Mum's The Word! The Parenting Podcast - MENTAL HEALTH for NEW MUMS with Dr Emma Hepburn @thepsychologymum

Episode Date: September 24, 2023

This episode is for any new mums and what we wish we had heard before becoming parents! If you are feeling lonely, self doubting, feeling like you aren't doing anything right - then know that YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Dr Emma Hepburn joins Georgia this week as we navigate the new identity of motherhood, what it means to put away the shoulds and some tips you can put in your toolkit. Share your birth stories and parenting experiences at [e-mail] or on 07599927537. ---A Create Podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome back to Mums the Word, the parenting podcast. I'm Georgia Jones and I'm your host for this week. So this week I have been solo parenting, which I thought was going to be stressful and hard, but actually the house is clean, the washing's done, I've got myself and my little boy Cooper into a nice little routine. And it got me wondering how much of being a wife can sometimes be a little bit of parenting them too. I just thought that was a question I wanted to put out there to all of you listeners. And I'd be very, very interested to know your thoughts on that. So being a parent is one of the most rewarding and demanding roles in the world. It's a journey filled with laughter, sleepless nights and heartwarming moments.

But it can also be a journey fraught with self-doubt, isolation and the ever-present question, am I doing this right? This week our guest is here to break the silence around mental health and parenthood and remind all of us that we are not alone in our struggles. Join me as I welcome Dr Emma Hepburn. You might know her as the psychology mum on Instagram. Emma is a clinical psychologist and has been for over 20 years. She's also an honorary senior lecturer at Aberdeen University specialising in mental health and wellbeing and an author of A Toolkit for Modern Life, A Toolkit for Happiness and A Toolkit for Your Emotions. So welcome to the show Dr Emma Hepburn. It's a pleasure to have you on. Thank you so much. I'm really excited to join you.

Now, you first came onto Instagram five years ago with your incredible illustrations. I've actually, I went down a big old scroll hole. I already followed you, Emma, but I went down a big old scroll hole going all the way back when you first started. It's amazing, like the progression with your illustrations as time's gone on. And you also have three books. You have appeared across the media, which is just incredible. How do you feel when you look back over those five years? You know, it's really funny hearing you say that because sometimes it feels like a bit of a different life.

It's quite surreal because I work in the NHS and have done for 20 years. And really, the reason I started, I was going to say, I hope it was a helpful scroll hole rather than unhelpful one going to my images. It was. The reason I started it really was it came from my clinical work it was thinking we're doing work here and I used to sit and do scribbles with children or adults I was working with and thinking actually these concepts would be helpful to everybody and to just look after their mental health or understand you have good evidence-based information about mental health generally so it was just a totally I'm going to share this on social media had no expectations whatsoever no plan people say what's your social media plan

randomness is my plan I have no plan and I've not done anything on it for a long time so I want to get back into it but and then it just grew and it grew and it grew and it's led to all these amazing things so I kind of it feels surreal looking at my books, like amazing, amazing opportunity to have. I almost can't believe I've done it. It's just really amazing, but also surreal. Well, it is. And it's fabulous because do you know what I love

about your illustrations is that they're very simple to understand because mental health is a bit of a, you know, it's a minefield. It's confusing. We're all, you know, if we're looking to work out what's going on with our mental health is a bit of a you know it's a minefield it's confusing we're all you know if if we're looking to work out what's going on with our mental health we're probably not kind of thinking straight anyway so to have these amazing simple illustrations that kind of explain it in layman's terms this is how you're feeling this This is why. It's wonderful. So anyone that hasn't checked the

psychology mum out, Emma, do, because it is incredible. I actually went through and there was someone I looked at, I was like, God, I wish I'd have known this when I first had my little boy Cooper. I wish I'd have read like, you know, there was one and it was the little brain and it was how becoming a new parent can impact mental health and I really honestly think there's so much work to be done in in becoming a new parent and the mental health aspect of things because there's not enough care I don't know how how you felt when you first became a mum did you did you have any struggles with your mental health? So it's really interesting because I worked with children when I became a mum. And just prior to that, I worked with babies.

