Mum's The Word! The Parenting Podcast - 'It's All About Balance' with Jayli and Barney aka The Banks Family

Episode Date: April 23, 2023

This week we are joined by international DJ Jayli and her partner Barney, also know as @iammrbanks on Tiktok. We discuss the changing priorities as a parent, as well as acceptance, breastfeeding, resentment, feeling like a failure, hypoglycaemia and the changes in relationships. Get in touch with your questions and birth stories at [e-mail]---A Create Podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello so I'm very excited because I'm actually back in the studio and I've not been coming in for a good few weeks because is it laziness or is it just heavily pregnant but I decided to do it more from home but I just went into London today for my very final scan, which is very exciting. Apparently, baby girl has a very long spine. So I don't know what to make of that. Maybe she'll be tall. Maybe she's just a freak, but we'll find out soon. So I'm really excited because I have not one but two guests with me today. So they're a couple. They're not just two random people um firstly i have uh jamie who is a london-based producer and dj supporting the likes of david getter mark ronson swedish house maffia and also is her partner we were just talking about how much we don't like this word as

two non-married couples but her partner Barney who this is like mad to me so he's known as Mr Banks online and because I'm above 30 I'm not that clued up on TikTok but you've got 1.8 million TikTok followers and you both have a really funny podcast of which I've watched clips called Don't Tell Mum. And both parents to Baby Rocket. So welcome, Jamie and Barney. Thank you very much. Thanks for having us.

Your podcast clip, I was laughing because there was one I saw yesterday about working at Abercrombie. And did you know that Tommy and I met because we both worked at Abercrombie? Oh my God, did you? Probably the same generation. What did I say about Abercrombie? Set me up. Perfect example. It's true. Set you guys up.

There you go. Let's talk about Rocket because you are about to be parents of a one-year-old. Oh my God. I can't believe it. I was in labour this point last. I was in labour for 48 hours. I was in labor this point last, I was in labor for 48 hours.

And it's mad to think that we, we had the baby in St. Mary's Paddington in London, because I didn't want to have the baby. I had a bad experience in hospital in Kent. And so we drove two hours during my labor. Yeah, made a roll for our own backs there with that one, because we thought, because it's the first baby that we assumed that labor's going to potentially be quite long so we probably have a longer window between when your water breaks and then we can bundle all of our stuff into the car get down to the hospital as

soon as possible and we we should still have time bear in mind nothing crazy happens but i didn't actually have my water breaking until two days after we were at the hospital yeah so the reason why we did it is because i said to my midwife in kent we live in kent and there's only like two hospitals in kent it's a big big place um i said i wanted a water birth and she went well we've only got one bath and it's a busy time because post covid they weren't letting anyone have water births at that time yeah they were really reducing it they're only just bringing it back so by going to St Mary's transferring over to there they had multiple available but also you know you had that bad experience at that hospital in Kent but that drive that two-hour drive was the scariest two hours of my life as I actually started getting birth in the car

so so to go back a little bit I had hyperglycemia with my pregnancy. And I didn't even think that was a thing. They said it was an underlying thing that I'd had even before I was pregnant, where my sugar level dropped so much and I crashed and I started shaking and I got pins and needles all over my body. So I ended up in hospital and they forgot about me there. I'm not laughing because it's funny, but I'm laughing because it's like, of course they did. Yeah, of course.

Of course. And I had a, it's like, of course they did. Yeah, of course. And I had a, what do they call it? An IV. An IV. And they left me there for six hours on the chair waiting. And until I walked into the office and went, can you get this thing out of my arm? Because I've just been sitting here for six hours and I'm eight months pregnant. And then I said to my midwife, I text her and I was like, I'm so sorry,

but I feel really uncomfortable having my baby at this hospital. she went you can't move and i was like yeah i can i have i have my rights i can go anywhere i want to have my baby and she went well theoretically you can just turn up to a hospital and i went i don't want to just turn up to a hospital so i enrolled myself into saint mary's best experience i've ever done that's great because i didn't actually know that you could do that. St. Mary, we literally rocked up, said we want to have a baby here. They said, cool, when are you due?

In two months time. Okay, sign this form. And they didn't say, where do you live? And this is your catchment area. We just said to them, look, we're going to drive for two hours. Nothing about catchment area. I just filled in the form

and we turned up at the birthing centre. They were incredible. I was only one centimeter dilated. And I was like, I don't want to get back in the car for two hours and then come back. That's four hours. And I'd only had a show, but my contractions started. And so then they gave me. You lost your plug.

Yeah. Is that the show? That's the show. Sorry. It was a year ago. Not a DJ plug. And they gave me codeine to make the pain go away and i chucked up outside tesco's at 7 a.m while people were going to work pregnant woman chucking up outside i mean it's

better than not being pregnant and chucking up outside that's true yeah at 7 a.m i would definitely say something and then the contraction stopped and i didn't know that was a thing but then he still was born 48 hours afterwards and I'm so so grateful did you get your water birth I got my water birth that's great yeah got my water birth and it did take a bit of time I hadn't slept in two days so I had a bit of pethidine to put me to sleep just to sleep for a bit and that worked went down woke up and as I woke up and I was coming around I had a pop and that was my water's breaking and then we went into the bath about 7 30 and he's born at 8 14 yeah and they checked me and they were like oh you're definitely not ready yet and i was like i feel like i need to push and they the

staff had swapped over at eight o'clock and she was like checking my notes and i was like i think you need to come over and she was like i'm just checking on your notes i was like no no no i think the baby's coming and then she went down she went oh yeah i can see a head and then came straight away and it's all online so if anybody wants to watch it you can watch it online whole birth vlog is online that's great yeah yeah but not like down there no no no in you know everything leading up to yeah and being in the bath and then giving birth and everything i think you hear me burst into tears as soon as i see rocket come out of the water you see him come out of the water and it's the most incredible thing but yeah we were just very chilled about it we did the positive birthing hypnobirth was it

positive hypnobirthing i know yeah the positive birth experience i think that's what that's what it's called um and i made a playlist for it don't know if you've spoken about it too much on the podcast before but uh women poo when they give birth tommy won't actually tell me tommy actually won't tell me i mean i know i 100 i would have because i pushed so hard but i keep being like did i poo and he's like i'm not gonna tell you that like you just don't going to tell you that. Like, you just don't need to know. And I'm like, no, but I'm generally just curious.

