Mum's The Word! The Parenting Podcast - Clemmie Telford

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

This week podcaster, blogger, entrepreneur and mother of three Clemmie Telford joins Ashley to chat everything from her relationship with exercise, enjoying the little moments with her family and accepting that you don't always have to have it all. If you have a parenting question you would like Ashley and her guest to discuss, get in touch at [e-mail]---A Create PodcastSee acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I mean what a morning it's been for me I lost my laptop first of all so this is delayed and then I was like do you know what I'm gonna come up here I'm gonna be really clear about what I want to talk about with today's guest who I'm particularly excited about talking to and then Alf just had the mother of all meltdowns downstairs so I spent the last 15 minutes of my life trying to explain to a baby who of course doesn't understand why he needs to be wrapped up during winter so I'm very excited now to be locked in a room away from him to speak to podcaster, writer, mother of three Clemmie Telford. I'm beyond excited. I actually have a really long introduction for you. Mainly, I love your channels. I love how you give a voice and inspire honest conversations about difficult subjects,

whether that's body image, mental health, relationship struggles, money challenges. I love your podcast. It's called But Why. You've had some amazing guests on. I love your podcast. It's called But Why. You've had some amazing guests on. Yeah, I just love how you shine a light on your own journey of self-development in a relatable, non-judgmental and very humorous way. You know what, it's always kind of uncomfortable, but nice to hear someone play your own stuff back to you. And, you know, I found myself in this position however many years down the line of sharing my journey online and it kind of has somehow added up to have something kind of cohesive but in a very back to front manner. Do you find that you were sharing a lot online in the early days of motherhood? Yes so when I so I had my first two boys very close together 22 months

apart which I honestly don't know what we're thinking and when I had Bertie my first is about to turn nine there wasn't any of what there is now and then by the time I had Woody 22 months later it was just in its infancy and so when I started sharing online there wasn't a kind of pre-understanding of I hate the expression instamum but any of that there was nothing I was only sharing stuff because when I shared stuff I met other like-minded people and it was a way of saving myself because I hadn't found my people I hadn't found a version of motherhood I related to first time around and then via Instagram I did the second time around. It's so interesting isn't it because you say like the concept now of like kind of like insta mom or mummy blogger as they're

called and one of the first things I said when I found out I was pregnant was I will absolutely not be a mummy blogger I think I even said it on my stories and here I am with a podcast called mums the word talking to other mums and I feel like I'm in this kind of like vicious cycle even on online because I'm very much in the stage where I'm like battling with my identity I have really bad days I have some amazing days as well. But I feel like it's a vicious cycle because the more I talk about my life as a mum, the more I feel like I'm pigeonholed as a mum. And the more I'm pigeonholed as a mum, the more I kind of want to like rip out of this like new identity and just go back to who I used to be.

Oh, that is the absolute crux of it, I think. For me, where I don't want to say went wrong, but that's the language that's coming to my mind. The way I really struggled for that first year, 18 months, maybe two years, is because I was really desperate to claw back to my old life. I thought I knew what motherhood would be, and I thought it would just be Clemmie plus a child and then the moment I stopped fighting that fight and accepted that I was a new version of me that

could still you know in my mind care about fashion want to do interesting things etc etc but accept that I was never going to go back to that pre-baby version of me because how can you? And I think that when you think, oh, I'm not going to become a mummy blogger, you're just sharing. Motherhood becomes a huge, all-encompassing part of your life. So it's not about becoming a mummy blogger. It's just about sharing the thing that is taking up your most energy

at that time, which happens to be motherhood and it's funny isn't it because I feel like the whole like phrase of mummy blogger which can have like negative connotations in the way that we're all like oh we don't want to be mummy bloggers or I'll meet people that are like oh oh you're a mummy blogger and it's funny because social media is about sharing your life and I wonder what it is about motherhood that kind of has this sort of negativity attached to it it's so fascinating it's interesting for me I've because of the my own journey that I've gone I'm dipping my toe a bit more into the fitness kind of sector and actually I went to a really brilliant but big event last night and if if you were to say oh

