Motherhood: Adjusting What We Expect of Ourselves
I wish someone had said two things to me when I became a mum:
It feels hard because it IS hard - it doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong.
Be kind to yourself, FIRST, not last.
No one did.
I took my baby home and spent a lonely, overwhelmed year convinced I was doing it all wrong. My health became entirely irrelevant. Bearing in mind I was the centre of the universe for my tiny son, I can see, looking back, that was misguided.
Me and my boys, aged 21/2 and 6 months. A very knackered mum…
Me and my boys, aged 21/2 and 6 months. A very knackered mum…
The focus in our society is on mothering skills and not maternal well-being.
“Is he in a routine?”
“How often are you feeding her?”
The reason this matters so much is that it becomes second nature to women to put themselves after their children. Now, that’s a powerful maternal instinct, of course. After all, we have this tiny human we need to look after, nourish and love. But we do ourselves a disservice when this lack of care becomes habitual. Our babies become toddlers become pre-schoolers and so on – and the lack of self-care persists. Meals eaten on the hoof, if at all; falling back on packaged or processed meals; relying on sugar and caffeine for the energy to get through the day. When our kids are tiny, it’s hard to see any other way, but for most women, this way of eating becomes permanent. They often get caught in a cycle of poor eating and it goes on for years. The result? Low mood, low energy, PMS, low libido
We need to nourish ourselves, too. Often we don’t, and time is the main reason. But there’s also a pressure on us, learnt, that motherhood *should* look a certain way. A fiction we believe and maybe even try to live by. It’s exhausting.
We need to adjust what we expect of ourselves and defy the expectations of others. Our priority will always be our children’s well-being, but our own should be a very close second. How about: no, I didn’t wash up from last night – but I spent ten minutes making a great breakfast. Nope – I didn’t put on make-up for a meet-up – but I spent ten minutes prepping a lunch that will nourish me and mean I’m more energised. Yeah, I chose NOT to hoover, so that I could sit quietly for those ten minutes with a cup of tea and lean into my own thoughts, for once.
While I know there are households where all domestic chores are shared equally by partners, in my experience, (and this was borne out of research done in Lockdown 1 this year) – that isn’t common. Most of the weight of childcare and household duties falls on women. That’s why 2020 and the Lockdowns have affected women’s mental health so profoundly.
Adjust what you expect of yourself. If time is the reason you don’t look after yourself, let’s see if we can re-imagine your time. Find pockets that allow you to focus on YOU. It can make a HUGE difference to how you feel each day. Your energy WILL be better if you eat three good meals a day, starting with a nourishing breakfast. Your mood WILL be better if you don’t have to rely on sugar to get through the day. Your mental health WILL be better if you learn how to eat to feed your gut microbiome.
I see this with my clients all the time. They can’t see how they can change a routine that leaves them no time for themselves as it is. How can they possibly eat better on top of everything else? We talk about adjusting expectations, of recognising that there’s no such thing as a perfect diet. We just need to tweak WHAT they eat, with ease, slowly, until new habits are formed. Habits that embrace self-compassion so your health isn’t at the bottom of your to-do list.
And yes, other stuff might not get done.
So be it.
You matter, too. Nourish yourself, as well.
If you’d like to explore how nutritional therapy could transform your mum health, book a FREE chat here.