The difficulties of being a mother

[Meezer2]

I just wanted to shed a message of hope your those women struggling with being a mum.

Ive seen quite a few post recently from mums of babies and young children who are overwhelmed by the responsibilities and demands placed upon them.

I'm a Mother of three daughters and one son.
Also a paramedic who always worked full time when my children were small.

I had to go back to work after my maternity leave was up when each child was very young

I had the first child when I was 17.. god it was so hard, Went on to do my training.

I didn't ever think I'd survive their childhood but I did somehow.

I guess what I'm trying to say to those struggling with poor sleepers, feeders and all the massive responsibilities of motherhood is that you will get through it.

My children are now 16, 24, 28 and 33

❤️❤️

That's a lovely post, OP.
How did you manage with shift work when your babies were little? I am dreading missing bedtimes regularly and not being there in the night regularly. I am going back to work full time in few months, my DH is not hands on at all despite me trying to encourage him, and I do all bedtimes/night wake ups. Still BF, baby is 8 months.

It was very difficult went they were all small.
I did permanent nights and set shifts for years

Both our mothers died when the children were young.

So basically we had to juggle childcare enormously.
The school holidays were the worst.
Never had any time together for years!

I often think back to those days and wonder how I coped.
But I did and as I said previously the difficult years do end and life becomes more manageable.

Now I purely enjoy having grown up children and enjoy all that thats brings,.. ❤️❤️

Such a lovely message - thanks for sharing x

The real issue is that it's hard when you're in the middle of it all and really struggling to see that there's an end in sight , even if that end is years away. Actually for a lot of women, thinking of years of all that makes it even more depressing.

Hopefully, struggling mums will see your post and take it for what it is,a beacon of hope.

Yes ,it's shit, but it won't always be this shit.

It always feels like your drowning with the day to day to day graft.

I remember clearly expressing breast milk at work in my breaks to feed the baba and getting loads of misogynist comments from male colleagues when I stored it in the works fridge such as. 'Oh if we run out of milk for tea we can use Meezers milk.

Arseholes and it was uncomfortable at the time.

Please hang on in there dear women.

You will survive and get through the difficult years. ❤️❤️

Such a beautiful post. Lovely OP thank you 👏👏👏

Thank u op, I needed to c this today. I have a 4 week old DS, my first, and we had a rough start. In hospital for a week with him on antibiotics and really limited visiting from DH due to covid so was going it alone for the most part, although the midwives were wonderful, I barely slept more than an hour a night.

Things are loads better now were home and DH is rly hands on with him but he's exclusively breastfeeding and at the moment having about 6-7 hours a day so it's taking alot out of me and he's starting to get much more fussy in general and taking more time to settle. DH also returned to work this week so can't help as much.

Feeling knackered and just keep telling myself that the newborn weeks are the hardest and at some point I will sleep more than 2 hours in a row and be able to not have to hold him all day (as much as I'm torn between loving the squishy snuggles and just wanting a bit of space).