you're a fitness blogger that just doesn't feel as loaded as saying motherhood. But, you know, motherhood is parenting is the most important job in the world. We're raising the next generation. And yet the documenting of that is somehow seen as negative. I guess I can't understand it either. yeah I can't understand it either but I know that I recoil at being called a mummy blogger maybe because it devalues the rest of who I am my career yeah my own identity being just you know that first thing when you're introduced as in my case or Bertie's mum or Woody's mum is Greta's mum and now I feel really comfortable with that but actually to begin with I found it really terrifying

to lose my name because up until then I'd had a big career and I was being used to being introduced by my achievements and and because that it's wrongly motherhood is maybe not positioned with on the pedestal it should be it felt like you've been devalued yeah and I guess that's where the concept of like oh just a mum or yeah you're right like all your other achievements seem to like fall by the wayside if you're a mum I know that I'm going through that at the moment with um DJing which was obviously something that stopped with the pandemic and the pandemic was also like the beginning of my pregnancy so I feel like lockdown

and my old life is so intrinsically linked to coming out of the pandemic it's like this kind of like reborn mum and then you know when I asked about DJ gigs and they'll be like oh you know brands think that you're just a mum now and I'm like well I'm just a mum who's a really good DJ. Isn't that mad and then the problem is you get in this cycle where you feel really determined to prove something which again was probably the next chapter for me. I went back to my ad agency jobs after both my boys and just had this chip on my shoulder. I'm like, oh, I'm going to prove that I can do both, that I can hold down this career and have kids. And then I got a year into that. I was like, who am I proving this to?

Because actually the only person that I'm destroying in this is me. But it's so difficult. The most important thing is that we need to give parenting and caring the value that it deserves. As I say, it's the most important job. So the kind of, yeah, she's just a mum person now is it's so off the mark isn't it do you know it's interesting to me that you said it took you about 18 months to two years to start but to basically like deal with your identity crisis what what would you say helped you and and even like reflecting back on that time what do you wish you could say to someone like me who's going through it or other people kind of battling this crisis I I wish I'd given myself over to it more I and I did manage

to do that with my third baby I wish that I wasn't so preoccupied with getting back to something because what will happen is you you it will come back your life will balance out again parenting will become part of your life not all of your life it will when you're in it in the early days you can't imagine that so you're so I was so desperate to get out of joggers and leggings I was so desperate to get my social life back to get back into work but actually and it's really hard to hit see it when you're in it, it is so precious. You really only have that tiny baby for such a small window of your life.

And then it's done. I look at my nearly nine-year-old now, I'm just like, whoa, I can see glimpses of the person he's going to become. And all that time I was trying to get something back, I was distracted from trying to enjoy and that's very difficult to say enjoy the moment that you're in did you find with your second so with Woody he is he seven now he about a seven next week oh happy birthday Woody um did you find it easier with a second because it's interesting to me as someone that it sounds

like going through what you went through with your father I'm like battling and I'm worried about reception on the outside and I'm in this sort of like vicious cycle and not find my people um for want of a better word in terms of like in the kind of parenthood space and when I hear people like you that have had another baby I'm just like god I honestly't, I can't imagine doing it again. It felt very different. I mean, for me, there's also a story in that my first birth, as often, sadly, is the case. My first birth was relatively traumatic, nothing terrible, but induction, intervention, spat out the other side of labour, just in absolute shock in my body, feeling utterly alien and an exhaustion and this trying to reclaim yourself. So you're just in a

spiral. Whereas my second labour, I had a home birth and it was really wonderful. And so straight away, you know, that the oxytocin kicks in you're feeling much better about yourself the bleeding and that early poo and breastfeeding none of that is a shock anymore so you're not you're not on this awful just yeah whirlwind of trying to recover yourself you're you're starting off on a better place and I think I I just was able to own it a bit more I did less of that oh in my old life I used to go out now or our old holidays used to look like that which to be honest anything where you're constantly comparing yourself to something that you can't have just mars everything whereas yeah I was already used to the complete life change and was able to

