mornings With Kids, I assumed that you would do as I say because you are children and I am a grown up and therefore, I AM THE BOSS. I envisaged spending breakfast time sitting around a table laden with fresh fruit, where you would eat your food in less than SIX MILLION hours and I would smile and sip on hot freshly ground coffee in my stain-free dressing gown. I had also anticipated that you would understand the meaning of ‘hurry up’ and would actually give a shit about ‘being late for school’. Continue reading
TRYING to get a baby to fall asleep is a frustration that every parent will face at some point. And while some children drift off to dreamland fairly easily, others, however, just do not.
Neither of my babies liked to go to sleep. Some nights it could take anything up to four hours to get them to doze off, so I spent a lot of time desperately browsing the Internet for The Answer. As a result, I tried a lot of weird and wonderful techniques. Here are a few ways I tried and failed to get my babies to go the f**K to sleep:
You meet. You fall in love. You get married. Your life is all love, laughter and romance…
Then you have kids and SHIT GETS REAL. Candlelit dinners and nights of passion take a back seat and you ask yourselves ‘Are we still madly in love with each other?
Here are a few signs that you are so totally in love (and you definitely do not need to read an Internet list for confirmation):
We just got back home after a family ‘holiday’ in Devon. It will come as no surprise to you all that bedtime away from home is even more of a challenge than bedtime at home. But the husband and I have been burnt before. We learnt the hard way that there is no point worrying about sleep on holiday so we were prepared to bugger up our bedtime routine in order to make our week less stressful.
I kept a little diary of our progress…. Continue reading
