Saturn Returns with Caggie - The Initiation of Motherhood: Identity Loss & Postpartum Reality with Sophie Harris

Episode Date: February 23, 2026

Motherhood can be the most heart-opening experience of your life - and the most destabilising. In this episode, Caggie is joined by postpartum and motherhood psychotherapist Sophie Harris to explore the emotional reality of becoming a mother - beyond curated Instagram squares and gentle routines. Together, they speak about the parts rarely admitted out loud: 🧡Identity loss that can feel like a quiet disappearance 🧡Rage, overstimulation and intrusive thoughts 🧡Partner resentment and the shock of how unequal early parenting can feel🧡Sleep deprivation that borders on psychological torture 🧡The fantasy of escape - from Rightmove searches to longing to be “looked after” yourself Sophie draws on 18+ years in mental health and her own experience of early motherhood to normalise what so many women privately fear means they’re failing. They explore why the nuclear family model leaves modern mothers trying to do the work of a village alone - and how information overload, expert culture and comparison have pulled many women away from their instincts. This conversation is an invitation to soften the shame around how hard it can be. Because what if your hardest feelings are not evidence that you’re broken - but a sane response to an impossible level of responsibility? And what if “good enough” truly is enough? For anyone navigating postpartum, early motherhood, or the identity shift that comes with caring for another life, this episode is a reminder that you are not alone in the rupture, the rage, the tenderness, or the becoming. Thank you to Kendamil for making this episode possible. You can learn more about the Behind Every Mum campaign and find Sophie below: Sophie’s Website: https://lookingaftermum.co.uk/  Sophie’s Instagram: @looking_after_mum Kendamil’s Website: https://kendamil.com/pages/behind-every-mum  Kendamil’s Instagram: @kendamiluk The Saturn Returns app is here… 🪐 Find your exact Saturn dates and navigate life's most transformative astrological passage with personalised insights, guided reflections, and cosmic wisdom. Click here to download now! Discover more from Saturn Returns: 🪐 Find us on⁠ Instagram⁠,⁠ YouTube⁠ and⁠ TikTok⁠ 🪐 Order the Saturn Returns book:⁠ Click here⁠ 🪐 Join our community newsletter:⁠ Sign up here⁠ 🪐 Explore all things Saturn Returns:⁠ Visit our website⁠ 🪐Follow Caggie on Instagram:⁠ @caggiesworld

Hello everyone and welcome to Saturn Returns with me, Kaggy Dunlop. This is a podcast that aims to bring clarity during transitional times where there can be confusion and doubt. This episode was made possible by our friends at Kender Mill. We've been using Kender Mill organic follow-on milk, which is made with British whole milk in the Lake District. It's a family-run business, their organic range is made here in the UK, and it's free from palm oil, fish oil and soy. It's become part of those quiet moments with Lola, simple, trusted and familiar. Today's guest speaks so beautifully to this season of life. Sophie Harris is a postpartum and motherhood psychotherapist with over 18 years experience in mental health

and the founder of looking after mom. Her work is all about supporting women through the emotional transition into motherhood with compassion, realism and evidence-based tools. And this conversation felt especially resonant for me right now. In this phase, I've become really aware of how much support matters, emotionally and practically. Kindermill has teamed up with Sophie and I for their campaign behind every mum, which aims to shed light on the realities of the first year of motherhood, sharing the experiences of moms in their community.

And just to note, breastfeeding gives babies the best star, and every family's journey is different. Follow on milk is suitable for babies over six months as part of a varied diet and it's always best to speak to your healthcare professional for guidance. Now, let's get into today's conversation with Sophie. So Sophie, welcome to the Saturn Returns podcast. Hi, Kedgy, it's lovely to be here. How are you today? I am feeling pretty good.

I've managed to dig myself out of the luteal phase to be here and I'm very happy to be here. It's worth being cloth. What does the loochial face usually entail for you? It looks like a lot of sitting on my sofa in a hoodie and leggings and doing the bare minimum. And so I am happy that I have managed to come out of that and put on a denim jacket and some jewelry and a bit of makeup. And I'm feeling proud of myself. Well, well, I'm right there with you. I am actually in line as well.

And it's interesting that you've just said. that because, I mean, we're going to get into all this stuff. And before I kind of jump the gun, I do want you to do a little intro of who you are. But what happens after you have a baby that makes your period and hormones? Like, I used to be a little, like, normal crazy before my period when I, before I had a child. But now, now it's like, I mean, it's like five different personalities. And then I, and also, because I'm not very good at tracking, I just, I tracked by the moon. So, but then I don't know, my period came quite early. And the few days before I was like, I'm going, like I go completely crazy now. It feels like my hormones are just like, yeah,

what's that about? You are definitely not alone. And I know that there will be so many people are listening to this relating. And I will introduce myself in a minute. But just to say, I had exactly the same. And I had not really that bad PMS before having a baby, but after having my daughter, he's now five. For about three years, I was just all over the place. I was really struggling mentally for about two weeks of every month. And I'm very, very pleased to say it's settled,

and it's got so much better. And if someone had told me a few years ago that I was going to be saying that I would have not believed them because I felt so entrenched in it. Whereas, and I see it in my therapy, it's absolutely all the time. It's one of the most common complaints after having a baby. No one talks, but I had absolutely no idea. She was with a friend earlier and I asked her and she was like, yeah, I mean, I've still got it and she's got like a two-year-old and a four-year-old. I was like, okay, great. But it does, my mom, so I've just moved country on top of having a baby, but my mom came to stay for the first time last week.