sit with it a bit more and try and begin to enjoy it which i just don't think i i don't think i enjoyed the first year which breaks my heart because of course i adore bertie more than anything but yeah i don't hats off to anyone who does to be honest it's interesting to me that obviously you actually said today that you were looking forward to reflecting because you're kind of like sort of stepping out of these kind of like younger years now. It's your youngest is four. But what you also said that it gives you relief and like you're relieved not to be going through it, which I think is really interesting because it kind of gave me a little bit of hope to be god I sound so negative I'm so sorry I wanted this podcast to be like really upbeat and fun but I feel like obviously I've got to know where I'm at as well and I've really been going through it this week I think because Alf's not really been sleeping and we had our like first family sickness bug even though our trust kind of got out of it

i've had to sleep with him like pretty much lying upright in my arms like you know sleep deprivation sickness like all of it i'm just like when how old is he? He's going to get better. He's 10 and a half months. Okay. Yeah, and you're a weird bit where, no disrespect to Alf, but the novelty's worn off. Your adrenaline's run out. Everyone kind of, to begin with when you have a baby, everyone's kind of interested and it feels a bit special. And then you're like, all right, no, this is just my life now.

And the enormity of it really really really does stretch ahead of you but actually within and it's really coming for you it's really going to start shifting to be easier once they start walking and talking and they're people everything changes but the changes to something being better are so incremental that you don't even realize it's happened and actually this summer we went camping and I read a book on them in the middle of the day so that is nine years of parenting nine years of holidays I was like I am reading a book and you know what that feels like a real shift back towards the life that of how holidays used to be But it's taken a long time to get there. That's so funny. I took four books on holiday the other week.

And I mean, I must have been so delusional. Because how many of the one page did I get? But that gives me hope. I just have nine years to go. Sorry. But that's because I've chosen to have quite a few other kids, you know. So Bertie probably would have let us read a book much sooner. But I guess guess I mean

this is a really depressing answer things get easier when your bar gets lower your expectation gets lower so but when I had my third I didn't expect that I was going to get sleep really for the first year I didn't expect that we'd have a social life or the holidays would be relaxing but then every time that they were, every time that she did sleep a decent chunk, it felt brilliant. And I think it's just being really realistic with yourself. I think what's interesting to me is I fully expected it to be really difficult at the beginning. And I actually wish I'd started recording this podcast

right at the beginning because it was just that like total high in oxytocin yeah my anxiety of being cured oh yeah we're in the middle of a lockdown because I gave birth in January 2021 so earlier this year and I was just like wow like lucky me that there's all this like chaos in the world and I have this like bundle of joy he slept like he slept in my arms but still that's where I wanted him to be and like it was just heaven and like you said friends and everybody was like what can I do we can't wait to come and visit and I feel like now you're right is that I'm exhausted and I'm starting to be like oh I really oh look at all my friends in this post lockdown life kind of going back to normal. My version of normal is so not there.

But also I feel like there's kind of this expectation in like work, friendship, all of it that you're kind of that you've got it figured out by now. And I almost feel like I have it even less figured out. And, you know, I'm still breastfeeding. And so sometimes I'm like, I feel like I'm already I'm trying to do everything and pretend I can do everything but I'm still like attack like this child is still attached to my body which you know there's pros and cons I mean mainly pros of that but sometimes I'm like can you just fuck off and like no and also I was just doing a story about this this morning I've got a jacket on a baseball jacket that I got when I was breastfeeding the first time. Even having to, and it's not a negative, breastfeeding is a joy for all the reasons that we know. But actually even having to look at your wardrobe and think, can I get access to my boobs?