Like, did I poo? I mean, I still have piles. So I presume there was a lot of pushing. Mine haven't gone either. Yeah. It's a thing that we need to mention that more. I know. I'm sorry.

I have never actually told you that. I mean, I brought up pooing. So I can't really like, you can't really scold myself. I've used the tabs and I've used like the cream and it's. Yeah. So I'm going to get cream and it's yeah so i'm gonna get um apparently it's a really easy operation they basically like zap the vein off um but they don't recommend doing it obviously if you're carrying a baby or afterwards because of the pressure on you so even though i'm doing a c-section this time you can still basically get piles throughout your pregnancy or after so they said um six months after because i said to tommy like it doesn't hurt but i just don't want to have piles for the

rest of my life yeah i feel like we're just kind of left you know you have all this like run up to the birth and then you're kind of like is the baby okay yeah off you go and then you're like i think my bladder might be hanging out or like is this vain normal yeah you just don't know and the thing is is i remember when i first felt it i know this is really graphic i was like what the fuck is that and then i had to like google it and then i was like oh okay i think that's what and i think i mean said to you what because i've never had anything like that beforehand i should have read up on this but i didn't and you read everything leading up to the birth and the birth and then afterwards, it's kind of a little bit like an afterthought,

but recovery is such a huge part of pregnancy. How was your recovery? I would say my fourth trimester, looking back now a year on, it's so weird, we're at like the anniversary of the year. I'm just getting over. I'm just coming into myself now. And it's really weird I don't think I really connected with rocket straight on the forefront right at the beginning I was so rushed

I think it's a freelancer's world but like rushed into I need to get back to work and I didn't want to I didn't want people that even my best friend has said to me once oh don't worry you're a mom now I understand and that like was like oh in the chest it hurt hearing that I'm not just a mom now I have a career and that really made me disconnect from my boy and only now when he's like starting to become his own I'm like feeling connected to him it's such a weird thing to talk about because it's not like a baby comes and butterflies and sunshine it isn't that and that's where i found looking back i'm going oh my god i actually probably did have post trauma postnatal depression and i didn't think i had it looking back did you recognize a change in jamie when did you notice anything i think that you're so caught up in this like hurricane of emotion and lifestyle change when you have a kid

that it's sometimes quite hard to sit back and like engage with each other and really figure out how each other are feeling unless you're have unless you have that level of communication already so i think for me the hard times are really hard and then they're like the good times are really good it spikes and it drops so i don't think as a whole i recognized you having particular issues with you know postnatal depression but other than what you told me because i don't know if it's that you're you're such like a happy-go-lucky bubbly personality anyway and you kind of maintained that but the lows were really low and that's what showed me so like the highs being high are always high for you but the lows are never that low for you and your lows were really bad well it was it was really weird because i i fell out of body so i

got a fringe and looking back i I mean. It looked really hot. I don't know what she's talking about. The fringe was great, I did. I didn't feel connected to my skin. And I went out and I remember saying to all my friends, oh my God, they're looking at me. They're looking at me. Everybody's looking at my body's different.

Everything felt weird. And I then was like, I'm going to change my style. So I went out, changed my style. Worst thing to do is get a fringe because that's really hard to maintain the fringe and keep it like a flick, cool fringe. Going back to work, there was a little bit of, I did kind of hate you for a little bit of time because I wanted to really, really, really succeed at breastfeeding.

And I fell, I remember going to work, DJing, pumping behind the decks. I had an LV on each boob, taking them out and then doing it again. And then I got an infection and they were like, looked so bruised. And I asked for some cabbage. That's when I hit a real low, asking for some cabbage while I was behind the decks and put some cabbage under my boobs in the middle of my set. Because we would do long sets about five hours when I was working for my restaurant gigs and I was like I can't keep maintaining this I'm gonna have to stop breastfeeding if I want to get back to work but we financially didn't have enough money to be able to take on just you for work and I was just like oh so frustrated because I wanted to succeed at breastfeeding but I would have to have been there all the time and the pumping just didn't work for me because I didn't disinfect properly

then I got the infection and then the milk stopped and it was just oh so frustrating so looking back I feel like you're so exhausted as well when you breastfeed and I couldn't maintain both and that was one thing where i resented you just slightly because i was like i really really want to succeed at breastfeeding and i didn't and i almost felt like a failure now looking back i love formula he sleeps through the night it's really really good he's a happy baby um but half of the i think half the challenge is you want your partner to be like babes you can do this and he he wasn't really like that you weren't like you were like so positive about formula it's okay we can go on formula it's fine you're so positive about that but i wanted you to be positive about the breastfeeding yeah

i think my mind was just set on keep jamie happy and try and make life easier for jamie as much as possible and as frequently as possible so for jamie to me changing over to formula was like it's a good thing because it puts less pressure on jamie it makes life easier for her you know it will be fuller for longer we know how much he's getting because we had a few instances really early on where we had obviously no idea how much milk he was taking and he was screaming and so we thought something was wrong with him as opposed to him just being hungry he had this weird cough every time he cried and it was like