So my very first job when I qualified, which was a long time ago now, was in a maternity hospital. And then I went to work with children and children with medical conditions but children who have mental health conditions as well so I think that both helped and hindered me which is interesting because I probably had didn't have the same kind of glowing expectations of what childbirth would be like that actually I think was helpful to me because I had quite a difficult birth but I expected it not to necessarily be easy so my expectations matched what happens and that's often what you have you know you have to look at kind of what were somebody's expectations and if we expect something to be wonderful that's not often we can react more badly but also I think it can be a hindrance because you kind of think you should know what to do but actually there's

a difference between theory and becoming a new mum and And I had, with my first child, the worst sleeper in the world. So, I mean, it was almost like a joke. Every single, this newborn phase, it's so easy because they sleep all the time. And I'm going, my baby never sleeps. And looking back now, you know, my oldest is now 12. Looking back, it was really obvious to me with experience that they probably had silent reflux but I didn't know that at the time and I think there's an element where professionals also assume you know but actually of course I didn't know anything about that so I think the biggest impact to me I loved being a mum I loved you know having this little baby I

loved lots of elements of it but I was so severely sleep deprived for a good two years and I kept on hoping well it'll get better when they start solid so it'll get better when you know they go to nursery and it never got better and now he's the best sleeper in the world I can't get him up but at that point it was just absolute chronic sleep deprivation and I think it got to the point where I never knew how bad I felt because I felt so bad, chronically sleep deprived all the time. And now if I have one bad night's sleep, I'm like, wow, this is what I felt like for two or three years.

Isn't that mad? Because I think that sometimes I'm like, if you go to bed late, I don't know if you've had a bad night's sleep and you're like, oh God, I feel terrible. I feel hung over. I feel, you know, I feel just exhausted. And that's it. We don't realize we are just powering through for a good couple of years, if not more of our life. And we're just expected to do it. And we're expected to just get on with it and kind of not show really that it's hard. Not only are having to be fully functioning adults, having to be first time parents at the same time.

And nobody kind of like gives you, I don't know, any like kudos for that. They don't, they're not like, this isn't, what you are doing is incredible because how you're functioning is just like you know nobody nobody cares do they and you're there exhausted so yeah you've got the you've got the most difficult job potential in the world of you know the most important job in the world of bringing up a child but yet your function often at your most depleted so you marry those two up it's just

a you know a recipe for worry isn't it and guilt yeah i once googled oh god i think i was i was a good few days without pretty much any sleep and i googled how how many more hours before i die from not sleeping like isn't it mad that like my brain went there it went right if i don't sleep i will die and and on google it was like yeah you've got 11 hours left that's it that's it i'm gonna die from not sleeping this is the end but you know a sleep deprived brain i mean you can see where that goes because a sleep deprived brain is a brain that just isn't functioning on par and it's so easy to kind of you know counter traps that function all the time like kind of getting caught into a real worry we can often pull ourselves back with with more resources

they trap us more when we're tired because we don't have those resources to say right i know i'm going down into kind of catastrophizing here but you know actually because you don't have that resources to kind of step back so you're much more likely to go into those kind of guilt anxiety worry you get trapped in kind of emotions so it's just somebody needs to just sort out baby sleep so they sleep from day one so we all feel good yeah but i also think there needs to be like like just somebody like a therapist that you talk to maybe once a week for the first month of having a baby where you can just talk about how you're feeling and the

struggles and for them to explain it to you in a rational way because i feel like our rational brain disappears doesn't it yeah well it requires a lot of effort and cognitive effort to kind of step back and see things in a different way and that's what generally is kind of an executive part of the brain which is you know the is very demanding to use um it's not necessarily always natural so we slip into those patterns which can be unhelpful to us rather than saying stop and stepping out of them so you know how we feel how feel, how we function at that point is probably totally natural, but actually we do need almost that other person

to serve that function of that executive part of our brain to go, right, whoa, hold on here. I know you're searching that you'll die after 11 hours now, but actually let's look at this realistically. Yeah, and also your partner or whoever you have that child with or your family around, they're probably tired as well from looking after babies. So they can't help you out, really. But when I was when I was looking at that illustration, there was a few things that you'd listed, which I just just shouted out to me. I was like, oh, God, I totally, totally relate with these things.

So one of them was self-doubt, which is like a massive thing as a new parent. You do, it's very hard not to doubt pretty much everything you're doing. Yeah, but I think the thing is, you know, we actually need to doubt ourselves when we're doing one of the most important jobs in the world.