Means that you're not quite dressing how you want to. And, you know, how we dress is part of our identity. you want to and you know how we dress is part of our identity there's all these little things that aren't major but they all add up to yeah to a really challenging thing but also I was wondering for you how many of your friends got babies no not really I've got a friend my friend Jackie she's got two boys but um her youngest is three so obviously she's yeah much further ahead and also she's a very very amazingly organized person that makes it look really easy whereas my life is like well was spontaneous chaos so I'm still trying to learn that that's a huge thing though for me when I had my first none of my friends did and by the time I had my second they my you know my core

friendship group started to catch up and then there was a thing where I had one I had my second they my you know my core friendship group started to catch up and then there was a thing where I had one I had two by the time they had one and then I had three by the time they had two but at least at least I just didn't have that thing of them still doing I don't think it's helpful when you can see your old life so I could see them going out for long lunches or I could see them going on nice holidays and I wasn't and and that felt really difficult even though it's exactly what I wanted I chose I decided to have a baby it's it's hard not to pine for that that version of your life um I'd love to like actually ask you about this because this is like the thought that's been going on in my head this week and I'm actually

getting a lot better at not taking like resentment about society in general out on Tom and like I have to like just caveat this by saying he is like the most amazing dad like I hate the term hands-on and all of that because he's a parent but you know he's like stepped up and actually probably put a lot of his own emotions aside to kind of like carry me. So this is not a reflection of him, but I just, I wish I was a dad. Like I'm jealous that he gets to go to the office. Like even today I'm sat in his little office, basically our spare room,

but like it's a novelty because I don't normally get to do this. It's only because he's in the office that I've come up here. And I'm like, I'm so jealous that you get to go to work every day. he's just accepted or is thinking about accepting a new role so it's he was like oh it's I'm gonna have to like really socialize again and like network and I was like oh so now you get to go to work and you get to socialize isn't that nice and you

know like things like football and rugby and all of those things that you like to do I'm like oh you want to go to work and you want to socialize obviously for work and now you want to have a social life in your personal life and I find it like hard because you know as you said like you you're a career woman before and obviously you can be a career woman, but I envy that it's so much harder. Sometimes I'm like, I don't want to have to think about if Alf has the right size clothes and if there's enough batch cooking in the freezer and all that. I just want to go to work. And you know what? I mean, I've got a lot to say on this.

First of all, what I found very startling is up until the point that we had a baby me and my husband were really equal you know we partied a lot together we kind of you know everything it was we're just utterly equal it was it was a non thing for me and again he's been a brilliantly not even hands-on he's just been a dad he's been a present dad but it is impossible not to feel resentful when your life feels nothing like the life you had i mean we're talking right down to your body your finances your what your structure of your day looks like your brain biologically like sometimes when i lie up at night breastfeeding alf i'm like you motherfucker for not having boobs like it's so irrational i'm like how dare your biology not give not allow you to lactate it's so

rude but you know interestingly for me when we had Greta our third we well actually now Ben is the stay-at-home parent and I am the the only income provider so we've got a complete flip and it's very interesting for me now to sit in this role. And that wasn't in the postpartum years, I might add. But boy, the pressure to be the one earning the money, the coming back from work feeling, you know, you've been, especially now you've been on Zoom calls all day, your brain's absolutely gone. And then you come in, and I know that Ben's been dealing with dinner time and bath time with the three kids so I have absolutely got to suck up all of my

work stress because what he's doing is so much harder but you you can't there isn't really a place for me to complain about that stress because yeah because he's doing the parenting gig so it has been very interesting for me to sit on the other side to I mean he does most of the night if it was wake-ups now he does them but if I have been doing the parenting thing and then I've got to go and try and sit in an office and be an articulate human if someone's paying me that there is a whole other side of it so it has given me a bit more empathy for guys but having said that in my postpartum days I would have done anything to trot off to work yeah it's interesting isn't it because like you said earlier like with you and Ben

before but like before having a baby we were equal and I feel really like lucky and fortunate that in my life I've actually never felt put in a gendered role box I've always been I think quite masculine in my personality traits in terms of like my work and my drive and all of those things that we attribute to sort of male well men and since having a baby I think I didn't quite realize how much it does still feel like gendered roles obviously talking about heterosexual relationships but even in the way society the expectations on society because I feel like women actually can't really win because you kind of get judged for being a stay-at-home mom which by the way I think is amazing because wow the job is the hardest job and then you kind of also get judged for being career driven as well