And she left on Monday. And I literally spent the whole day like in floods of tears. I was like, oh wow, I didn't think I'd be this affected by her going. Don't know we wrong. I was really upset that she was going. But then the next day my period came, I was like, oh, okay. Maybe there's something else going on there as that. And that's just one part of like what was going on my head.

But anyway, we digress. Sophie, the audience that might not be familiar. with who you are and the work that you do, would you be able to introduce yourself a little bit? Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Sophie Harris, and I'm a postpartum and motherhood therapist. I've been running my private practice looking after mum since 2020, and I support women face-to-face through master classes and online. And I'd say I'm very passionate about helping moms know that they're not alone. Everyone feels like they're the only one who's going through these issues.

And you're just absolutely not. Motherhood is so complex. And I always describe it as the biggest emotional, physical, mental, spiritual transition you will ever make. Of course, there's going to be the really difficult bits as well. So I, yeah, I've worked with thousands of clients now probably, and I see the same issues coming up time and time again. And, yeah, you're definitely not alone.

Whatever the weirdest thing that you're experiencing and the thing that you think you're so messed up for, I guarantee there will be millions of other people experiencing it too. It does feel very little, because I guess you're experiencing it for the first time, which you itself can make it feel quite isolating because it's very confronting the changes that you're going through on every level.

But I'd love to know how you got into this work, because it's obviously such a specific niche that actually, I mean, probably I haven't come across before because I haven't been in this space, I didn't have a baby before. But, I mean, it's so important. And I feel like it's a very sadly untouched area for a lot of people feel very isolated and alone and don't have the resources or support. Yeah.

And so I used to work just in general mental health in Hackney in East London for about 15 years. And I'd worked in the mother and baby unit a few times. and I'd come into contact with some mums in my work as a therapist. And then I knew I really enjoyed working with those people when I became pregnant. However, I now cringe at some of the advice that I probably gave before becoming a mum myself. Because I just don't think you can ever get it. No one can understand the intensity of becoming a mum and being a parent and how overwhelmingly intensive if that is. So I did like it before, but it's, yeah, it's one of those things. I was going through a lot of

mental health struggles myself. And I say in those first two years or so, I went through some real lows in my mental health, probably worse than I've ever experienced before. So I was just navigating that whilst also helping people. But now I'm very much out on the other side, but I consider myself that way, I would say. But I am pleased for what my struggles have taught me, because they really, really do help me when I'm working with clients. It feels, clients will often say it feels like I'm mind reading because I've literally been in those depths of those, the depths of despair with them at some point. But yeah, I have very much come out the other side, which I'm very, very pleased to say, because I didn't, often didn't think that

that would be the case. And I guess that you can meet. your clients there, which is so important. And like you say, it's nothing can prepare you for it and nothing can make you understand it until you go through it. You can't sort of, especially what I found with with the run up to the birth itself, I was trying to gather as much information as possible, but actually I feel like in hindsight it wasn't very helpful. It just filled me with like anxiety and conflicting information, it just made me feel like I was back at school doing a class I didn't want to study for.

Yeah. I might have an opinion on. And I was like, I don't even want to be in this class. Yeah, I think there is something, especially the high achieving, the high achieving woman who likes to have control. It's very natural to want to study for parenthood, like it's an exam.

But as I think what you're describing, it isn't really very helpful because whatever reading you do, it is a learn on the job kind of thing. And there's not really that much meaningful preparation you can do for it. In my opinion, there'll be lots of people listen to that who highly disagree with me. But it is something which is so where, yeah, whatever you go through as a parent is really hard to picture it before you've become one yourself. And also everyone's good. I mean, I respond to parenting itself, I think, and motherhood, I've responded. responded very differently from what I perhaps would have anticipated. I've talked about this many times on the podcast before.

I wasn't particularly elated by the idea of having children. I felt quite indifferent about it. I actually thought my life would be just as full without. And then when I got pregnant, it was very clear to me that I was supposed to have this baby and then when I had her it felt like this door kind of opened up in my psyche or in my spirit that I didn't know even existed before and to say that I actually would have been fine because I would have never had to access it you know what I mean it was like this part of me that I didn't know was there and then suddenly I'm going through into this different realm and

become a different person entirely. And as a mother, I obviously can't speak for it, but as a mother, like every cell in your body just suddenly like changes and it's all focused on this thing. And that is the most beautiful thing in the world, but it's also all-consuming, exhausting, heartbreaking and heart opening at the same time. And I think that it feels also in terms of what you spoke about a little bit ago, but, you know, when you haven't been through it, it's hard to, it's hard to understand. I found it quite difficult in the space of like early motherhood because I have loads of

actually that don't have children. And I have a lot of friends that are now like on, you know, had two children. They're kind of, and I feel like I'm in this in between where I think the friends that are further along can barely remember this face. And the ones that haven't, whether they've chosen not to or it is something they still want, it's like it's such a loaded area that you don't realize until you're kind of in it where it's just everywhere like around fertility, becoming a mom, not becoming a mom. Like it's very, very sensitive.