and my mum was like he's just crying I was like no he's dying and then we're on 111 you start crying I'm crying and then we're just in bits we were so exhausted

we were absolutely exhausted and he was screaming and we kept feeding we kept putting him on the boob he wasn't taking anything we just didn't know if he was getting anything and so we call 111 and we're freaking out and then they go just have you tried giving him a bottle like a formula like a backup bottle um after your mom

and said it and we said no christine we haven't given him a fucking bottle she wouldn't wake up she was downstairs because she was like staying with us while we had the baby and i was going mom mom and she was just snoring i was like what good is she she's fast asleep bloody bitch i was so angry with her and then she came up and she was like got an aptum l stuck it in and then he took it and i was like oh he was just hungry but i tried i really tried to get him on the boob and at that point in time we were just like okay why are we suffering like this let's give him a bit of let's give him mixed like what's what's the word combination feeding and i wish there was more to combination feeding i wish there was more about it because at the time when we did our

nct course they didn't really go into much detail about how to do combination feeding and be successful at it because you you only learn that you have to obviously get in the more in the boob as much as possible so you actually produce more milk that was just a whole other journey the breastfeeding journey is a whole other journey in itself yeah i feel like you kind of know it might be hard but you don't think about like the emotional roller coaster that you're going to be on and it's so interesting listening to guys even though i do feel like a little bit like a therapist I was like okay there was resentment tell me more but I felt the same because um when we had Alf obviously it was lockdown so there hadn't been any DJing for a year and when lockdown sort of ended I really felt like I need to get back to DJing I need to get back to DJing because

like people are just going to write me off as a mum now and I just need to get back but I was also exclusively breastfeeding and I remember I mean Tommy and I just need to get back. But I was also exclusively breastfeeding. And I remember, I mean, Tommy and I have spoken about it on the podcast, but I'd be like, you are the one that wanted the baby, but I'm the one that's like having to feed and I can't go back to work because I just found it so stressful that he was back at work after two weeks because obviously he had to be. And he kept being like, I don't know what you want me to do.

Like, do you want me to quit my job? then like we're gonna have to move house because we can't afford yeah exactly and i was like no that's not what i want and he was doing the same like why don't you just give him like just give him a just give him formula then and but i saw it as like i just wanted someone to be like i know it's really hard and you're doing a really good job i appreciate the sacrifice or something yeah i was like you don't need to fix it I don't want to be hurt I just want you to say like I really appreciate it and the first gig I did back was at Boardmasters and it was when do you remember like it was after lockdown but the train there were just like trains were just a madness because there were so many people off and I think people were still really scared of Covid and lots of people had Covid. And they raised the prices as well.

So to get down to Cornwall it took us like 12 hours it was mad there was like four trains um and tommy had to come with me because obviously i had i was breastfeeding alf and i was trying to feed him loads before the gig and i was at the gig and it was amazing it was actually really emotional seeing people dance again because it was the first time anyone had been like back allowed outside on the dance floor i think it was like the first festival after lockdown but I remember thinking like oh I'm so happy to be back but I could I was like worried about Alf because I never wanted him to cry your mind wasn't there yeah and he was with Tommy and I was thinking am I gonna have to breastfeed behind the decks and like in a way yes it would be quite iconic to breastfeed behind the

decks but equally it was like but then I'm cementing myself more as a mum and this is what happened when I went back onto TV again Tommy had to come with me so he had to take the morning off work and Alf was in the green room and I ended up breastfeeding on TV and loads of people were like wow amazing normalizing breastfeeding but in my head I was like but I wanted to be here it's like Ashley James not Ashley James the mum and now like it's almost like the more I'm putting myself out there the more people are seeing me as the mum so now I'm just the mum and then I was like you know at board masters and then afterwards we were staying in like the VIP like marquee like the posh bit of the festival but they'd already shut because my gig finished later and you know when you have like

proper jobs worth oh yes and it was so cold and I remember we were there with alf we got off we got off on our what's what's the uh caddy like the golf cart yeah and the the bouncer was like no it's not open until six in the morning and i was up but but we're like we're clearly staying here we've got the wristband i've got like a six month old baby i was like it's freezing like my child is gonna die if you don't let us stay. And she was just being such a job, like honestly such a job's worth. And even all the other people around us were like,

we'll stay out. Just let them in. Just let them in. And afterwards I was like, what am I doing? Like, do I really? Cause I still love DJing and I know now I've kind of accepted it's not for now because obviously I'm pregnant again but I used to love it for like the partying and for seeing people dancing and I feel

like it's not the same when you know your child's getting up at five in the morning I would find myself like clock watching more and I was like I don't know if I'm doing it still because my ego wants me to be the same Ashley that I was or if I still love it so I was like I'm just gonna like sit back obviously if if a brand is listening and want to book me then of course I'll happily succeed but I'm not putting that pressure on myself how have you found it um pretty much exactly the same it's it's tough it really really is tough quite emotional because we put all our all into it. And then in lockdown, I was doing all the live streaming. And then I took a step back from my brand Jagged Jungle

while I was having the baby because it was taking so much time up and I wasn't actually getting the amount that I needed for it. And that kind of, when it started to build, it was building really, really well. And I started putting it on an event and that was on, that was February the 10th. And then obviously lockdown happens in March. So then we did online events and then I got pregnant. So the timing was always like, oh my God, this is just all over the freaking shop. I need to give my 100% to it. But then I started to fall out of love with it because I put stuff out there and I wasn't getting the retention that I needed from the amount of work that it was taking me to put it out.

