Busting some Mummy Myths

I have recently realised that before children, I really had no idea and had this naive, idealistic view about motherhood. Others told me things, like how sleep deprived they were and I just thought that won't be me, my children will be in a good routine, if I only knew!

The issue now is that I have come back to work into a young team that are in the BC zone. So why should I be surprised when colleagues have commented on me being sick yet again and analysed why, 'hmm maybe, if I got more sleep (which I am extremely lacking) and didn't have two small children (or two Petri dishes for disease) in childcare, I would be feeling a lot better!!

Returning to work and taking in comments made to me, really hit it home for me what I used to think - all these myths and others busted very quickly! Here are just several but there are many more......

1. In general I will be calm, serene, in control, cook lovely meals and bake, do learning games and craft with my children at all times, minimal TV - mantra, serenity now doesn't work!

2. I would breeze back into work after maternity leave, maybe even full time, I mean, why not Men do it - women are different - I really struggled after both children and I work part time – (actually sometimes I think the part time gig is harder but more on that later)

3. If I follow Gina Fords routines in The New Contented Little Baby Book my children will be sleeping through by three months and I will never look back, none of this sleep deprivation for me - routine lasted from week six to seven with my first, gave up after kept getting mastitis and my little girl just wouldn't conform, really stressed me out - with my second child didn't even bother.

4. Again on the sleep - sleep training how hard could it be and if worse comes to worse I will do it and all will be fixed - it is hard, very hard and they don't tell you, how it can break your heart, I was crying too, plus even after putting in the hard yards worked for a month and then stopped - my daughter now nearly four still has bad nights

5. Breast is best - I will breastfeed until I go back to work - fairly much did with my first through four bouts of mastitis (what was I thinking) but with the second he never seemed to get enough, unsettled and I suffered postnatal - all this improved once I moved to the bottle at four months - so no, breast is not always best! Both B and I suffered postnatal (B after her first and me with the second) which is something we will talk about in a later post – but believe me from this perspective bottle is best!

6. No dummies - this mantra lasted all of four days with my first and she had it until she was three

7. And one on top of these for B - I will never let my children eat hot chips when I go out or suck on the sugar sticks ( I now only go to cafes with sugar sticks so I can have five minutes of peace!).....

And following on from the comment above, I could never have imagined how little sleep and how many bugs I would get in the first six months after returning to work –having a child starting childcare. Lets just say I had never had gastro in my life and then got it four times within the first year of my daughter being in childcare.(B - I also view gastro as part of my dieting regime!!!! All I need is a good bout to kick start this diet!) With my son it has been the chest colds. Fun, fun, fun!

What we are about

'Your generation just think you can have it all' a comment I have heard aimed at us 30 something Mummies time and again and yes they are right B and I are certainly going to try.

Children, family, career, house (buying the perfect one and renovating another), travel, study, exercise, great social life and mmm what else can we throw in there. We are women after all and can multi-task; the question is how many things at once, without something crashing (preferably not ourselves) or magically getting more hours in the day?

Though technically we have achieved the second, considering we are getting less sleep with two young children waking at all sorts of hours during the night, we do have more awake time, maybe we should jog up and down while settling the kids or send off a few work e-mails at three in the morning - yeah right! Best laid plans and all that - with the constant brain fog from lack of sleep we are already struggling to do these things during the day. But we will push on and try and prove that good work, life, balance is not a thing of legend for the working Mum - we will get this balancing act right or at least have a lot of fun sharing the struggle and our observations with you all in this blog.

Oh by the way B and I had all intention of exercising, getting the kids out in the pram for some fresh air and brainstorming for this blog to start with a fantastic show of doing it all at once but instead lumped the kids with the hubbies and went into a lovely quite room with the laptop and glass of wine - after all have to fit in me time as well.