Motherhood

From new mothers, I often hear comments like: “I can’t even have a shower because I don’t know how long she will sleep for.” Or: “It takes so long to get him to sleep that we start cooking dinner at 9 p.m.” If your baby hasn’t yet been born, these sorts of things may sound ridiculous. However, managing your day around a newborn can be a challenge,…

“I never realized how many "rules" there are to good parenting. With each comment my confidence was slowly being chipped away. I started to feel that I was doing something wrong or even everything wrong”. (Emma, mother of a three month old) Here you are gazing at your amazing newborn, completely overawed that you could feel so in love and…

“My five month old feels as though she is super-glued to me,” says Antoinette. “She screams if anybody else holds her and if I dare to leave the room she gets hysterical!  She is my third baby so, even though there are days when I just want to run from the room screaming, “LEAVE ME ALONE!” I know ‘this too shall pass’. But I am sick of everyone…

“We were friends for about five years before we had babies -we worked together and at weekends we partied together. Later, we spent holidays together with our respective partners. Then we had children.  As we have journeyed through pregnancies and into parenthood, the differences between our styles of parenting are so glaringly obvious that it's…

I have just returned from visiting another lovely, intelligent mother who is doing a wonderful job with her baby, but is convinced she must be doing ‘everything wrong’. She feels guilty that she has messed up her baby’s early days (she hasn’t at all!); she feels inadequate because (she thinks) she can’t read her baby’s cues (she is making…

For some It's overwhelming 'love at first sight': "The moment I met Olivia ‘on the outside’ I thought, “Of course it’s you!” and fell instantly and totally in love with her. It was a total Earth Mother, mother lioness reaction, and one I could never have imagined the intensity of nor described before it happened. I was suddenly and absolutely…

“Can you come and see me, pleeeease?”  Alison was sobbing down the phone. When I had seen her as an antenatal client she was strong, capable and pro-active about being prepared for becoming a mum. Now, she was vulnerable, teary and awash with post birth hormones. Being in hospital with ‘helpful’ people prodding her body was an experience…