And when you become a mom, your priorities definitely change. They shift over. And I didn't want to like, I always said to Barney, I was like, I think I'm becoming a brunch DJ. I don't like late nights. And that's cool. And I absolutely love it. And I love music. And I love creating mixes and like mashups.

They're so, so fun. But at the end of the day, I've got to pay the bills. And I'm still struggling with the whole trying to keep the momentum of DJing going because I love it so much. That's the problem. You want to break stereotypes. You don't want to be the, you know, now I'm a much. That's the problem. You want to break stereotypes. You don't want to be the, you know, now I'm a mum, that's what I do. I'm a mum.

And like, we put this extra pressure on our shoulders, especially I believe women with pregnancy, like obviously I don't have first-hand experience, but secondary experience through you, you have like a need or a desire to break a stereotype in order to say look i can be a dj and i can be a mom and i can do all this stuff like i'm superwoman and then it's so taxing on your mind as well as your body that if you do encounter any kind of element of failure whether it's these things that i'm putting out there aren't getting as many views or this many people

didn't turn up to my event you start blaming the fact that you're a mum and actually you need to i think that it's very difficult because i don't want to like say this is what you need to do yeah the comments are gonna rip me um no i just feel like accepting acceptance that you are a mother now and that that's not only you know a hindrance or an excuse to doing something else in your life it's an incredibly difficult thing and i've only experienced it secondhand like i said and it's very very difficult to watch someone who still loves their job and wants to continue doing their job and i feel like i can't do more to help yeah because i'm restricted within certain boundaries until yeah now he's one year old we have a lot more flexibility with our lives but yeah in those first six months and jamie's so eager to get back on the

deck so eager to continue her brand jagged jungle so eager to you know keep churning out content and she's just exhausted and it was impacting mental health i can't tell her to not do it so that's where i think i fell into like the meditation side of things where i was doing journaling and meditating and yoga and it was definitely helping my mind a bit and then i thought well why the brand is about wellness as well it's about a day part well jagged jungle was about a day party that went into the night and then finishes at 9pm. So you can go home and then, you know,

you've had a really, really, I love day drinking. Everyone does because you don't have a hangover. You sleep through the hangover. So you would, it would start with a fitness event. And then I thought, why am I not putting that into my podcasting? So only recently, Feb 21st, which was a few days ago, we released the first episode of it again, where I can start bringing events back because I've got the time,

because I love it that much. And a lot of women have come to me, DJs, and gone, you've actually shown me that I can do both. And that was so refreshing to hear because at the end of the day, I'm still a DJ, but I'm also a mom too. I get to have both, which is really awesome. A lot of people think, oh, it's to do with alcohol and drugs. No, it's not. It can be, music is so universal. So why can't there be more universal DJs out there? And that's where my brand's going to come into it and be like, let's get guest DJs in and guest fitness people and do meditations and do show their how good they are at their mixing and i and then it kind of like matched with me doing these

mashups with rocket on me and i had a friend come up to me and she she was like oh my god these are awesome you with your baby and i was like it was honestly because i can get chaka that's why he was on me and i was doing these it does look cool because you're like oh my god like you're a cool mom dj yeah and i actually had a brand right go okay we want you for this event so i turned up to the event and they were like where's the baby you're like wait are you gonna pay for him there's no way i'm gonna dj with my baby no but that was like a 90 minute set but at the same time i was just like no he can those mashups are literally seven minutes the music is so quiet it's recorded through the usb so it's not affecting his ears or anything because a lot of people were like oh is

it gonna hurt his ears it's honestly not it's so so quiet um and we literally do seven minutes so that's all he's about to do but there is space and there's space for everyone and this is one thing I've realized you don't have to give up your dream if you become a mom just it's all about balance it really is and having a supportive partner which you are for sure so many of us as pregnant women are like I'm not going to give up my life I'm not just going to be a mom you know I'm going to get back to work and you know you kind of look at having a baby has been quite pragmatic okay so the recovery will be about six weeks so then i'll get back to normal what baby sleep for like 20 hours a day sweet then i'll crack on with my life and you kind of reassure all your friends i remember even saying on

instagram like guys i'm pregnant but don't worry i'm not gonna be one of those annoying people that only talks about their babies and then like and then it kind of like hits you and I found my biggest battle and what I've kind of only recently made peace with obviously I have two now is that it's like it's okay to be a mum like because everybody becomes a mum and even like I cringed out some of the stuff I used to say like I'm not going to wear like frumpy maternity clothes as if like every other mum before me was like, I love maternity clothes. But you just say all these things because we have such a negative idea of what being a mum is. Whereas I feel like being a dad is quite cool. Like, you know, no dad is like, oh, you're going to give up your career or, you know, there's not that same like judgment on a dad. Whereas like, would be like can I borrow it was obviously lockdown can I borrow

out for a zoom call because it really helps with like clients and I was like isn't it funny that I'm trying to prove like can you take Alf away so I don't look like a mum whereas he's like can I borrow him yeah it's going to get me bonus points um and it's only now that I'm like even with the sort of DJing side it's like I can come back to it if it's what I want I know it's only now that I'm like, even with the sort of DJing side, it's like I can come back to it if it's what I want. I know it's different if like, obviously you need to earn money from it. Luckily, I was earning money from like TV and socials. But it's like, it's okay if my priorities just shifted. And that doesn't, like, it doesn't mean that I'm not, that I'm just a mum.