And I really, I really can see that and I can feel for so many people. then also it kind of contributes sometimes to the isolation because you don't want to say that you're struggling to someone that hasn't found a partner or that do you know what I mean? And I think that and then also to people that are further along, they have their own stuff going on. So it kind of feels like you're putting these little like camps. And then I guess that's why people do NCT classes and stuff like that because they find a community that's going through it at the same time, but I never did that. So I don't have that many people that I can speak to, actually. I think what you're describing is really,

really common because people often feel guilty for talking about the difficult bits of motherhood because you have, everyone's got a friend who's struggling with fertility or he can't find the right partner or maybe who has lost a baby or there's so many awful things that have happened to people around us which is obviously so so so important and so people feel that they can't talk about the difficult bits or there's not a space to and it's one of the I guess it's one of those things there you know I don't think those people would be the right people to talk to about your struggles necessarily there might be situations where that's okay but there is it is still needed a space to talk about those struggles because it's so complex what you're going through

and it really deserves that space but I think a lot of us try to really minimize our experiences because there are people who are going through far worse essentially yeah and then I think the previous generation that's a bit more just like oh you just muddy through and don't think about things so much but one thing I did want to ask you about because I'm sure you know I think a lot about the kind of, they say it takes a village when it comes to having a baby, but most of us live in this sort of nuclear family system that is quite isolated and often people live away from their family. They aren't around like their mothers in the way that they historically might have been. And people rely on their husbands or their partners in a way that can feel quite

challenging for a relationship because when you have a child, I feel like with me and my partner anyway, like you often have very different experiences of parenthood, especially at the beginning. And it kind of brings out different things in each of you. And that's also something that I find has been quite challenging sometimes. At the beginning, like, you know, after the birth itself, I couldn't really, you can't really do anything. you need to just lean into being looked after. But then, yeah, I just wanted to ask you about that. Is that something that you've come across in your work?

I think also it's like, I think they say it like partner resentment, isn't it? Because you're just like, oh, you don't feel the way that I feel. I think in an argument with Tom, I actually said you don't love her as much. So I do. Many people who thought was similar. I was like, he still loves that as much. But yeah, absolutely what you're describing is so incredibly common because we are bringing our babies up in such a weird way.

We are all at home feeling like we're not cut out for this, but not good enough, we're not coping. Whereas obviously, we weren't designed to raise babies like this. at times when I've traveled and seen the way that other moms raised their babies. And I was always struck when I went to Senegal and there was all the, lots of families living in little, which you call it compounds, where there was maybe like four or five families living in a compound. There was always other adults around.

There was always other kids around. And then I bet those moms aren't stressing about nap schedules or pulling their hair out when their baby hasn't slept as well, you know, because it just doesn't matter as much. whereas we're at home trying to keep this really tight sense of control because we're doing it on our own with such limited support. And even when you have, you know, when you've got a partner, we're not meant to be raising babies in just a partnership. And when our partners often are at work for eight plus hours a day. And I think that resentment that you're describing is just so common because in those early days particularly, your life never looks more different.

never looks more different to what your partners does. Up until then, your lives have looked relatively similar in terms of you both go to work, you both maybe come back together in the evening. Suddenly your lives are so separate. It feels like they're going on holiday every time that they go to work or where they go for a shower or to the toilet

because they have space to do that and you don't. And I think that resentment is just huge. And just changing the subject slightly, sorry, but I have really been thinking about this loads at the moment. I'm a single parent and I'm really in the midst of trying to build a community because I've seen how damaging is having such a lack of community in my own relationship and I was living somewhere really isolated, no community around. And so now I'm living in

Bristol, I'm moving to a street where there's a community sense and finding other families to go on holiday with and finding people who can help look after my daughter after school and I can do the same for them and this is my pure focus at the moment because I believe it's so important. Oh wow, I love that. So how old is your daughter? She's five. She's in reception now. So I'm really, I'm the first year of motherhood is long gone for me and you do forget how hard it is, but I don't because I'm a therapist and I work with people going through every day. How have you managed adjusting from living in a household together to then co-parenting with a two-year-old now five-year-old? Has that been like a tricky transition?

or has it been something that your work has helped to inform or has it just been? Yeah, I think it was very difficult as first, at first, absolutely, and having to spend time away from my child who I, you know, that thought of that literally made my heart want to break. But now I kind of enjoy it. It is really nice to have a few days to myself and I really enjoy it. I'd say the biggest stress of it,