so and actually you know someone said to me the other day I think they'd like been on the mail online and they'd seen someone who's a mum and they were like god she's never in like how basically something judgmental along her being a mum and I was like that's interesting because you don't say that about her husband and they were like oh yeah I hadn't really thought about that and it's like yeah we yeah it's hard because I do sometimes feel like I'm kind of I've taken on this sort of domestic role that I couldn't quite foreseen but I think I've been thinking about this a lot and I think there's um I think we've been sold a bit of a lie so I was a big subscriber to the strong empowered woman I mean of course I utterly believe in everything that that stands for but the fact is if you think that you might want to have children at any point

you're going to be putting a spanner in the works for your career. Like it's unavoidable, as you say, it's biology, isn't it? We are going to have to have a baby. And even if you were to do the shortest version of maternity leave, even if you've got a partner who will pick up as many pieces as possible, there is a big chunk of it, the carrying it, the labour, the postpartum recovery, that is going to be yours and it is going to have an impact. And I think I really, for the first couple of years of motherhood was was trying to do it all as I say

and trying to balance it and and the only person that suffered in amongst that was me Welcome to Paranormal Activity with me, Yvette Fielding, a brand new podcast bringing together people's real ghost, extraterrestrial and paranormal stories, as well as getting some inside details from those who study the supernatural. I'll be listening through your paranormal stories every week and try to understand them, as well as chatting about my own encounters with an occasional paranormal investigator too. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts from, including Apple Podcasts,

Spotify and Acast. Just search for Paranormal Activity with Yvette Fielding. And you mentioned, like this is going like totally off topic but just thinking about you know the kind of like lessons that you've learned through motherhood you have said that you've started like exercising a lot is that linked to your mental health and body exactly do you want to talk me through your kind of journey with that in terms of like with your motherhood journey so I think I mean there's a whole different angle to it I think I up until having kids I if I'm really honest with myself I exercise to try and fit in a certain size of jeans you know all the all the very classic diet culture things yeah that was the way it happened and then I had my children and I something very interesting happened I my babies not at birth but once they're kind of weaned were quite chunky when people used to comment on how chunky my boys were

I used to enjoy it and then when they started commenting on how chunky Greta was I felt myself kind of recoil. And I was like, something isn't good here. You've got to. And I actually fundamentally believe you shouldn't be talking about people's bodies anyway. I was like, something is really amiss here. And so I did a lot of work on my own relationship with my body, got rid of my scales started working out and for the first time started exercising for no other purpose other than to make myself feel good other than to sort out my my mental health because I found that

if I could just move whether that be a walk or any kind of weights that getting back into my own body made me feel more like myself and and since kind of stopping that that pursuit of getting smaller I now probably the strongest and fittest I've ever been and so much of that is motivated by being a good role model for my children by wanting to show the joy of exercise for just the joy of exercise do you know what I think about this all the time because I people always come in on like babies like also a proper little like chunky baby as well and he's got like the most amazing cellulite and everyone comments like oh look at his little dimples and I'm like why can't why can't we call ours dimples like yeah when does it change for having cellulite but actually like you're right baby dimples they're so cute and it's so

normal and we're not being like oh that baby's a bit fat oh my god that baby's so skinny like amazing and so like where does it change and it's interesting as well because I'm I feel even though I'm just well not just but I'm a a mum to a boy I feel really committed to making sure I never talk down about my body because I don't want Alf to think that women have to be like smaller or whatever it is to be okay and yeah it's a weird one isn't it because I feel like I kind of gave up that sort of I mean cycle of exercising for punishment and going on unrealistic diet it's like I'll only eat lettuce leaves this week and then by Tuesday night having a bottle of wine and a pizza and then being like I'll start next week and funnily enough the first time I joined a gym when I moved to