But it means that whilst my child is up all through the night, I maybe need to like look after myself a bit so that I'm not dragging him and Tommy like 12 hours on a train to Cornwall and then getting locked out of a tent. Funnily enough, you said that one of the things you just touched on there as well was like fashion. It happens with fashion as well. I remember going to H&M looking at some clothes and what I would do is I'd always find like these cute little dresses because the maternity stuff never looked great. And it was always so bland. A woman came up to me who worked at the store and she was like, maternity clothes are over there. Now, you wouldn't go to a dad in a store.

Dad clothes are over there. So what I say to me who's pregnant, mater clothes are over there i was looking for a t-shirt for crying out loud i can wear a normal person's t-shirt but that's what i mean our mentality is so warped when it comes to women and pregnancy i'll give you one that happened to me the other day i um was in central london about to do rochelle hume's podcast and i went i was like i'm just gonna run in quickly for a preg because I was so tired and I was like can I have a coffee please and then they were like decaf decaf flat white and I was like no no no no I just wanted to do the normal one and they were

like oh it's because you're pregnant and I was like give me caffeine I also have a toddler but it is that sort of like the way that we treat pregnant women it's weird it's weird and i don't want to like shout at anyone or be hot but please it's like saying to a woman oh when are you expecting and they're not pregnant it's the same kind of thing it feels the same so just just be more careful and cautious with words i just uh actually had a rant about exactly that on my on my stories because um i don't know why, but I flicked onto the newspaper online site that none of us should go on.

Never. Don't say it. Sorry. Cut that bit. Oh, yeah. But it was Brooklyn Beckham's wife and it says, speculation, is she pregnant or is she not? And I was like, really?

It's like 2023 and we're still doing this because either you're basically like insulting her because she's saying that she looks pregnant and she's not but also like she could be going through fertility issues and it's actually really insulting or she could just be bloated because period or the fact she's eaten food and like it's like when are we going to stop doing that to women like if they're pregnant and they want people to know they will say otherwise what yeah from a psychological standpoint where humans are it's something crazy it's like humans are 70 something percent more likely to interact with something if it's negative online that's why newspapers uh and you know online on like websites or online uh news outlets or post like 90 negative people say something controversial then obviously people react yeah yeah exactly it's about getting a reaction like oh wow like this has had so many

interactions yeah so basically they're trying to wind you up by like doing stuff like this and it's it's so ridiculous and yeah hurtful like you said it's really like nasty thing to experience i think firsthand i think we're fortunate enough that we are in circles or you know the stuff that we do we don't fall in like a hot water but also being like public too much i mean tiktok for me is still a very like new thing yeah let's talk about let's talk about tiktok because how how did you become a tiktok star i'm so weird i'm 31 so uh you're in your 30s and you've smashed tiktok congratulations don't pigeonhole me in with all those kids not with us millennials yeah right i downloaded the i downloaded musically when i first came out which sort of tiktok used to be

called uh and then i think it was basically that a lot of creators were screaming out for a replacement for Vine since Vine went down. Short form video content, only videos, more or less. And so basically I downloaded it, posted a couple of times, didn't like it. I actually didn't like the demographic that was on it. I felt like I was creating content, but the majority of the demographic that was actually on the platform were like under the age of 17. I think I was in my mid twenties. So I was like, Oh, I don't really, I feel a bit weird posting on this. So then, you know, three, four years passes, it's turned into TikTok. And, um, someone said, you know, why don't you start recycling your Instagram content onto TikTok? It's just another platform.

You don't have to make anything new, just start recycling the stuff you do on instagram and i hadn't posted really any parenting content yet on instagram really and i was when i would change rocket i would sing to him and i'd be stupid and act like an idiot and whatever i love these videos by the way you basically just i'm saying basically just i mean you can say what you do better than me but when you're changing rocket you sing him songs yeah i i just act like a bit of an idiot it's kind of what i do generally around the house i'd say like just normal i think that's why it resonates because it's not too over the top it's light-hearted for the situation of what you're actually doing yeah the idea is to create the mundane day-to-day situations that parents find themselves in and trying to make them positive

and fun like feeding time changing waking up in the middle of the night all the stuff that you would uh recoil in horror thinking about having to do all the time but actually it's you can make it a bit fun or at least make it light-hearted so yeah i uh jamie's mom in fact said you should record that because that was really funny so the next time i changed rocket snappy uh he had done a poon army and it'd gone up his back and come out of legs and it was just everywhere and so i just sang a song put him on the mat changed him and then i think how old was he oh he was a couple of weeks old it was in easter last year so it was april last year and um after i kind of changed him i posted the video online and i think after three days of it

being up i checked my tiktok because i was like i posted that video i and I think after three days of it being up, I checked my TikTok. So I was like, oh, I posted that video. I hadn't posted that on Instagram. I just posted on TikTok. I think I had 100,000 followers on TikTok in three days. And I was like, what's going on? And the video had three or four million views and I've got 100,000 followers. And I was like, this is weird.

So we were like, well, let's do another one. And so we just did another one. I didn't say that though, did I? I disagreed. I was like, well, you've done it now. You might as well go and do something else because you've done it. That was my mentality. Completely wrong.

Worst advice ever. Because then you were like, okay, I'm just going to recycle it and do another one. On TikTok, if you become known for doing something in particular or like a certain style of video, that's what the audience craves. And that's what TikTok's algorithm will push, because it knows that that content gets good viewership or gets, you know, a lot of interactions. So I kind of did a couple of those changing videos a week. And then, yeah, to cut the long story short, I think by August that year, so formally we had a million followers and then it's kind of kept growing since then. It's kind of plateaued a little bit now, but I think that, you know,

she calls me TikTok turd boy. I said that to you. Basically, at Rocket's first birthday, are you going to have a one balloon and then you're just going to put the M next to it and do that? 1.8 million actually. It's been crazy.