I'm sure many of your listeners will relate, but I would consider myself much more on the higher sensitive side where I just get overstimulated, overwhelmed, so easy. I feel everything so deeply. And so being a solo parent for like 12 out of 14 days is just not good for me. It is that constant dysregulation. And I think I see it with my clients with their babies all the time as well. You are with that baby 24-7 and that chronic dysregulation is,

what contributes to, you know, losing your temper way more than what you want to, feeling more anxious, you know, your habits that keep you well, not being able to use them as coping mechanisms in the same way. So yeah, that's my biggest challenge. Yeah, and I think it's about recognizing that, which isn't always so easy to see in yourself of when things start to kind of plummet and I feel the same. Like I, it's, you know, whether it's to do with navigating co-parenting like you've just described and that ache to want to be with your daughter or whether it's for a mum that's having to go back to work or wants to go back to work but then feels torn between being there and being with the child but then when you're with the child you also

can start to feel a resentment because you're like I'm not doing anything else far from being with you and so there's an eternal kind of battle between yeah trying to find the right as a balancing act isn't it? And it's about recognising, it's about recognising in yourself like when, yeah, your cup is empty. Absolutely. I think a lot of the people who in their first year of Mubbhood will really feel, you crave alone time desperately at times to the point, to breaking point. But when you get the alone time, you feel really lonely and empty often, or you feel like something's missing. And there's such a contradiction that happens. I don't actually experience that anymore because I'm past that now, but I know that that happens and I did have that so much when she was a baby. Yeah, I'm definitely

going through that. It's like, sometimes when I get in the car and I don't have her with me, I'm like, and I'm like, and then sometimes I'm like, can start singing and look in the back to see her in the seat and she's not there. And I'll be like, I don't feel, I don't feel like, I'm missing of me. But what does I want to ask you? In terms of the kind of most common things that you experience from the people that you speak to, I think there are like the obvious ones. What are the things that come up again and again that feel the most unique to people

that are actually the most universal? Yeah. Okay. So I'm trying to think of the big ones. definitely it's feeling like you do it. Like someone might be experiencing me, oh my God, I can't believe that I'm feeding, thinking this where I'm the only one that ever has, but actually it's something that's incredibly common in you see again and again.

Yeah. I guess a lot of the stuff would be talked about online. So I don't know how, I don't know what their online circles are like. But feeling like you've completely lost your identity and you have no interest in doing anything that you used to do and you're so angry at your partner. because they do have all these hobbies that they still enjoy. And they say to you, why are you going to do something that you enjoy, but you don't know what you enjoy?

I think that's a very common experience because you've just in this temporary loss of all identity. I would also say intrusive thoughts, just having lots of scary thoughts, feeling really dysregulated and jumpy, feeling that you don't want to watch scary movies or thrillers anymore. I used to be such a true crime fan. I kind of stopped watching that anyway,

but I just don't want to watch anything that's going to stress me out. I just don't want to be stressed anymore. I hate stress. I'm so stressed all the time. I don't want to be stressed. And so I feel that kind of just over-stimulation, losing your temple way more than what you want to. A lot of us who are maybe on the more sensitive side,

or a bit of a people pleaser, typically, you suppress a lot of anger. You try not to feel all these things. And then suddenly you have a baby and your needs go up and then you just start feeling angry all the time and over little tiny things. And it just is not what you want to be as a mum.

Yeah. It's the one the big ones so far. I experienced actually, so I'm probably a bit of a people pleaser. Like I'm not an anger. person. Not an argumentative person. Find conflict very, conflict avoidant. When I was pregnant, I actually experienced a lot of pregnancy rage, which was really interesting for me. I had never heard about that. I always saw pregnancy as like everyone was like, oh, you feel like amazing and Chloe.

And I felt awful and angry, but like this rage would come over me that was terrifying for other people. but I loved it. It was like there's accessing this part of me that I, that it was sort of ancestral that was like kind of sacred. It didn't feel hormonal. It felt like I was just able to voice this part of myself that historically I would avoid

because I was scared of upsetting people, whereas it would just come. And then it has kind of gone, sadly, but I did have an experience over, Christmas, which I will share with the audience. So we decided to go on holiday, which was our first mistake. Don't do that. With a baby, I'm not like being in a torture chamber. And we were in the middle of nowhere in a very beautiful hotel, but they had no, they couldn't do any babysitting or anything like that because Lola was too young. And there was nowhere to go. And there's like new moms know,

you need to just. go and like get your coffee, change the environment up, go for a walk. Like that is what keeps you sane because the day is very monotonous and you need something that like gives you some sort of sense of spontaneity or change of environment. And there was none of that. And the sleeping was just getting worse and worse. And I sort of had played like Lola was in her, has been in her own cot. And then during this week she was in bed with me.

