10 Things Nobody Tells You About Becoming A Mum For The First Time

Written By, Holly Gee & Sophie Taylor, 

@LifeofMummies

You can read all the books in the world, spend hours on google researching how to change a nappy, spend two mind numbingly boring hours a week at your antenatal classes, ask all your existing mummy friends for their thoughts and advice, but nothing truly prepares you for the journey of a lifetime that is, motherhood. 

So, what are the main things that we wish we were told before that big smiley face on   our pregnancy tests?

• Lap Up All The Attention You Can Get… because as soon as your little bundle of joy arrives, give it a couple of weeks and there is no more door holding, back rubs, personal leg shaving slaves, or late night doughnut runs to satisfy your ever growing sweet tooth.
• Discharge Is Normal … and so is sending pictures of what’s in your knickers to your fellow pregnant friends and BFF’s. So if you hadn’t already pre-pregnancy, you sure as hell will find yourself becoming a lot more open than you ever thought you would.

• Don’t Expect Your Friends Without Babies To Understand… because they just won’t, but before you hate them and think that they are suddenly the worst friend in the world, remember it’s not their fault. They are not in the same boat as you, so humour their worries and concerns or daily gossip updates, and then once you’ve put the phone down, have a bitch fit to your husband, let it all out, run a bath and eat that cookie.

• Start Watching Greys Anatomy… because you will have A LOT of time on your hands. And trust us, lap it all up whilst you can. Lie in bed for hours on end, don’t move unless you need to pee (which is a lot…) and enjoy the quiet time.

• Don’t Get Caught Up On Birth Plans…don’t get us wrong, when you’re pregnant, you suddenly become the most organised and neurotic human being on the planet. You’re surrounded by copious amounts of lists from what to pack in your hospital bag, to all the canned goods stacked in size order in your cupboards, but when it comes to your birth plan, whilst it is reassuring to have an idea of what you want, don’t get yourself caught up too much, because what we have both learnt, is that births very rarely go to plan. Go with the flow, take advice and just let your body and the incredible midwives guide you.

• Films Lie, We Can’t Deny… and whilst a full face of glam, perfectly brushed hair and one teeny, tiny bead of sweat dripping down your contoured cheek, may seem like the labour of dreams, it isn’t necessarily reality. However, the general experience of birthing your child is so incredibly moving, emotional and full of so much excitement and nerves, that screaming blame at your other half for putting you in this painful position and braking his hand in the process, and coming to terms with the fact that either your stomach or nether regions may look like a scene out of Jaws for a while, it is all only temporary and what you get out of it, is the most beautiful gift in the whole world (and we promise, you WILL look ‘normal’ again down there)!

• Let Go Of Pride… and take all the help you can get. When you’ve made it home after the birth of your firstborn, it’s very normal to believe that nobody else can look after your baby the way that you can (and no, they probably can’t), but family especially, have been there before and if they’re willing to watch the baby to give you a couple of hours to yourself, TAKE IT. Because let us tell you, these children will probably never let you sleep a full night again until their well into their school years (soz, truth hurts). 

• Say Goodbye To Sex And Hello To Old, Primark Pyjamas… probs should have got it all in while you can, eh? Unfortunately, unless you are one in a million, you may find your secret stash of lacy, sexy underwear may quite literally become, secret… when your partner walks through the door, your first thought isn’t to rip their pants off, but to take the baby out of your arms so that you can get yesterday’s vomit out of your hair and go to sleep (uninterrupted by no one, other than baby’s feeding time). 

• Post-Partum Hair Is An Actual Thing… and we like to call it ‘The Mum Fringe’. During pregnancy, your hair suddenly grows inches in minutes, shines in the sun, and never seems to get greasy. Then, a couple of months after the arrival of your little one, you may start to notice a sudden loss of hair in actual clumps, clogging up the drain every time you go to wash it. And then comes the tufts of new, crazy looking hair that sprout from all the visible places on your head and no it’s not exactly pretty and you may walk around looking like you’ve been electrocuted continuously, but we promise you, it does grow out eventually (and then you have to do it all over again with the second… and if you don’t laugh you’ll cry).