And you know what? The doors that it's opened for other stuff as well. I've actually, was it was it's been crazy and you know what the doors that it's open for other stuff as well i'm actually i've been working as a presenter for six years and i work in the esports industry so i work in gaming um which again is a growing industry which is i'm really fortunate to work in that industry i really enjoy it um so i kind of bounce from doing esports stuff and going and most of it's overseas so i'll go and i'll host doing esports stuff and most of it's overseas. So I'll go and I'll host an esports event on stage. And then in between those gigs, I can just 100% focus on the social media side of things.

So off the back of the TikTok, we've created a YouTube channel and a podcast now. What are your guys' thoughts? I'm going to presume it's pretty similar to mine, but about sharing Rocket Online. Yeah, that's something that we come across with quite a few people in terms of conversation. They say, do you feel weird about sharing it? do you you know where does it end do you you know does

it become a money-making machine and then you feel like you're forcing him to make content so we have like it's quite a that's quite a delicate situation in itself we see a lot of people especially in america that are um millennial parents that's kind of the vertical that you're put in uh and they kind of go, oh, you know, we don't just film content all day, every day. And I think that as long as it's fun, lighthearted and no one's upset, then it's okay. It's just a, that's a kind of ideal scenario for me is that it's the every day. So I change his nappy every day. So if I put a camera there and don't film anything untoward, then I guess it's kind of okay from my point of view.

And I think every parent has to take it in their own stride. And also it's up to him. He can make that decision down the line. If he's like, mom, I don't want to be on these anymore. I'd be like, cool, that's fine. We are both quite like entertainment. We love entertainment. And if he doesn't like it,

then we would never ever force him to do anything um we're probably more cautious about shopping where we live than anything else for the safety of us as a family yeah then him because he's really cute and he's really funny and we like to capture it and you know what actually one of the loveliest parts of us having this tiktok is looking back at the videos and seeing him really little and we're like oh my god that's so cute I love it and I absolutely love looking back on that and having these memories stored on this little app and like taking people along with us it's quite nice and showing that healthy we've got healthy relationship um we're both freelancers and it's possible that

you can do your dream and be a parent that's that's one of the things that we are really we're really trying to push isn't it with the banks content that we're doing i think fortunately for us uh the focal point of each and every video that we do let's say on tiktok or on youtube as well is we're actually more the focal point as as parents rather than baby it's not all the video all the content isn't really him he actually we don't really show his face that much yeah we don't show his face that i mean yeah you obviously you can see what he looks like but you know the focal point is us being silly or being you know stupid and making making things up um as parents as opposed to going, look at my baby, look how funny or cute he is.

Hi, I'm Tally and I'm getting married in 2024. But I don't want to get sucked into feeling like I have to change everything about myself in the lead up to the big day. As soon as I got engaged, I felt like there was this extra pressure to change my body and try to look perfect. So I wanted to create the Anti-Diet Bride podcast to talk about it because shouldn't your wedding be about celebrating your marriage and not about the size of your waist? So join me chatting to fellow brides, wedding industry experts and even my fiance as we navigate this roller coaster planning process. Come and join the bridal party listen on the first wednesday of every month on the train happy podcast feed and it's available wherever you get your podcast from do you know what it's so mad so i've had um i don't know if i've actually talked about this

on the podcast i think i might have briefly touched on it, but I've had such a crazy six months where basically I got a letter through my door from social services accusing me of neglect and I was under investigation. And it all started because on a gossip website online, they basically found out that I live in Essex and that's all you really need to call social services. And there's like basically this group of people who were trying to find out where we live.

They called police on me. They called social services. So once there was an open investigation into me, they then started contacting brands that I work with, being like, how do you feel about one of your ambassadors? And that made me really paranoid and conscious of showing where we live. But it's interesting because obviously talking about

putting your baby online every now and then I'll get messages being like, how do you feel about this? And obviously you see all these stories about teenagers suing their parents. I was joking to Tommy, I'm like, i hope i've never soothes me but obviously i tried to be like really mindful of it and i've looked into like safety so obviously like not posting pictures of them with no clothes on of course yeah and without even like just in a nappy like you're unless you're holding them so that people can't like do really sick photoshopping

and yeah we got that didn't we when i i actually right at the beginning of his birthday i took a really cute picture of him in the bath and then the amount of people that came back to me and be like jim you can't put that online i was like but he's so cute yeah and you just don't realize and then you're like oh gosh right you've got to be really cautious but it's all a learning curve and we even have gone to tiktok talks about putting our baby on TikTok and how TikTok feel about it and the safety of children on the app. And it's really taken seriously. So I actually got my TikTok account banned because they said in their guide that I put up child pornography because I showed a really small clip of me breastfeeding. because I showed a really small clip of me breastfeeding.

And in TikTok guidelines, that is apparently child pornography because you're sexualizing children because your boobs are out. And I was like, guys, you really need to look at this. Like breastfeeding is not a sexual act. So yeah, I mean, it's really interesting. I always say to people like, yeah, if you don't want to post your child online, don't. But breastfeeding should be like free the nipple that's a thing you know the really interesting report came out last week about ai is actually sexist because a lot of people who work in tech who build ai are obviously men and um it's been proven on social media that these bots, the AI, sexualizes women's bodies.

So even if you have a topless man, that was rated like 9 out of 10, so not sexual. Pregnant bellies, any female flesh, they were all rated like really outrageous, like 1 out of 10. So therefore, they don't push it out onto algorithms. It's really, really interesting, but really dark. The fact that they consider pregnant bellies sexual. But we digress.