But it sort of went from thinking. it was a good idea to then she was literally waking up crying unless she was like in my arms like unless I was like holding her and it kind of reached the point I think it was on Christmas Day or Boxing Day where I had I mean I can only describe it was like a psychotic break like I have I've only seen people behave like that in films and I always thought that they were exaggerating like I Lola wasn't there Tom had taken Lola and I was like I need to try and sleep because I just like five nights of not sleeping and also combined with having

like a very aggressive coffee in the morning which was probably not helping and I just had this I just completely snapped and I was like wanted to break everything in the room I wanted to fully rage and smash the TV I managed to restrain myself from doing that but I was screaming into pillows

I was hitting them as hard as I could I was just screaming. And when Tom came back, I think he was absolutely terrible. He was like, I thought you were going to attack me or something. I've never seen you like that. And I was like, I've never been like that in my life. And it was just a bit of a, I think, like a wake-up call to him to actually witness, like what was happening under the surface that he didn't realize.

Because the sleep deprivation thing, there's a reason that this. They use it as a form of torture for people. And that can have such a knock-on effect on everything else. And then when you are running on empty and having to look after a baby all day, every day, it's enough to send anyone, even the most patient person, completely insane. And I did go and say it. And we ended up, I mean, thank God Tom's quite quick and like fixing things. And he was like, right, we're flying home.

and at least then like we we left and got out of it but I mean it was like the worst it was the worst Christmas ever it was so bad it was almost comical but I just you know and my friend was saying oh you know what people see from what you put online like you look like your loving motherhood and I am but I'm obviously not going to put me having a mental breakdown online but I also did have that and I don't have any any shame in admitting it and I just think what it's just nuts to me that women go through this and have always gone through this. And it's sort of marginalised as this like not talked about as if it's not that big a deal, as if it's not that difficult. I'm like, this is so fucking hard.

And all I keep saying in my head is like, men could never. Absolutely. And if they did, if they did, the entire world would be structured around it. Everything would be around the importance and the honour and the difficulty and pain that goes into having a chart. Absolutely. And just to say, thank you so much for sharing that. I know that you said you don't put the bad bits online, but you might have put this online. So that's pretty good going because that will make so many people feel. not alone because trust me, I have had my own versions of your experience. Not even that long ago, I threw a carton of milk across the room and then it splattered

all at my wall and then my daughter was around and I had to clean it all up and be like, I'm so sorry, I don't know what happened. I'm so embarrassed right now. And just the limits that you get pushed to when you have like lack of sleep long term or like chronic stress. And I think what you're describing as well, it really hits into what many new mum's will experience of when you're doing something that really should be enjoyable, like going on holiday or sometimes it's going to a wedding, it's Christmas,

all of the things that should be enjoyable and they're just not, and you've got a baby and it's just not enjoyable. Like you're just having such a shitty time and you feel so awful that you should be enjoying this. The amount of clients who I work with, I'm laughing, but I'm not laughing properly, but when they get back from holiday and they just have had the worst holiday ever and they just feel so guilty for not enjoying the holiday. I'm so privileged. I've been on holiday and it's just been the worst holiday ever. And that doesn't happen every time. You can still go on a holiday and have a good time. However, there's just times when it just absolutely doesn't work out and it just, you know,

it just makes it so much, feel so much worse. Well, that's the thing because Tom was like, made a few comments because I was deemed obviously in a bad moon here. It's like, you know, you're so hard to please and all of this. I was looking online and seeing everyone like with their family. He's having their Christmas dinners. And I was like, I'm literally counting down the minutes until this is over. And by the way, the only thing that actually snapped me out of it was when Tom came back to the room with Lola. And we had like two rooms kind of in where we were staying in the hotel room.

And he came into mine and left Lola and the other. And I like, he came towards me. And I, like, screamed again. And then Lola screamed when she heard my scream. And that was the only thing that Mick pulled me out of it. Because that's the thing, like, your nervous system with your babies are so interconnected. And that's why, like, mothers are able to push themselves to the absolute limit. Because that is their priority.

But it comes at a cost. Yeah, absolutely. And I hear my therapy clients going through this all the time. and I'm not agreeing that smashing things is the right way to show your emotions in any way. I do not think this is a helpful, functional way. But I've heard more than one time that it's the time that their partner finally saw what was going on for them and kind of took more notice. Because I think we're so used to just suppressing things down, making it okay. And again, I'm not saying smashing things is the right way to go.

But it is that type. I think that's really common for your partner to really, see in that moment, oh God, this is, you know, it's worse. Yeah. Yeah. It was. And on the kind of sleep deprivation front, like, what could be done? Like, is there anything that you advise or, like, help your clients with the R in the midst of it? Because also, it feels very much in the first year anyway, you're like, you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. You're just like, It feels like it's going to go on forever.

And you have like one good night and then like it goes backwards and you're just kind of, yeah. Yeah. And just to say, my daughter, I fed her through the night until she was about 16 months. I think it was around a year and a half that I finally started getting some sleep. And I back then, I never thought I would sleep ever again. I thought I might have ruined my life by having a child and never being able to sleep again. she's now five, she co-swept until she was four, she's now in her own bed.