You know, if we think we're right all the time,'s also problematic so soft doubt is required to kind of make us go okay learn and change your behavior but can also become crippling and unhelpful and create anxiety so you know to doubt how you how you maybe put a nappy on and then to learn because that doubt is helpful or to doubt how you kind of respond to your child's emotions and then learn how to do it is helpful. But when you start to doubt. Okay, that's a positive. Yeah, absolutely. But then when you start to doubt yourself totally

and second guess yourself and think you're doing things wrong all the time and it leads to guilt and that's the problem that results from it, it can become really crippling and it can get in the way of you doing things and it can, you know, it can lead to poorling and it can get in the way of you doing things and it can you know lead to poor mental health poor well-being so it's it's keeping a handle on that doesn't it

and also recognizing when you need some support with that yeah and that's the thing as well i sure speak for a lot of um new mums here but i didn't realize how much I did spiral in those I think it was I would say the first 18 months I powered through I thought I had to be perfect and I thought I had to do everything I'll cry I'm gonna get upset I thought I had to do everything like on my own. Obviously, I've got my husband, but, you know, if I wasn't doing it, I was a failure. Yeah. And put all that pressure on myself. I think it was only when I was actually coming out of the other side of what I'm pretty sure was postnatal depression that I realized what I'd felt. And listen, you've just, you know, listening to to you there you've just told me a very clear belief if I didn't do it perfectly I'm a failure

and that's I think a really common thing with motherhood because you get this image of all these perfect mothers and social media on the tv even that motherhood is this thing that you just comes naturally you'll just be able to know how to do it. But obviously, like I said, it's the most fundamentally important job because you're bringing up a child who you want to turn out well, you want to do the right things for them. And this contrast between we must be perfect actually is really, really difficult and nobody gets it right can lead to that kind of difficult emotions around about it and also then because we feel guilty and not getting perfect

maybe not asking for help not allow ourselves just to really muck up all the time because let's face it you know as we're parents we get things wrong all the time we need to get things wrong actually children also need to see us getting things wrong because that's a model of how life operates parenting is one of the most complex jobs in the world and it's constantly changing because as soon as you think you've got something right you know as soon as you go yeah got that one right yeah it'll change tomorrow because developmentally they'll change or they'll change something so you're having to be constantly flexible constantly changing constantly getting things wrong you will have to inevitably get things wrong but when you've got this pressure and a society pressure as well

because a lot of people will comment and say what you should be doing how parents should be everybody has an opinion on that which shows you that you're definitely doing it wrong because everybody thinks you should be in a certain way then those two just can lead to really complex emotions in the middle yeah they can and and as well on top of all emotions, you then have things like your role identity changes. You as a person, well, I found this. I lost my identity completely. I was like, who am I? Am I?

And I was like, I'm happy being mum. I love being mum. But what about those other parts of me that I had there before that seem to have just disappeared where are they you lose yourself you lose you and you're you know you've because you build up your identity throughout life on lots of different things your job it might be on your social connections and the people around about you and then you have a child and most of those parts just go immediately because it's actually quite hard when you're sleep deprived and you have a baby that's quite hard to leave the house often to keep up those social networks it's usually stop your job for a while not always

but usually um but also your activities so you, I used to love playing tennis. I've played tennis probably twice since I had kids. So all those parts which make up you suddenly so much of them go just practically. But I don't think you think of that beforehand. You don't think I'm going to become a mum and I have to almost build a new identity around about this. and some people just you know fly with that that's okay we're all so different some people like i'm a mum and that's me and that's great but some many many people don't many people struggle to adjust to what is my identity now because let's face it being at home with a child all day long can actually be quite hard and really lonely at times it's not all happy smiley gurgling babies that you're having fantastic interactions with it's often having to work out how on earth you stop them crying, work out what do I do now? They're not eating their food. Oh, how do I get this baby to sleep?

So it's a lot of really difficult things. So you're building identity around having this baby, but a lot of it's really tough and we don't feel like we're very good at it a lot of the time. So it's quite hard identity to build. You used a really interesting word then. I've said, well, not an interesting one.

It's a very simple word then i've said well not an interesting one it's a very simple word but the word lonely um which i don't think enough new mums are told is it is completely normal to feel absolutely on your own with it and lonely i remember thinking to myself i've got you know i've got my husband i've got my friends that have had babies at the same time i've got my family who are all super supportive but on those times where it's just you and baby you just feel so alone absolutely and i remember thinking i have no time to do anything i have got like i can't even have a wee in peace. I can't have a coffee. Certainly can't sit down and eat food because that baby smells it and cries instantly

for some unknown reason. But I am lonely as hell and struggling. Yeah, and I think when there's so many things in that, I think even when you actually see people, because actually often your interactions continue with your child, you don't really get that full connection even as a mum. Or sometimes you're having to go to new things. I remember my first, and I didn't feel it so much the second, but my first, I felt this pressure.