So how would you guys sum up your relationship since having a baby? Would you say it's changed? Would you say, obviously, we touched on resentment? I would say we are so much more tired that we don't have time to be more sexual. Like, I honestly... She's not wrong. would say we are so much more tired that we don't have time to like be more sexual like i honestly yeah i honestly think like we have to set we have to plan it it's like oh my god thursdays right have you seen the film fun with dick and jane with jim carrey there's just a really funny bit their parents and they go to bed at one point in the film and she goes and they're like kissing and they're kind of getting intimate and then she goes you know what we should do and he's like

yeah and she goes we should have sex and he's like yeah and she's like on thursday and then goes to sleep so i'm like i so was trying to pre-plan everything around rocket obviously like okay so my mom's got rocket on this day so this we got this four hour window we can just do something spontaneity exactly exactly it's so true though like we don't have it because of like juggling work and then we work from home as well and that's another thing because we work together now we're building a brand it's it's like oh my god by the end of there we're like go away also we live we live in kent and oh i've just told everyone where we live it's a big place yeah it's big it's big but i'm not from kent i'm from london so i don't have any friends so i can't like just pick up the phone and

be like hey can i come around for 20 minutes and there's nothing like that anymore we feel a little bit isolated from our friends that we obviously lived with in london and and you know you're only a stone's throw away or you know two tube rides away from a couple of people. Now it's proper train journey or getting in the car for at least an hour. So from friendship's perspective, we're relying on each other for our friendship connections as well almost, or you have to plan pretty far ahead,

which is quite difficult in our line of work as well. I think that for us as a couple, I think our communication has got a lot better our organization has got way better oh my gosh crazy and just i think that our overall dynamic especially is now post tiktok april last year we essentially work together now you know we create content together all the time we have a schedule of you know this is when we film our youtube this is when we record our podcast you edit this i edit this so we have a structure of, you know, this is when we film our YouTube. This is when we record our podcast. You edit this. I edit this.

So we have a structure. So I would say our communication, well, that being one of the reasons for our communication getting better. But yeah, our communication is a lot better. And yeah, we have more of a flow, I think, because you can't afford to not be on top of everything when you have a child especially as he started nursery last week oh yeah he starts from big steps you need a wet a wetsuit not a wetsuit but you know like a waterproof outfit you need bed sheets we need this so we're like scrambling around the house like what else do we need have you got the list to be fair when alph started going to child care that was like a big game changer for me but also for us and even if it wasn't just work which it usually is it's like having that time

just to be you and you feel like you get a bit of autonomy back and Tommy and I definitely went through this phase of like resentment where there'd be like points where we'd be like are we even working anymore and my friend is going through it now. Her daughter is about four or five months. And I keep being like, just don't make any big relationship decisions in this period. I promise you, like, there's so much resentment. There's so much going on,

especially because she's still breastfeeding. So obviously she's like, why does he not have lactating boobs? And I'm like, I know it's so fucking annoying. But I'm like, I promise you, just get through it. And like, obviously there is formula if you want formula but it's more than like make sure you tell her that she's doing an amazing job and make sure that you're there for her like in all the other areas yeah and but i feel like that's something that people don't really realize because you're like we're 50 50

we're so equal it's not going to change us. And it's just really fucking hard if you are going through it with your relationship. Just like I found like Tommy and I from a year on, it just got better and better. And actually me as a mum, similar to what you said earlier, I didn't have that instant connection with Alf, but also I resented him for my life changing so much, like with the DJing and everything else.

So now, obviously I'm having another one yeah we had sex again one thing i did want to bring up is when we don't connect like that physically i feel so disconnected from him and i'm like actually as much'm so, so tired, sometimes just get the freaking job done. And it feels so much better. It does. We feel so much better. But we are getting better.

Even in the last few weeks, we started to get stronger in our relationship and communicate more. But sometimes if a man's listening to this, sometimes all a woman wants, she doesn't want solution. She just wants you to understand. She just wants you to hear your. Tell her you understand. Yeah, just tell her you understand because a man's job in life is to fix it and a woman doesn't want you to fix it when she's going through postpartum she just wants you to be there and support she just needs the support it's true

and to your point about your point about child care as well when we had time and finally you know rock is going to nursery we have the whole day we can get so much stuff done and we got home and then i was like i actually just want to sit down and watch tv uninterrupted and actually just do nothing can we just do nothing all day that was it was weird because we were like we can get this podcast down we can shoot this tiktok and we can we can hang out we can go for a walk and get coffee and i just felt like collapsing on the sofa or going can we go to bed for like an hour and just yeah sleep i keep dreaming about his paternity leave this time around because i'm like we can watch all the films that we've not been able to watch for the last two years and we can like binge watch i was like we haven't seen series two of happy valley and obviously everyone was talking

about happy valley so we were like we can watch series two of happy valley yeah he's pointing at me all my family were telling us to watch happy valley and we watched the first episode and jamie went i can't understand the lead woman all right she's scottish and i was like she's from manchester she might be apologies to anyone because your family are from yorkshire and you went you wouldn't understand any of my family because we're not married but we've been together for seven years oh she shoehorned that one in quickly I'm strong and I honestly

you had a comedy show you went to the other day and he was like Peter Kay Peter Kay oh great and he was like google him

because we can go I googled him I couldn't understand him couldn't understand like what so I can't watch Happy Valley because I haven't understood

what she's saying I'm like this like I can't so you put subtitles on and even still she was't watch happy valley because i haven't understood what she's saying i'm like this like i can't so you put subtitles on and even still she was like i'm annoyed because i don't i still don't get what they're saying even though i have subtitles i'm just not following it do you know what's do you know what's weird i found out that our brains actually change after um i don't know if it's going through childbirth because i think you can get it as a dad if you're one of the if you're a primary caregiver and you can get it if you go through adoption. But something in our brain actually changes and it's nature's way of making sure that you're a good caregiver. So you're is it your left cortex?