London um they were like do you know do you know what to do yeah yeah I literally passed out on the treadmill that's how hard I was like there's a lot of punishment that's going to be going on here and when I was on holiday I saw some bathroom scales and it genuinely I think because it's not been a part of my mindset my life so long I was like why I don't the scale thing I was like why why do they exist apart from for weight or for like obviously for like health issues that the doctor with but like it's weird isn't it because actually like you said like muscle actually weighs more than fat anyway so like what what do the scales tell you really goodness knows goodness knows and i just think of all those years and to be honest in my early when I had

Bertie my first when I was pregnant I was obsessed with how much weight I was putting on during pregnancy because again if you've been in a cycle of diet culture that that nine to ten months of just putting on weight can be a very very difficult place to sit it's like this is everything I've worked for the rest of my life not not to do but I wish I'd known for all those years now I mean I don't weigh myself but I would guess that I'm fluctuating within a certain bracket as I would have done all of my life without all that effort of trying to exercise and eat in a certain way just being a bit more in tune with your body yeah it's a gift I feel glad to have got to this place

I echo that because I think I like didn't eat any pasta in my 20s and I eat it pretty much pasta is great destroys my life and I'm not a lot different in terms of like my body shape like yes okay I fluctuate but I'm really not that different than i was and mad isn't it i think what i have found so hard to be honest my pregnancy i kind of enjoyed the growing and i feel like as well it it came with a lot of praise so it felt nice you know that even when you felt a bit rubbish people was like oh my god you're glowing and i was like oh am i like obviously that says a lot about my need to have um like external praise which is obviously something that I need to work on but it felt nice just to have that constant

reassurance but I've never felt more I think like I don't even know how to word it I feel like I'm in a pretty good place in terms of like body confidence like I don't I don't I know that stretch marks are actually like a pretty cool thing they document like parts of your life and I'm in a good place with my body but I feel so much pressure and also anger about how society treats the postnatal body and like praises it basically according to how little it weighs but or look or how or how yeah how like skinny you look I had like a pretty horrific birth and in fecal incontinence which I wouldn't wish upon anyone and to be either praised or asked the question are you going to try and snap back or bounce I was a bit like why do you why do you care and I feel like it must it's so hard already for anyone without having to kind of

feel like their only worth or their only kind of merit of their postnatal body is whether or not they've managed to yeah that I mean the snapback thing is is absolutely mad yeah there's a weird thing where i i think was probably a little bit smaller when i first gave birth and then that that kind of sleep deprivation sugar breastfeeding i feel like that's actually the bit where I found, you know, my body changed again. But honestly, I think it took, well, definitely for me until I gave up breastfeeding for my body to begin to go back to how it was. Everyone talks about, oh, you breastfeed and weight will drop off, which is such an awful motivator to do it. But also for me, my body actually stayed in a postpartum state whilst I was still breastfeeding once I stopped it then changed and honestly two years maybe three years

to really feel like my body is a hundred percent mine again you know through slow and gradual training I now feel like I could do anything that I could have done before but too right because it's got to recover from just an unbelievable thing I was looking at pregnancy photos because they came up on time hop it's absolutely mad it's a miracle what your body does and to then try and squeeze it into an uncomfortable pair of jeans because someone thinks you should go back to a certain size it's just so insulting yeah and I also feel like it kind of like scratches the sir it really trivializes what a woman goes through when she gives birth yeah like I've I've spoken to people even you know on here about they were like afraid

to show their body because they had lost a lot of weight but they hadn't tried to and they were they were basically like trolled and told that they weren't good role models and that it's unrealistic and it's like it all boils down to this sort of like policing and judgment of a woman's body there is just so much more to the postnatal recovery process and it was interesting for me that I caught Covid a couple of months ago and luckily I didn't get it too badly but because I lost my taste and smell and I was exhausted because I also had it was in hospital and I was probably stressed and to be honest that was probably like the beginning of when I started to go on a bit of a like downhill spiral and to then be like told oh my god you look amazing like you lost weight