I went to baby massage when they were three weeks old. What was I doing? Like, what was I doing? Like, just stay at home, Emma, and just, you know, stay at home. And then I started to all these groups and you know some of them I really enjoyed some of them I actually just went because I felt I should and you know just because you're a mum you're not necessarily going to connect with people just because you're a mum so you're having it's actually quite difficult to build new relationships

with that new identity so it was and that's quite hard work so you're trying to do that while having a baby think you should do it and yeah it's it's difficult well yeah like mum and baby classes my my i remember one of i think it was my mum or my sister were like why don't you hang out with you know the people you did nct with or who are people you do these classes with i'm like because they're a bit forced friendship friendships for me and i don't want to i want to just hang out with my friends who know me and you know i've been with me for years and years and years i don't want to make new friends when i've already i'm already at like my lowest ebb like the last thing you want to do well for me personally was forge a new friendship when i

was like at rock bottom and exhausted you don't know who you are literally had nothing to give nothing to give anyone if you don't know who you are like who are you in these new friendships it's actually really hard work well not i guess not for everybody we're all individuals but for many people when they're exhausted that's quite hard work but again it's an expectation when you have a baby you go to these baby clubs and that's what you do and because we put those pressures on yourself and you said something about how you should be feeling we think we should be doing that and we should be feeling that and then when we feel emotions like loneliness we look at our expectations of what we should be doing as a mum all these interactions and these having these wonderful coffees sitting in coffee

shops and you know being this lovely friendly bouncy people having these wonderful gurgling to and fro interactions with him like oh we're not doing what we should and therefore i shouldn't be feeling this so we almost criticize ourselves for how we're feeling which of course then makes us feel much worse oh it's a downward spiral sometimes, isn't it? And there's a lot of uncertainty and unpredictability of the whole journey, isn't there? Of parenthood. Loose Lips, the podcast where we give our expert,

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Just search Loose Sleps for weekly topics and some seriously juicy listener dilemmas. So if you could give any advice to expect a new mum or parents, what advice would you what advice would you give so i'd say put her put aside the shoulds so what do you think you should be doing as a mum do you actually want to do it and is it helpful to you and to your baby as well but is it helpful to you and your in the situation you're in so do you actually need to go to that baby group this morning which is going to create you a lot of stress and you know you might not get there because your baby has a punami just before you leave and that's just going to be more stress you're trying to get there talk about myself 12 years ago here um do you could it actually be more beneficial to you to just stay

at home that morning and just relax and watch some morning tv so think about rather than what you should be doing, take away the shoes and say, what's most helpful to me and my baby at this moment in time? Because who was I doing that for? I wasn't really doing it for me because I actually didn't want to do it. It wasn't actually that helpful for my baby. They couldn't care for lying in the mat

in the middle of a community centre or sitting with me. Actually, they probably wanted to sleep. That's probably the one time they would have slept and I made them get up to go to it. So put aside the shoes. And also, really importantly, put aside the shoes of how you should be feeling. Because this belief that we suddenly become a new mum

or dad or parent and we should have this immediate, amazing bond with our child, this feeling of love and it's just a wonderful interactive relationship all the time. Well, you might get snippets of that. You might not feel it much at all. You might feel utterly rubbish. Because realistically, there's so much that comes with being a parent, so much complexity, so much physical impact, emotional impact that you might feel rubbish. And you need to instead of saying i should be feeling this therefore i should be feeling this recognize how you are feeling and

be compassionate to yourself and because as soon as you recognize it and allow it doesn't necessarily make it better immediately but certainly doesn't make it worse and what we can do is say that what do I need now so I guess that's the third thing look at your own needs and it kind of ties into point one but what does this emotion say about what I need do I need to speak to somebody do I need to just take the day out and say I need to do nothing today do I actually need some support around my well-being and mental health so as soon as you recognize you can think what is that emotion telling me it's okay to feel