I don't know the technical terms, but basically you're a much more high alert. So I used to go solo traveling and I used to do like all of this crazy stuff and now i get nervous like even this the big slide at soft play i'm like i was like tommy i can't do it i can't do it i can't do it and yeah i found out it's the thing called like mom brain it does actually change you as a person so when you're pregnant kind of going back to what we were saying of like i'm not going to change i'm not going to change your brain will change oh my it's not just sleep deprivation it's nature's way of ensuring that you are a good parent that's so funny you said that because i couldn't jump off a boat on holiday this year could i could not jump off the boat everyone feels so bad for you yeah my vertigo my vertigo has got really bad just and i think it's actually been jumped off the boat

it's been a natural progression it's been a natural progression i think as it's more of an age thing i think my vertigo we were very fortunate to go to indonesia at the beginning of this year i had a job out there so we took everyone out there so jamie and uh jamie brought a friend and we brought rocket 20 hour flight by the way with a what eight month old nine month old at the time wow that was hard um but we went in indonesia they have this glass bridge that goes over a mountain and i was just shitting myself i could not i was shuffling my feet because i just couldn't hack it do you think you could have done it before parenthood i think so yeah a bit better you have the mom brain yeah i've got the mom brain can't do heights but you've taken to parenting really really well i'm not climbing as well and

i'm like normally fine but i don't know but we haven't done that since we've had the baby so who knows we might go and go oh my god i can't deal with this but that's the thing and i just i've got the fear now which is so funny that you say that because it's an actually actually a thing um well i feel like this has been a great therapy session do you do you have any advice um for anyone that is maybe going through it in terms of like relationships after becoming parents as a parting gift oh i think my communication skills were very were subpar before we had rocket and i feel like your you push communication a lot more on me and i'm grateful for that so guys if you feel like you can't speak up or you feel like you just cage your emotions because your partner comes across

as being overly emotional because of the raging hormones and the dips and the you know peaks and troughs just say it because it's better that it's out there and then you can then discuss it fix it rather than resentment building as that's a dad to dad and sleep deprivation if you are if you're having a kid sleep deprivation is a thing try to train your body to take naps because i can't nap and it affected me really badly. It did. We read this incredible book called Sensational Sleeping Pattern. She's incredible. This book taught us everything. We went on an NTT course and we'd learned everything from that book beforehand. We'd both got COVID when we went to New York and I was eight months pregnant. So we were locked down in a room. So we decided to read all these books and give ourselves a quiz to be like, okay, let's bounce off it. And everything, we read all those books. And the only thing that really stuck was Sensational Sleeping Pattern, which we implemented with Rocket. And he's been

a dream sleeper from the beginning, from taking her techniques. So that was one thing that I was like, oh, pro Alison. I think her name's Alison. She's insane with the tips and like sleep breathe sleep we never realized that i thought oh keep them up at night i mean keep them up in the day no no you need to get them to sleep in the daytime because they'll sleep better at nighttime that's the thing um also the touching on the whole thing where the man wants to think about solutions don't do that for just be a bit support but even like the supportive if you went to me honey whatever you want to do i'd be like you're not listening to me that's what i would turn to if you were like whatever you want to do i think it's more i will it's hard isn't it's a hard

conversation to have because it is going to happen to all of us when you go through breastfeeding and postpartum journey you just have to be there for your partner with whatever she wants what do you want me to say what it's hard it's not tommy and i are doing different this time i think because who knows what will actually happen but the first time around obviously i was like i'm up all night breastfeeding and like you're doing nothing so then he was trying to also be up but obviously he couldn't really do anything because he sadly does not have lactating boobs so this time i was like once i recover from the c-section just sleep in the spare room because then you can get up without but also like you can take the baby in the morning for a bit because otherwise we're both going to

be sleep deprived and at least if like if i don't expect you to help in the night unlike last time then i know like what your shift is going to be love that and because he won't be tired then in the daytime otherwise you're both tired and then you're going to bicker because you're so exhausted that's another thing tiredness causes bickerness that's another one it's when you're angry and bitter can you tell i've got baby brains yeah try not to point the finger because it you know um we've been talking about how you can resent each other so easily and pointing the finger pointing the finger just doesn't help anyone so just yeah try and try and 50 50 everything where you can

obviously breastfeeding doesn't so maybe over overcompensate with something else cook all the meals and make sure that everyone's fed and everyone's happy because if they're fed that was a good thing that you did you took on the cooking you kept me fed i've always taken on the cooking oh guys thank you so much i normally do a listener question or voice message but given how long that we've been chatting away um i'm not going to do that this week so i'll save it for next time but as always i do love to hear from you um so I'll save it for next time but as always I do love to hear from you so please get in touch

you can do it on WhatsApp you can send a voice message free and anonymous if you want the number is 075 999 27537 or of course you can email me

at askmumsthewordpod at gmail.com or leave a review on Apple Podcasts if that is where you get your podcast and I hope you enjoyed our therapy session

I loved it didn't you I found it it was great it was amazing you need to come on our pod no I definitely will yeah

thank you for having us you need to get me in before I have the baby for sure wow so chop chop guys come on yeah

and I'll be back with another episode I was going to say same time same place but it might not be the same place because I don't think I'm going to waddle my way back into the studio so it'll be at my house but same place for you

guys next week