And I get eight, nine hours sleep a night, and I'm not trying to brag, but I'm just saying that it does come back. I feel well rested. I make an effort to go to bed at 9-9.30 most nights because I know the day takes so much energy, and it does come back and you will get sleep again, but it really feels like you won't,

when you're in the thick of it. I remember feeling that so hopeless with it. And that, I think, is what contributes to the intrusive thoughts. Luckily, I haven't actually, like a lot of people said, oh, you might feel this, like, and have these awful thoughts.

But I haven't really, the only ones I've had, I've had maybe like twice or three times when, once I now live in Dubai, so I traveled back at the beginning of December to see family really to make sure that's lowless or everyone. And the jet lag or sleep, it was just so awful. It was so awful that I just was like running on, I don't know, fumes.

And I think combined with like the darkness in London, just like trying to get through the days, just being on survival, really. And I remember I went out to meet a friend for a coffee and my mum looked after Lola and then like I came back. I remember just looking at Lola being, oh, you again. You're still in there. Oh, God.

And that's like, and it's kind of an element of that of like, oh, God, you're here forever. Yeah. That's like, and I laugh about it now, but it wasn't that funny. It's not funny at the time because it feels horrible. You are you are here forever, like on. Which is a good thing overall. But in that moment, it doesn't feel great. It is.

My mom actually came to visit me just now and we also had quite a rough week. And I was like, after like day five, I was like, I'm having those thoughts of how can I return to send her? Yeah. That's not what I ordered. Absolutely. And I think that is really common of just regretting it as well. And you don't regret having a child full stop. It's not like the whole thing so regret.

But you have those moments of your regret where you're like, what the hell have I done? And just to share some vulnerable moments from me, I remember when I was, when my daughter was and I just wanted to be looked after so badly. And then that's when the name of my business came from looking after mum. I was mid-breakdown. And I was like, who's looking after me? And I was, oh, looking after mum, that's a good idea. And then, but then I used to fantasise.

I didn't have money to go to a retreat or spa or say, I used to fantasise about checking myself into a psychiatric hospital just so that someone would look after me and called me for free meals a day and they put me on an activity program and just do anything. anything and then I would like panseise about what psychiatric hospital I could check myself into it. My mind would go to all these places of desperation and actually back to your question about one of those things that you think were the only one doing it but you realise actually loads of people are doing it. Looking on right move for a place to live like an escape house

where you like go and like even you take your partner with you. You often leave your partner. No, he's not going to go. Most of the time it's about the partner. But that is one of the That is a common experience now. Obviously, if you could see my like, internet, into what history of, like, it's literally, like,

Inigo is like, like, property porn. But yeah, that is always my, my kind of go-to. And I've noticed that actually just before my period, tiles up. The self-function goes out. It's like,

all these random cities that I'm not losing to. Oh, I feel very seen and understood. That's so funny. But the kind of psychiatric ward, I mean, like, you do, I can understand that and having that experience during it over Christmas, it was sort of, my behaviour was like, you know, pretty characteristic of someone that belonged in a psychiatric ward. And there was something also, even though it was so short-lived

compared to everything you go through, like, there's something I found being in hospital after having Lola that I hate hospitals, but there's something quite lovely about that, you know, there's someone coming in to check. And I was just on the Labour War at this point, but it was just like my worst nightmare, but there was something nice about knowing that you were taking care of and then he's just spat out. And yeah, I think also the, I'm kind of going off on a pivot here, but the, the, the maternity. care and support that you get afterwards. It feels like it's quite a short window,

whereas actually like it comes in, you need it in waves, I think. You know, you need like a concentrated period and then maybe you're okay as you're like adjusting, but then you need people back in. It shouldn't be this kind of like, oh, we're going to come and check on you and then good luck.

Yeah. And I think I agree with what you're saying. I'm very aware people have very mixed experience of maternity care. But I think when it's done well, you have someone looking after you and then you have this overwhelming sense of responsibility

that comes with suddenly you are the one who looks after your child all the time. I think what we could ideally have if we lived in this ideal world where we'd all been brought up in this way is where you just have people, a community around you,

where you're just popping in and you just have people around you for really informal support and people who can just sit on the sofa next to in silence and not need to make any effort. But I think a lot of us are trying to get to baby classes and do those things which are helpful in many ways, but it often becomes another thing to get to or an appointment with a professional to get to and everything becomes stressful because we're doing it in quite

a Western, I don't know, this time we do this, this time we do this kind of way. Whereas what we really need is that informal support back in our lives. But I guess that is true. Some people have that, but a lot of us are quite far away from that. What about the sort of scheduling part? Because I'm someone like, I can't follow my own schedule. So that aspect was I found, I mean, at the beginning I didn't, I remember someone saying, I bumped into someone I've known forever in the summer. And she was like, oh, you know, how's it going?

And Lola was like two months or something. And they said, like, what type, like, what's her bedtime routine? What time is she going to bed? And I was like, I don't know, she watches Game of Thrones with me until I'm ready for bed. And then we go to that. She was like horrified. But I just didn't, I didn't really know at the beginning. And to be honest, they just sleep all the time.