that way it doesn't feel good but actually there's no right way to feel when you become a mum so what does it tell me what do i need as a result of this emotion that's so interesting and i love that you touched on the whole i should be feeling this way because i would love for mums to be be and parents parents everyone to be prepared that you're not always going to feel that instant rush of love because i honestly beat myself up this was probably the start the start of the of the drop off with my mental health but i was so prepared to feel this huge rush of love oh god i do anything for this little tiny person i love them so much i looked at cooper my little boy and i was like i don't feel it oh no what's wrong why can't why why aren't i feeling this huge rush of love why is he not like my you know i'll be all an end all right this second I don't understand and I would have loved somebody to have told me that that was

normal yeah and you know and I just don't think there's enough of that type of conversation absolutely I totally agree and you know I worked in maternity services um 15 16 17 years ago long time like almost two decades ago now and i remember saying that at the time and um and i and i don't think it's and i experienced that when i was you know had babies as well i don't think it's changed too much because actually we prepare somebody how to change a nappy we prepare somebody how to give a birth plan or feed a baby or we try to anyway it's really hard and doesn't always transfer to after you've had the baby because those things are still really hard. But actually, where's the emotional preparation?

How do we prepare people emotionally? Just all the things we've been talking about. And actually, that is where things like your podcast comes in because actually it's normalising those emotions and how we feel and how it's likely to impact on you. And I think we normalize the really good bits of well there are of course absolutely fantastic bits too and but it's obviously normal to have that massive complex mix of emotions and it's different for

everybody yeah i think i'm going to put on this podcast episode in capital letters if you're a new mom please listen to this you need to listen to this it will help you so much honestly I wish five years ago I'd have I'd have listened to something that kind of gave me a bit of a warning of it's not all you know absolutely gorgeous and wonderful and um full of love I think I think as well it's interesting because you know I think often we can't actually kind of um see that until we're in it because I think we actually don't really engage with these things until we're actually really in it and experiencing it so you know I think had I listened to this podcast for example before I had a baby I would have

probably gone oh yeah yeah yeah and it might have kind of become part of me but actually afterwards if I then listened to it wow yeah right okay I get that now because the difficult thing as well is you don't want to scare expectant parents and you don't want to come across as a bit of an idiot being like oh well you know this could happen you might feel this way and it might not all be wonderful and a mum the other day a new mum said to me oh god my my baby's not sleeping at all please tell me it gets better and I kind of I was like oh I was taken off guard a little bit because I was like well I mean it didn't for me it just got worse before it got eventually better but it didn't get better until about three years later.

And I said, well, you know, everyone's journeys are different. But, you know, some babies don't sleep, but they will eventually. It just might take a lot, you know, a bit longer. And then I came away from it feeling terrible, feeling like, God, I shouldn't have been negative. I should have only been positive but how do we navigate that what do we do do we be honest i think actually you gave a really nice response to that because you didn't kind of i guess what you were cautious about was creating false hope and that's when i described about sleeping that false hope was really unhelpful to me because i

did think and it was almost like right they're going to sleep at this point great they started nursery or they started solids they're going to sleep oh it's the nine like right they're going to sleep at this point great they started nursery or they started solids they're going to sleep oh it's the nine month whatever they're going to sleep now they'll sleep once this tooth is through they'll sleep once they go to nursery they'll sleep when they become 100 years old um you know it's like i mean my i'm joking but actually my son was a very bad sleeper and um so that false hope became unhelpful to me and i connected and i'm still good friends with them and one person whose baby didn't sleep either. And we just looked at each other and we could see through the sleep deprived eyes that both

our babies weren't sleeping. And that was really helpful to me because it was a normalising of it. So I think your answer is really nice because hope can be helpful, you know, because you can say it will change in the future. You know, all babies will sleep eventually at some point, but's so different for everybody it's recognizing that complexity and some babies take a much longer time to sleep some babies babies will sleep um earlier i think there's a really important part to it because i think something i had in my mind as my baby didn't sleep is what am i doing wrong why am i is my baby not sleeping when I used to support people whose babies didn't sleep

what am I doing wrong I think there's a really important part to is recognizing there's only so much you can do when babies you know don't do something like don't eat or don't sleep or they do something that maybe feels difficult there's also a baby in that relationship it's not just the mum or the dad or whoever's looking after them there's a baby in that relationship. It's not just the mum or the dad or whoever's looking after them. There's a baby in that relationship who has an individual personality and individual needs and different sleep onset needs. And so I think there's this myth that if we do this special thing, it will result in this amazing outcome. But actually, I had all the techniques. I had all the tips. I knew what to say. what to say theoretically i did them all my baby still

