What is parental burnout?Parental burnout is what happens when you’re working too hard for too long at being a good parent and it all becomes too much. It is a lack of balance between demands and rewards of parenting. Parental burnout has three features; 1) Physical and emotional exhaustion, 2) Feeling emotional distance from your children due to the exhaustion and therefore only interacting on a functional level and 3) Feeling that you are not doing a good job of being a parent. These are all things that can happen to us all for short periods but the problem is when it becomes a long term issue. Why does parental burnout happen?You might expect that income, number of children and...
Mere days or even hours after hearing those initial cries of your firstborn and it inevitably begins. Someone’s baby is “easiest”, sleepiest, biggest, the best feeder. There’s nothing like hearing other new mums around you discuss their 6 week old sleeping through the night to make you feel like a failure. One mother feels she is accused of making a rod for her own back by co-sleeping while eyebrows are raised as another is viewed as heartless for pursuing a strict routine. The competitive parenting can begin from day one and is such a shock for new parents who until this moment have gone about their daily lives without constant judgment and evaluation. Social evaluation in this highly personal but...
When I was pregnant with my first child I had so many ideas of what life as a mother would be like. 3 children later it’s not quite as I imagined…… Expectations for sleep My baby would sleep and if not I’d read a book and do some effective sleep training and they’d sleep through early. Reality Nope. I’ve not even read a single parenting book. Surely the answer is on Mumsnet? Nope. Turns out there is no answer. Only survival. Some of mine slept, one didn’t, and I treated them all the same. Expectations for feeding They’d all be breastfed but happily take bottles too so I’d be able to get my freedom back pretty fast. Reality I've...