So like, she was just asleep watching Game of Thrones with me. And then now I've tried to be obviously like now I don't, I don't do that. And she needs much more of a schedule. But I have found, especially when it comes to sleep, when I've had. Oh, God, I had this person come over the other day because I got, look, and we're going into like a minefield now of like the sleep trainings. But I was struggling so much with the sleeper. I said, okay, I need to get someone in.

Someone came in and they just gave me so much information. She was like, oh, you know, your generation, they're so anxious because they have so much information. I was like, yeah, and you're giving me even more. And it made me feel like I was doing everything wrong. Everything I did was wrong. And afterwards, I was like, I've just paid someone money to just make me feel like shit.

Yeah, exactly. And also it was like this kind of weird, very unnatural. And look, loads of people swear by the sleep training. I'm still trying to like figure out how and if I'm going to do it. But it just feels very against like our instincts. And I guess the problem is we live in a world that's also against our instincts. Like we aren't living in a society that functions the way it should for proper child. like looking after a child.

Yeah. And I think you've had on so many, like, so, such important points because that structure, so many people find out of structure, I'm not a structured person. I am type B to the max. Yeah, same.

I actually went the opposite. I never read anything to do of pregnancy. I, mine was an unplanned pregnancy. So I've never really read anything. I never got prepared. And I just kind of went with the flow a bit. And I'd say up until month before, I was really just following,

my instincts. I just kept her close a lot. I carried her all the time. I didn't really listen to all the stuff. There wasn't as much stuff on Instagram then, which was a lot more helpful, I think. But then I remember meeting up with a colleague from work, and she was a lot more organized than I am. And she gave me a booklet, which she thought was really helpful. And it was just about all these rules that I hadn't been following. And I literally just had a breakdown. So I suddenly felt so I felt like I'd just been doing it all wrong, that I was making a rob from my own back, and that I thought I'd been doing so well all this time, and actually I hadn't. And then it's just, I learned of crap. Like, there's so many rules. Like, people, I feel that moms are made

to feel guilty for doing the stuff that comes most instinctual, like you're, like, feeding your child to sleep or holding them. Everything's guilty. And even when I was in hospital, which I had a relatively good experience in hospital but they wouldn't let you hold your baby through the night you had to put her in the cock and it's like they're kind of enforcing that independence from really early it's like that baby's literally been in your stomach a few hours earlier and around the area because they're trying they don't want any you know accidents happening in there I think that's the way that's a whole other yeah I guess what they encourage you to do that again goes against your maternal instincts.

But it does feel like whatever you do at the moment as a mum, you are criticised. And sadly it's often by other moms. That's what I've found to me. I mean, I feel like one of the most terrifying communities online is moms. They're brutal. The most horrible messages I've got have often been from other moms. And they'll sort of put, if I get into it with them,

they'll say, oh, you know, I'm struggling at the moment because I'm a new mom. And like, why are you attacking? Absolutely. It's just, I know that none of us are feeling particularly logical. But it is, it's sad because it's hard enough. And I feel like there's like three areas that, you know, the danger topics, which are breastfeeding, sleep, and work. Oh, yeah.

And if you're breastfeeding or formula fed, that creates. a lot of tension and that seems to be something that gets people quite irate and then to co-sleeping or sleep training yeah and then also

if you're going back to work or not going back to work I feel like like the mother's just of damned as they do and damned as they don't I think it's people often feel like

there's a right and a wrong way to do things and I just don't believe in that I feel like as millennia millennials, we're just so bombarded with all of this information, all of this way that we're going to mess up our kids, all of the stuff of how attachments should be. But I really feel like so many of us have lost our ability to tune into our instincts of what does work for us. And I'll say here that my daughter didn't really have a proper schedule until about six

months before she started school. And she just, we just did, she never seemed to really need one. and it's only been in the last year that I've actually put a proper schedule in and it actually feels really good and I really like it but I also don't want to be at the point where she can't stay up till 11 o'clock at night with me at a wedding of one of our friends

or she's half Nigerian and so in her culture it's much more kids to just be at all the parties and it's not like here where kids are in bed by 7 o'clock each night and it's like I really want to keep that freedom and flexibility but I always So now I see what the routine moms are doing because actually it's really nice to know what time they'll be going to bed on an average night.

100%. But that's the day. I think if you create something so rigid that it means that you can't also live your life. Or bound by nap times and schedules, then that's where it feels kind of that's not the kind of being parenting I want to do. We kind of squash the joy out of parenting sometimes with all of the stuff that we should be doing. And, you know, I'm not saying if you have a routine, you can still have a lot of joy in parenting. But I think so many moms in the early days are so stressed and so overwhelmed and always feeling like they're doing something wrong, always thinking about when the next thing is going to be. And we have lost our ability to be in the present because it's just so focused on rather than motherhood can be a softening experience. And it can help you soften into yourself and soften into this less capitalist way. of living where we're just, we're kind of just being.