• You May Not Feel Like You For A While… but you will 100% become a better version of yourself then you ever thought possible. You may have to re-find your identity, and may have to come to terms with the fact that you aren’t the main priority anymore, but no matter how crappy your day may have been, once you’ve got through the first few months, you’ll suddenly feel like a brand new you. Confident, self worthy, more mature and the superhuman version of your old self. 

What Pressures Come With Being A Social Media Mother? - Partnership With Baby Mori

Baby Mori - Holly Gee and Sophie Taylor first started discussing motherhood through their brand called Life of Mummies. Now they are known as influencer mums of social media sharing the highs and lows of being parents. We wanted to know how social media puts pressure on women, and those who are mothers too. Here are their thoughts...

Growing up in the 90’s and early noughties, we played outside, made up our own games, spent hours actually playing with other children and didn’t particularly care about the clothes on our back or what colour our hair was. We grazed our knees, bumped our heads jumping out of trees, rushed home from school to access MSN messenger and spend hours updating our statuses, going online and offline so that you would pop up on your crush’s screen and then spend ages editing our MySpace pages and listening to our favourite albums over and over again. Then as we got a little older, we obsessed over whether our current crush was going to turn up at the house party we were going to. There was never any evidence that the night even happened, because people didn’t care about taking photos or updating stories, so our memories were about the fun we had, rather than how we looked. The house phone was our best friend (yes a HOUSE phone, something kids nowadays probably don’t even know ever existed). Our first mobile phone was a  Nokia 3210 that had no camera, no colour screen and the only ounce of stress to come from it, was when you lost at a game of snake.
Fast forward 10+ years, our lives are consumed and controlled by a digitally run world. Technology is a wonderful thing, don’t get us wrong, however the effect it has created on the world within just those few years, has completely changed the way kids and adults are experiencing life. Rather than guessing who’s at the party, you know hours in advance who is going to be there via ‘Insta stories/Snapchat/Twitter/Facebook etc etc…’ The outdoors is solely used for ‘picture perfect’ images to be taken, to be shared with all your beady-eyed followers and for some sort of warped perception of personal acceptance. The magic and excitement of the unknown has totally disappeared. People know where you’ve been, what you’ve eaten and what you’re wearing, the second they open their phones. Nothing is private anymore. Whilst social media can be very beneficial for growing businesses, it’s also very dangerous when people start to measure their self worth by how many strangers have liked and commented on their photos. We often find ourselves scrolling through this virtual reality from the second we wake up, ignoring our husbands, children, dog  and fish until we have had our social media fix, which ultimately brings us to the ironic point, that social media is in fact totally antisocial. Our new best friend is also our worst enemy.  Social media can be a very misleading world, that can fill you with anxiety and such a lack of confidence if you don’t have this “picture perfect” life that it portrays. From airbrushed skin, to re-sized bodies, from holidays, to clothes, to houses, to parties, it’s sometimes hard to differentiate between what’s real and what’s not. It’s a scary and dangerous world that we are both very aware of,  as we were lucky enough to grow up in a totally different way and atmosphere. We grew up being kids, looking 12 years old rather than 13 going on 30. And what scares us the most, is that our own children will never experience life the way that we did, because no matter how hard we try and hide it from them, we know that one day they are going to come home from school and ask us for an iPhone and tell us about what they saw on Instagram that day. Yes, we may sound slightly contradicting running our own social media channels, as we have such strong views on social media and the negative effect it has on people, but this is the future of our generation and we can’t ignore it. However, we can at least try to bring a sense of normality to this self-obsessed, digital world. So when we had our babies and were slapped in the face with the reality of motherhood (not what Instagram prepared us for) we decided to start our very own Instagram account, Life of Mummies. We wanted to shed light on the reality of motherhood and to show that life with kids is never picture perfect and that there are going to be ups and downs and lots of hurdles along the way, but that we are all in this together. So hopefully when you’re next scrolling through Instagram and see your favourite celebrity laying on a beach in a bikini, followed by the pair of us covered in our toddler’s snot and in the same clothes as yesterday, it will bring you back to reality and make you feel a little more human. Social media is exciting and can bring people together and can create a positive escape in many other ways, but you should always be mindful that what you are seeing, isn’t necessarily the whole truth, and to never judge and compare yourself on what you see on the screen.