didn't sleep so my baby was just maybe had you know some individual differences um probably had a little bit colic i wasn't aware of whatever it was that was going on and then you know so so there's that bit of blame i think it comes from society as well that's like if your baby doesn't sleep and you're doing something wrong or eat or whatever um so a bit of blaming around that so i think it's taking that blame out of and saying look some babies just don't sleep you know your baby might sleep at certain points but some babies just don't and no matter what you do and you can try things you might find the right thing for your baby that does help them sleep but actually it might just be a developmental stage that they'll sleep

at some point so it's removing that blame that you're doing something wrong and therefore they won't sleep and i had people saying things to me like oh you should maybe go to a sleep therapist i was like that's funny because i actually was a sleep therapist so and again that might work for some people i'm not you know i'm not taking away that will work for some people but it's like there's not a one size fits all there's not a you try this and it will work it's about a learning about your child and what you know that interaction and what you can do and you may find something that works for you or it may be that just something clicks developmentally and you do nothing and suddenly it happens that's it it's it's you I think that's the one thing that we've got to remember

is that every single child is completely different and i guess the only way they can communicate with us is through crying really so so anything that they want whether it be you know milk or a dirty nappy or they're tired or anything they cry or they don't sleep i mean it's so funny isn't it when kids don't sleep because you're like oh god if i could sleep like you i could just do what you're doing that'd be absolutely nice um i think i think another thing just moving on slightly different kind of like feelings is now i don't know whether you ever felt this but i certainly have and and danny my husband knows full well that i felt this a kind of resentment and actually mourning a little bit my old life and resenting a little bit that he was kind of getting on with his and being able to do his part of things,

where I was at home and not being able to do my thing. And it's terrible because you almost feel, and I don't know whether any listeners agree with me here, I hope you do, almost like a little ball of anger bubbling up inside of like, well, this isn't fair. It's not fair that I'm the one that has to stay home it's not fair that i'm the one that this little child is solely relying on right now because cooper didn't um take a bottle for four months yeah completely and i and it wasn't danny's fault you know he could only do so much but i felt such resentment and anger which again

didn't help towards my mental health because I was like not only am I you know struggling in every other aspect I feel mad I'm just mad all the time as well because you know and then it affects your relationship absolutely do you know again I think it's something that's not spoken about enough and I think it's something that many many feet people feel um that kind of maybe resentment anger and of course when you're tired we know that you're more likely to kind of feel that much more so you might you know I describe it as you've probably seen the capacity cup your capacity cup is already totally full so therefore it doesn't take much for it to bubble over and when it bubbles over it's when anger or shouting or whatever happens but you've got such a slim narrow window of capacity in fact you've probably got no

capacity it takes virtually nothing to tip you over into that kind of bubbling cup and therefore the things that might make you slightly more annoyed before might make you really angry or might make you really upset and I think there is that difference. And I think one of the trigger points often is when somebody comes home from work and you've been doing this all day and you're like, right, okay, time for a break. But they also want some downtime. So you've kind of got that disjoint.

They feel they've worked hard all day. You feel you've worked hard all day. You both want a break, but actually one of you can't get a break because somebody needs to. So I think that's often a trigger point that people can get quite, it can create tension. And I think that's the other thing.

I think, you know, throwing a child or baby into the mix of a relationship is complex too. And it's, you know, yeah, really complex. I mean, when I had a child and I said to Danny, I was like, can you believe that some people have babies to try and fix their relationships? I was like, what? Why would you? Why would you throw up? Well, basically a little bomb into the middle of like, you know, an unhappy relationship. Because goodness me, I mean, me and Danny were strong. We still are. But geez, like you, I mean, you go through it.

Jeez, like you, I mean, you go through it. And I think, like you said before, that is something that would be super helpful to know that your marriage is gonna take a battering. Your relationship is gonna be put through the ringer because you have got emotions. We've got our hormones. The men, I feel a lot of the time, have potentially, you know, been mothered by us.

We have been their sole focus. We have had nothing else to, you know. And I think sometimes they get a little bit jealous of the fact that our attention is not solely on them anymore. We're not cooking, you know, not that everybody cooks their tea for their husbands, but, you know, we're not doing all the jobs, all the things that we would normally do for them and vice versa anymore. And they're like, oh, well, this is different. And she's being stressy. And then you kind of then you label yourself as like, oh, my God, I'm not stressy, mum. I'm a stressed mum.