But I think a lot of us harden temporarily, where it's just thinking about all of the stuff you should be doing all the time. Yeah, 100%. But I feel like I'm finding, yeah, like that kind of spikiness and edginess now is softening a little bit. That tends to happen when like, is it just the first year that it's just complete chaos

or does it just carry on? Yeah. So I really believe, people will disagree with me, but I really believe, don't listen to the haters, it does definitely get easier. I'd say the first year is, especially of your first child, is the hardest. When you go from having complete autonomy and freedom and your life to transitioning to being a parent of a child who you're with all the time, it gets so much easier. I think I would be absolutely lying if I said that there weren't challenges that comes with

toddlerhood and as they get older and start arguing a lot more. But it's different. Like you have so much more capacity because you have space from your child mostly. When my daughter was a baby, I just didn't really want to leave her very much. Whereas now, I don't, my daughter can go to a trusted adult. It is fine. And you get so much more space and you get to feel those different parts of your life again. And you get to be a mom when you're with your child. And I literally, there's no greater joy that I get and spending a day with my daughter when we're both on good form

we're not arguing we're just listening to music in the car singing together or doing our little errands and it's literally so beautiful for me but then you also get times where you can do something for yourself like I don't know listen to music you want to or go and have a like do something

that makes you feel good I'm training for a race at the moment or going to ecstatic dance or whatever you want to do whatever makes you feel good, but you actually have capacity to do those things again. Yeah. I say that as a mum of an only child, by the way. I'm conscious that someone with seven children would be listening to this. And someone would actually talk about.

I remember actually at the very beginning when I first had Lola, I had one of those like at-home beauty app things. And they came over to do my nails. And Lola was like in the other room with Tom and she was like, was she? She was just crying and it was just all a bit hectic. And this woman,

she looked really young and she looked great. And she kind of like looked over, kind of, this knowing kind of smile. Although actually, I thought that she maybe didn't have children. I didn't know why. And I said to her,

I was like, do you have any kids? And she was like, I got six. I was like, you have six children. You look like 30 years on. Like, we had a kind of unexpected twin situation like later on and I was like oh my goodness I just thought she's sitting there handling six kids I need to now we're done yeah I asked like get to go it's managing with managing with so be is there anything else you want to share for our for our listeners for anyone

that might be in the kind of midst of it at the moment and struggling Yeah, just what would I give some top level advice? I would say for anyone who is looking on right move regularly, I would recommend to my therapy class to try and find a way to safely activate your flight response. You are in fight or flight, and you are wanting to... That's what right move is about. Yeah, you're in your flight response, most likely,

when you're looking on right move. So what can you do to safely activate your flight response? It might just be going on a day trip somewhere different. It might be walking around the block really fast. It might be running if you're at that stage. It might be just, I used to, oh my God, when I lived in Essex, I used to just drive the same loop. It used to take 25 minutes.

I used to drive that loop to activate my flight response just over and over again. I've never actually thought about it like that. That makes perfect sense. But honestly, I feel like it really helps me. Yeah. Yeah, same. gives you a sense of control maybe that you could just leave and go to this house

which is like when I really like I'm like off we go already and just I would say whatever top level advice for someone who is in early parenthood just to I don't know you're just to loosen up

that sounds really wrong but just you will it's okay Everything won't feel as hard as it does now. And you can just take the pressure off yourself a bit. We're all going to, I don't know, lose our temper in front of our children at some point. Like, no one wants to and it feels horrible. But we can't be perfect.

And most of us, if we're like Gen Z, millennials, and I'm a millennial, and then we have our parents who were not bringing us up in the same way that we're being brought up. So we're not, like, however intentionally you are, I'm a very conscious therapist. I'm very intentional with my parenting, but I still act just like my boomer parents when I'm triggered, and I hate that about myself, but I do. And it's just learning that we can undo a lot of the stuff,

but we don't need to be responsible for undoing every trauma in our family, and our kids will still be okay. And just, yeah, try and connect with the joy more if we can. If you can find a way, just a small way in your day or week, to connect with joy with your soul, like just feeling the sun on your skin or doing something, obviously not at the moment, doing something that makes you feel good and with your child, what can you do which would just make you feel good rather than just trying to break that treadmill of parenting that so

many of us get into. Because I guess it does bring, I mean, I know it does bring more opportunities and moments of presence and joy like again and again and again and again. And I think it's just about it's such a lesson in tapping into that rather than what's next. What do we need to do? What's like the schedule looking like? What's the feeding looking like? What's the napping?

Like to actually just be. And that's something that I, yeah, I'm trying to do more of. But so thank you so much for joining us. It's been, yeah, it's helped me a lot and I'm sure it will help a lot of our listeners. It's been such a pleasure to be here and I love chatting with you. And how can everyone find you? So you can find me on my Instagram account, which is Looking After Mum, looking after Mum, looking after Mum. And you can find me on my website and how to work with me at www.

www. looking after mum.com.com. Perfect. Thank you so much. Nice to speak to you. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode and to the Kendal family for making it possible. As always, remember, you are not alone. Goodbye.