‘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?
You know all that stuff THEY warn you about when you have a baby?
PUT them down drowsy but awake or they’ll ALWAYS sleep on you.
Don’t feed them to sleep or they’ll turn into a gremlin.
Teach them to self-settle or they’ll NEVER learn to fall asleep by themselves.
Babies need 16 hours of sleep a day or bad, bad things will happen…
Don’t let them sleep on you or the world will end. That kind of thing.
Well, it’s all bollocks. Continue reading
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
This book won’t tell you how to get your baby to sleep but it will show you how to stay awake successfully.
I am not going to lie.
This book will not tell you how to get your baby to sleep through the night.
In fact, it won’t even tell you how to get them to take a nap.
But it WILL teach you how NOT to sleep through the night without punching someone in the face, killing your partner or selling your offspring to a travelling circus.
It also provides realistic sleep guides, humorous no-sleep solutions, hilarious imagery and lots of REAL TRUE facts by the Institute of Real Life People With Actual Babies. Continue reading
“We need to talk.” I said. “There is no easy way to say this but I am breaking up with you. It’s not you, it’s me. I have changed and I don’t need you any more.”
“You can’t do this,” You replied. “You need me. You’ll always need me.”
“Not any more.” I explained. “I met you at difficult time and you made my life better. You helped me find my way back to the person I was before things got tough. But I no longer need you.”
“You’ll be back,” You muttered and I turned and walked away. Continue reading
I have this old friend.
She occasionally turns up at my door, totally out of the blue. I don’t see much of her any more but when she is here, it’s like she has never been away.
We met shortly after the birth of my eldest child. She came into my life and managed to get her feet firmly under the table. Continue reading
Postnatal depression is manipulative. It floods your mind with self-doubt and negative thoughts. It convinces you that you’re hopeless, a bad parent and a weak person. And the more you believe it, the stronger it gets.
Depression is determined. It wants to stay. It will trick you into believing you cannot do the things that will make you feel better such as talking, finding support, leaving the house, talking medication or going to therapy.
Depression is basically a dick. Continue reading
This morning I was the victim of an assault.
In a totally unprovoked attack my two-year-old whacked me in the face with her sippy cup.
And then she laughed.
So I called her an arsehole and necked a bottle of gin.
I ABSOLUTELY DID NOT DO THAT. Continue reading
Early motherhood was not easy for 31-year-old Ruth Herd. She battled with postnatal depression for a year before she was diagnosed and her nap-hating baby could be very demanding. However, here she tells us how she overcame all of it and (literally) landed her dream job!
“I was recently making another futile attempt to bring some order to the chaos that is the spare room (AKA the place where unwanted things go to die) and I stumbled across a notebook. It was one of the many beautiful notebooks that I buy, scribble three pages in, and then discard because I ‘ruined’ them by trying to use them for something that turned out not to be the Next Great Novel. Continue reading