and I was like yeah I've been mentally and physically yeah this this is not a happy body this is a body that's stressed um but I'm so pleased to to like hear that you know you you're in a good place with it and I think it's such a good good reminder to everyone to throw away the scales and to basically see exercise as something you do to yeah because you know everyone can have the relationship they like with their body but i do think body positivity under a suggestion that exercise is invaluable is is also not no good you know exercise can absolutely save you and it's not about getting smaller but you do need to be strong for motherhood you really do there are tires and i'm just lugging so much a human a scooter a bag you know it does pay to be healthy and yeah i advocate for movement to save you to help your

mind and to be strong it as something that's so important for motherhood are you still carrying any of your babies lugging them around yeah yeah my three-year-old I still carry around she's almost four yeah no I actually it's a very weird thing my nearly nine-year-old is like can you carry me I was like I actually can't for very long anymore I mean especially with a boy I it makes my head explode that one day they're going to be men these humans that you grew are going to be have these man bodies i can't get my head around it it's very funny tom is obsessed with alf's breath so every morning when alf wakes up he'll like basically stick his nose in his mouth and he's like oh and i was like isn't it funny

that one day you will literally recoil at the thought of like a 13 year old boy's breath gross smelly little teenage boy it's so gross oh but that milky breath is gorgeous isn't it it's so nice apart from Alphna thinks it's a game to try and bite down on the nose I think exactly that's not worth it but I did wonder like how long I'm gonna to get away with carrying our four because even the baby carrier is getting a little bit snug now and I'm like oh I don't know how long I'm going to be able to do this exercise I'm not yeah it's tricky I mean yeah but then it's there's a poem that goes around you never know that it's the last time and but then suddenly like oh yeah it's the same we gave um Greta's buggy a ray recently I was, wow, I don't really know when we stopped using it,

but we have. And that's, again, the weird thing about parenting. And last night, Bertie was like, oh, I don't know if I want you to read me a story, Mummy. I'm just going to read to myself in my head. I was like, oh, all these times I've had bedtimes as being a chore and I couldn't be bothered to read a story. And now you don't want

me to read your story anymore that poem because I actually do think that it's part of it that as much as I'm like struggling and I feel like I'm in a bit of a negative place with motherhood I'm also like I am really enjoying he's like so much more interactive than he used to yeah like sometimes you do have to remember well I, I'm saying about myself, I have all the positives and you're right, like one day is the last time. If you know what that poem is, can you find it? I'll find it for you, but brace yourself because it is exactly it.

And that parenting cliche of the days are long, but the years are fast could not be more true. You blink and it's it's gone genuinely I feel like that's like a a kind of upbeat way to end what has been probably a bit of a whirlwind of uh topics and yeah that's parenting though right it's honestly like really reassuring to speak to someone who's kind of like been through it and been through it three times as well the thing is you are enjoying it more than you think but it's really really really really hard and I think the moment you accept that of yourself and the situation the easier it becomes because

saying it's difficult and that you don't enjoy it isn't isn't a counter to the fact that you adore your son and that parenting is a gift it's like it's trying to hold those two things at once and you know what I think that I don't enjoy it's not well I obviously go through stages of parts of motherhood that I really don't enjoy but it's more like I've really noticed in myself and I don't know if you if you experience this and if you have any advice for this but I don't know if it's because I'm already on such a short fuse but I feel like I just get so overwhelmed so quickly which is funny because I've always been so good at handling pressure and you know I feel like anything that happens like even this morning

losing my laptop I'm like just short circuit yeah and I hate that in myself because I feel like that like impacts you know I'm always having like mini meltdowns to like people I work with to Tommy to and it could be over like the smallest thing and I'm like oh my god I used to be so good at dealing with life and I feel like life comes at me really quick these days just to like push myself I've got a really great podcast an episode of the podcast called on overwhelm and it's just if you think about your life and you've got a jar and you've got all the things that are in it and you have your career your friendships your you know your relationship and now you've put another one in there and and just then you pour in little things like the equivalent of sand like shopping getting christmas presents getting the car serviced because you've

got so many more big players in there, there just isn't the capacity for the little things. And sometimes they are the thing that tip you over the edge. You've just got a lot. You've just got a lot going on. But the only advice I can give is to try and allow yourself to take some of those things out. Be better at not doing things because you ought to.

