Most mums (the ones who are honest anyway) find that when they arrive home with their new baby everything isn't quite how they picture it. Many are sore and tired and they have somebody in the house who is invading their space on the premise of helping with the baby.
A few days after the birth a troop of well meaning friends and family come to coo over what you have produced, this would be great if you had had any sleep and you didn't still feel the size of a small family car, a state that you foolishly thought would have changed after you had given birth (well all the celebrities are back in pre baby jeans the next day, so why oh why do you still feel nine months pregnant). Every body wants to take pictures of you and the baby as if they didn't get enough horror's to fill an album when you were giving birth.
Take heart things do calm down people go back to their normal lives after a few weeks and your extra help decides you can now cope and the house is once again quiet, except for the ear piercing yells of a hungry baby. When this happens some of us suddenly realise that we are completely responsible for a new life, there is little room for our own feelings and needs as we become obsessed with making sure that we are a perfect mum.
Before you fall in that trap be aware that that way madness lies, if you completely forget who you are and what makes you happy you will wake up in five years when your precious child goes to school and not know what the hell to do with yourself, its a mistake so many women make and then regret at their leisure.
We are not saying that being a mother is not an important or a full time job, on the contrary we think its the most important job with the longest hours imaginable, what we are saying is that a woman is not a 24/7 slave she has the right to time off, its just a case of finding a balance between being a mother and being a woman.
From day one it is important to make sure that you take time to do things for you, it doesn't have to be days it just has to be me time, a few hours guaranteed every week where you do no house work or anything for anybody else. You simply do some thing completely selfish, have a coffee with the girls, go to the beauty therapist, go window shopping, anything just as long as you have no responsibility for any one but yourself. We have discovered it is best to leave the house because if you are there then the temptation is great for who ever is looking after your child to just ask questions and before you know it you have been dragged back into family life and your me time is gone.
Trust us it works, you will be happier and the knock on effect of that is that your whole family will benefit from a calmer mum.
15 years ago
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