How does life change when you become a mum?

When I first became a mum I regularly felt like I didn’t know what I was doing. I thought it would all be really natural. I’d know what to do instinctively.

In reality, I found I doubted myself. I worried about whether I was doing the right thing. I’d second guess myself. I’d wonder why and how other mums seemed to have it all sorted.

I felt tired and exhausted from the disrupted nights as I was breastfeeding and therefore my husband couldn’t help! I wanted to live up to the ideology of what I thought a great mum was, which was unrealistic.

The thing is, I wasn’t thinking about who I wanted to be and what I wanted life to be like. I was just trying to survive.

Now, I knew that life would change. We all do. How can we not? And if you don’t, then don’t worry because everyone wants to share their stories of what happened to them and what they’ve been through. Some are positive and some sound like they came straight from a horror story.

But it’s all the practical stuff. Whether it’s birthing stories, how to manage a child that doesn’t sleep or eat and what to do when your child misbehaves!

What nobody talks about is how you actually change as a woman, and I’m not talking about physical changes.

Loss of confidence

Before I had children, I was very confident. That’s because I knew what I was doing in life. And that’s what confidence is. It’s knowing rather than being filled with uncertainty. But when you become a mum you accept that you’ll have brain fog and you’ll become forgetful. And so, you start to doubt yourself and your confidence starts to fade.

However, like a muscle, you need to work at being confident. So the more you tell yourself you don’t know what you’re doing the more you will believe it. If you want to feel differently then start believing in yourself and what you do know.

You get demoted

I feel sad saying that we do it to ourselves. Nobody hands us a piece of paper that informs us we are now at the bottom of the list. We decide that everyone else is more important subconsciously. The good news is that you can also accept that actually you are important and that you have the power to promote yourself. Being at the top of the list occasionally is essential and you have the power to make it happen.

You sacrifice what you want

As mums, we decide that we must pause our lives whilst we raise our children. This is very noble. Personally I don’t buy into it. As mums, we should be role models to our children which means living a fulfilled life as well. To do that you have to decide what you want in life and go for it. It is possible and you can make it happen. Plus you teach your children through words and actions to do the same. As mums we want the best for our children and so it starts with us. Lead by example.