Don't go to an event because you ought to. Come off the internet because that is just another thing in the brain and and trying to give yourself some space because as I keep saying we can't we cannot do it all we can't one like thing that I've found this week which is probably like most people probably find that this 10 months ago is that when I've been putting off to bed it's only just dawned on me that I can have headphones on and either listen to a podcast or watch something and all this time I've been listening to like the lullaby and the white noise machine just like he'd go to sleep like thinking like oh my god I just want to go downstairs so I can enjoy my evening and now I'm like wait I get to watch I've just watched made it was absolutely amazing and I was like I get to watch made up here like take your time sweet child so then you then he'll be

long asleep and you'll find yourself still lying on the bedroom floor or whatever sitting outside in the corner I think yeah I could go down but I'm quite happy here yeah but it's it's me time in a time that I felt like I wasn't getting me time now I'm like you take my other advice with bedtime and we will wrap up soon is I've started eating my own dinner before I do kids bedtime because the perfect storm is being hungry and trying to put them to bed and just thinking all I want to do is get you to bed so I can go downstairs and eat now if I've eaten I've kind of banked that my my blood sugar levels are quite good I'm feeling quite good and then if I do get into bed then I've got the whole evening at free time so that's my that's my parenting hack okay that's a good little nugget to end on I do get questions through from

my lovely listeners every week and I thought as a of three, you'd be perfect to answer this one from Lizzie. She got in touch over email, which is askmumsthewordpod at gmail.com if anybody wants to get in touch. And she said, hey, Ashley, thank you so much for the podcast. I've recently discovered it. It's helped me so much.

My son turned 18 months yesterday, but he didn't start crawling for ages. And although can cruise well, isn't yet independently walking. He's also saying a few words but not much i wanted to ask whether there was any tips other than talking to your baby to try and get them to talk more i regularly go on to the bbc tiny happy people i also want to say you're amazing for doing the podcast thank you again lizzie so obviously alf isn't quite at that stage yet. Have you got any nuggets of wisdom or advice? No, but they will get there.

They will get there. You've got some kids who will do a lot of words straight up and there's some that will seem to be quiet for much longer and then come out with sentences. And, you know, fast forward to another year and all the kids who are all at different stages now will all end up in the same place. They will. And yeah, it's so funny. You're just desperate, desperate for them to move on to the next stage. But actually, as we've just been saying, once they're walking and talking, you've no longer got any semblance of a baby left anymore.

So don't wish it away and just know that these things can will change and then on a serious note if it is for you looking like you're the you know developmentally not hitting the milestones genuinely then do do go and see someone don't sit there with that kind of paranoia because that isn't a nice place to be either what a nice way to end Clemmie thank you well not a nice place to be either. What a nice way to end, Clemmie. Thank you. Well, not a nice way to end development issues, I meant. Don't wish it all away. No, don't wish it. And I'll dig out that poem for you. I'll share it so you guys can see it as well.

I loved having you on. I actually feel a bit brighter about my day. Hang in there. Go easy on yourself. Try and just do some hanging and chilling and relaxing with your with your kid you know lie on the sofa and read some books because because it's good for you to chill as well that's we're not very good at chilling are we yeah very bad very like particularly bad at chilling i'm like the most unchilled person yeah but if like

nice music and a candle and that kind of thing gets you there a bit better or a bath, then do that. Weirdly, I had a dream last night that I left a candle on. So anyway, I'm going to definitely listen to your podcast episode on overwhelm as well. Yeah, I'll share that with you too. Perfect. Thank you so much, Clemmie. My pleasure. My absolute pleasure.

Thanks to you guys for listening to Ashley James first time mom parenting podcast and don't forget if you did enjoy the episode if you're enjoying the podcast then hit the subscribe or follow button so you never miss an episode and if you're listening on apple podcast then please leave me a review obviously a five-star rating helps as it helps others to find us and if you think that someone would enjoy this podcast episode then tell them about it and help us reach more people and I'll be back with another episode same time same place next week