5 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Become A Mother

The next blogger in my guest post series is the lovely Sophia;

Sophia’s blog Tattooed Tealady covers a vast range of subjects and features beauty posts, lifestyle and parenting and everything in between,.

Todays post from Sophia is one that I can relate to on every level and I am honoured she has shared it over here with us all.

You can also find Sophia here:

  

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5 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Become a Mother

If you’re anything like me you probably scoured the internet, checked out all the parenting forums and picked up any pregnancy book you could get your hands on, hoping to be a well-versed parent by the time your baby arrived, with all the answers and know-how on how to be a great mother. In reality, much of the advice and strict do’s and don’ts I came across have had no influence on my time as a first-time Mother, long forgotten about now my daughter reaches 1; Instead here are 5 things I wish I had known before I became a mother.

I wish I’d known that those first few weeks go by so quickly, and in quite a blurry haze too. Everyone always tells you how quickly time passes and how quickly that squishy newborn phase is gone, but you kind of nod your head and think “Yeah, OK!”. It’s true though, they fly by, and those precious few weeks can seem like a distant memory when you’re a few months into Motherhood. I wish I’d spent less time worrying about visitors and cleaning the house, and more time grabbing all the newborn cuddles I could!

I wish I’d known that everyone is a Supermum and has the best parenting advice in the world, or at least it feels that way when everyone from your mum to your next door neighbour are offering advice on how to stop your baby crying or what you should do about that dreaded dummy! Whether you need it, whether you even ask for it, you’re going to have people offering their advice and a lot of the time it won’t even be helpful. Better to nod your head, say thank you and switch off. You keep following that mama instinct and you’ll do just fine!

I wish I’d known that I’d never drink a hot cup of tea again. Whether it’s because you’re too occupied trying to soothe your crying newborn or time runs away from you whilst you sneak some extra-long cuddles, you’ll completely forget all about that cuppa until it’s stone cold. You can try a hot flask, which will keep your tea hotter for longer, but it won’t be long until you’re losing the lid or simply give up on making tea at all.

Even when your baby sleeps through the night, you will never get a full night’s sleep again. Everyone was so happy to tell me when my baby started sleeping through at 6 weeks, that I was so lucky to be getting all this glorious sleep, I’d have bounds of energy! Whether bedsharing or your baby is in their own room with a monitor, enjoying a whole night of much-needed sleep is never going to happen. When my daughter spends the night in her nursery, the beeping of the monitor is a constant bug-bare and she sets off her sensor mat more times than I can count, by curling herself up into the very corner of the cot, bum in the air. When we bedshare, every single movement, sign or ever gentle snore from my little girl has me wide awake, just checking she’s OK. Who needs sleep anyway?

No matter how much love you thought you would feel when are expecting your little one, the love you feel for your baby will be more than you ever imagined possible. Every second of every day, even when you are stuck in a frustrating stand-off trying to stop your baby climbing onto the TV or those moments when you don’t have enough hands for all the things you need to get done, the love you have for your baby will grow and grow and grow. I’ve never felt anything like it, I don’t think I ever realised a love like this was possible, and it just keeps on growing!

When you have your first baby and can finally call yourself a ‘Mother’, everything about your life changes. For me, it changed the way I felt about life, the world around me, my family, it changed me as a person more than I ever imagined possible. There will be tears, maybe even tantrums, you’ll have hard times that sometimes stick out in your memory much more than the countless happy times, but that’s what Motherhood is all about, and it is the best journey you will ever go on.

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Don’t forget to pop over and visit Sophia’s blog, Tattooed Tealady to see what else she is writing about!