A reminder...

What we share and what we don't.

Last week, I shared a post about how tired I am. My seven-year-old has started waking up again in the night to chat. I have not helped this situation by staying up too late at night, trying to carve out quiet time where I can choose what I do and when I do it.

So much of motherhood feels like service and sometimes I want to serve only myself - which is why I stay up late, even when it makes everything harder.

For context, here’s the post that I shared:

Oh what a night. Been a while since we have had an honest to goodness terrible night. I am wrecked from it.

Ham was up most of the night. Each time I finally thought I’d got him back to sleep I’d hear a whisper: “mama?”

And around 3am with “mama can I tell you something?”

No no no just go the fffff to sleep!

But really I just said “no Bunny you have to sleep”.

“Mama I have to tell you!”

“Fine”

“France technically borders with Brazil since it has a territory called French Guiana”

And it was like this until near tears I said “Bunny you must be tired I am so tired!”

And he said “mama I have never been tired in my life”.

So, we breathe. And this morning we watch kitten rescue videos on TikTok. And take it slow. And I will work and he will read a book and Eddie will climb trees even though it’s freezing outside. And we will get through it.

To all the parents out there meeting their babies where they are - parenting the kids they have not parenting by the books that say all kids are the same - doing their best to calm and support busy brains - I’m sending you love on those hard days!

And it’s so hard some days….

But we get through x always x seven years on I know I’ve got through the hardest days and I will get through the hardest days x you will too x

I had a lot of kind messages. The lovely thing about the community that has grown around us all is how gentle everyone is with each other.

But I had a few messages that made me pause. A few mums sent me messages that said they felt really overwhelmed. They said they want to parent more like me.

It made me think about what we do and don’t share and our motivations behind the sharing. I was quite heartbroken by the idea that my sharing might make another mum feel like she wasn’t doing enough or needed to do more or needed to be more like me.

These mums said they felt so angry at night sometimes, that they yelled, that they were short-tempered. That they said things they shouldn’t have.

And somehow, the message received when they read my post was that I wasn’t like that.

I am like that. We all are.

It’s hard doing so-called gentle parenting. It’s hard meeting your kids where they are. It’s hard parenting the child you have, not the imaginary child in a book.

I need to tell myself all the time that I’m on the right path.

When it feels like every voice is telling you - don’t co-sleep, don’t bed-share, don’t let them do this and don’t let them do that and you’re letting them be the boss of you and they’re manipulating you and don’t you want sleep? You need to leave them to cry!

When that’s all you hear - your voice in your own head needs to be louder.

And these are what these posts are.

I once went to a terrible mentoring event for “influencers”.  It was the “prize” for an award that was mostly a scam. I was the black sheep in the room and one of the mentors said I wasn’t “aspirational” enough.

“Nobody wants to be you”.

And all I could think was: but my posts are aspirational to me so I don’t really give a fuck. I don’t ever want to hurt people with the things I post. Ever. But I am not worried about offending people who think nothing of saying they got a sleep consultant for their three-week old and now they’re getting eight hours a night and use the code Lies20 to be the same.

The post above might not be a win to most people - I get that. But it’s a win to me. It might be a nightmare to many parents - a seven-year-old still waking up! But it’s not a nightmare to me.

I parented in a way that felt right for my baby and for me. That’s what I see as right in this life. I may not have a fancy thermomix in my kitchen, next to a healthy salad lunch made with Woop or Hello Fresh or whatever the latest must-have food bag is. I may not have a the latest thing that a child has to have. I don’t have brand-new athleisure wear covering my gym-perfect body.

But I have this.

And this has been hard won.

My very wise friend Tamsyn said: “Parenting like this requires constant reminders to yourself to take breaths, be kind, take a moment, take a step back, identify your own feelings, is this a battle worth having….That's HARD and no one does it consistently.”

It’s so very very true.

It has taken me years to have all of these tools in my kete. It has taken a lot of help to do this. It has taken me trying and failing and trying and failing.

I read the books. I take what works and leave what doesn’t. I listen to the podcasts.

I go to therapy every week. I have a partner who is 100% in it with me.

And it’s still really hard.

If you are finding it really hard - there is nothing nothing nothing wrong with you. You do not have to parent like me or anyone else.

It’s just really hard.

So I write little things and share little things to remind myself. I remind myself: This is the parent I want to be. I remind myself that I can do it. I remind myself that one bad night is just one bad night and the next night can be a good night.

I remind myself I don’t have it all figured out, but I know this one thing helps.

I remind myself I’m doing my best and my best is all I can do. And some days it will be enough and some days it won’t.

And I post it because sometimes I think there might be another mum who needs a reminder too.