And you feel guilty. Yeah. it's hard it's just flipping hard I think you just described perfectly kind of the complexity of a baby in a relationship and I mean I guess you know that drawing I had of how it impacts on on a new parent you could have an additional one outside about kind of because babies often exist in a family and you've got multiple people with multiple beliefs and multiple emotions and multiple needs and you've got this baby who has absolutely immense needs in the middle of it you've got a mum who's often needs aren't met and you've got a partner who maybe doesn't know how to meet the mum's needs or a mum who doesn't need time and you don't so it's just I mean it's just a kind of melting pot of emotions isn't it and it's it's something

again another thing to learn to now think how much we're learning when we've got a new kid and that's effortful and you learn and you're caught and when you learn you also get things wrong all the time so you've got all that in the mix so just it's just really really complex isn't it oh it really is I think we we're also very guilty as as mothers of leaving ourselves at the bottom of the pile um so that brings me on to a question from the public so alice is on email and she says hi there i'm three months postpartum have just stopped breastfeeding can't be feeding due to supply issues as i have a thyroid condition I'm trying not to feel like I failed but finding it tough and as the supply issues aren't represented in the media I also

didn't realize how emotional it would be thanks and best wishes Alice have you got any advice for Alice on how to deal with these emotions I would say this is something that's not very often talked about, but as a psychologist working with new babies, I heard it all the time. There's an expectation that's very much, you know, part of the public health campaign. You will and you should breastfeed. And also there's kind of an expectation that,

I mean, it's fairly straightforward. I was never told how difficult, well, maybe I was and I didn't hear it. You know, you don't know. Maybe you didn't hear it at the time because you weren't in that place to hear it. But I certainly didn't expect it to be as difficult as it was. And it's difficult from, it's, you know, some people maybe find it easy, but most people find it difficult. There's so many issues which impact on that. And it's also very demanding.

And there's lots of physical issues why people might not be able to breastfeed. But also some people choose not to breastfeed and that's okay. But there's this expectation we should be, it should be easy. And then when we're not able to, for whatever reason, then there's that expectation we should versus the reality and then there's I'm failing in some way that's exactly what you said I'm failing because I can't um but actually it's really common not to be able to it's really um it's it's more commonly think it's really common for it to be difficult I think it's probably more common for it to be

difficult than easy to be honest and the fact you've tried in itself as a success and in some ways the fact you've decided to feed the baby through another method as a success because you're looking after your child and you've come through that difficult time so well done you for navigating that number one it's really complex that's amazing that you've managed to navigate that and you're looking after your baby doing that you're absolutely not a failure you're absolutely not a failure it's it's so common and it's so normal and it's also normal to feel like a failure but you're absolutely not a failure you're actually a success for having to you know for navigating that and making the decisions you've had and also um trying as well it's all you can do

you can try you know it can't help there's so many factors apart from you which impact whether you can breastfeed so you know well done i say rather than you're a failure i think you're a massive success oh emma i went to a trance listening to you then i could i think we all need just one of you there like our hype woman just there when we're like we can't do it like listen you are amazing yeah i went to my school my daughter's school open day yesterday they had these little buttons that you could press to hear the kids speaking maybe we could have one of those so when you feel like a failure you just have you saying do you know what you've tried you've done a great job actually of course you're not a failure do you know what i mean yeah your next book you know those kids ones you can get that you press and make animal noises can you just add your voice

into that and you can press it for different motivational quotes that'd be great that's that's actually a genius idea that's a genie we need to make that right we're we're paid to paint how do you say it painting that now right no one else is allowed to do it it's on it's on camera we've got it on record you can write the big draw and do the sounds well emma it has been an absolute pleasure talking to you i feel like i've had my very own therapy session and i have no doubt that you will have helped so many people out there with your words and um what you've said there so if wants it, you've obviously got three books and I would strongly, strongly recommend going and looking

at Emma's Instagram as well because it's fabulous. But thank you, Emma. It's been so lovely to speak to you. It's just a really, really enjoyable and interesting conversation. So an honest conversation as well, which has been really, really nice.

Thanks for listening to mum's the word the parenting podcast make sure to hit the subscribe or follow button so you never miss an episode we love to hear from you get in touch on whatsapp27 537 email us at askmumsthewordpod at gmail.com or leave us a review on apple podcasts we'll be back with another episode same time same place next week