Niamh O'Reilly

HANDS UP IF, as a new mum, you were told, “Enjoy every minute,” while you simultaneously sported dark circles under your eyes so large that it was probably clear from the International Space Station that you were, in fact, not enjoying every moment of the newborn phase.

In reality, you may have felt more like a Marine who was being put through an extreme sleep deprivation challenge, only to find out there was no medal waiting for you at the end.

Well-wishers who lob out phrases like this to new parents, of course, mean nothing but the best. However, when you are functioning on zero sleep, have a colicky baby, are finding breastfeeding a challenge, or have a disgruntled toddler thrown into the mix, gushing about the sheer and constant joy of new motherhood is often a step too far into toxic positivity territory.

Telling an exhausted new parent, who wonders if they will ever sleep or feel like themselves again, that they should lap up every single second of this endurance test with nothing but delight, risks invalidating what they might really be feeling. And I hate to break this to you, but some days it’s not the unbridled nonstop joy train you assume it is from the outside.

‘Precious moments’

Clichéd phrases like this are used to remind parents to cherish those precious, fleeting early years and even shame those who don’t. However, I’d argue statements like these need to be flung in the bin forever, along with some other hackneyed gems such as- “sleep when the baby sleeps,” or “enjoy the newborn bubble,” or “wait until he/she is a teenager, you’ll look back on the newborn phase and wish you were there,” which are not just irritating; they are tone-deaf most of the time.

Someone who sounds as if she is as fed up fielding these comments as the rest of us is Vogue Williams. In September, she gave birth to her fourth child, a son, Remy Valentine, and has recently been making her way back to small bits and pieces of work, including her podcast with Joanne McNally, My Therapist Ghosted Me.

In a recent episode, she told listeners that while she was delighted to bring her new baby everywhere with her, she was tired of hearing the same old worn-out story about the complete and constant joy of motherhood.

“For people telling me to enjoy him, I am enjoying him, and I know that the days are long, but the years are short. Stop saying that to every new mother when we’re completely wrecked,” she told listeners.

True to form and quick as a wink, her co-host, Joanne McNally, replied, “Oh yeah, they’re saying enjoy the sleep deprivation and the tit-mastitis, because we’ll all be dead soon.”

“I can’t believe the comments haven’t changed either. It’s like Jesus Christ, can we come up with something new please?” Vogue said, adding, “We are enjoying them. We’re enjoying them as much as we humanly possibly can, but you also have to enjoy yourself too.”

Like her or loathe her, Williams was spot on. Why are we still pretending that getting up for the umpteenth time at stupid o’clock in the morning for weeks on end is a joyous thing to celebrate and file in your memory bank under ‘good times’? Why can’t new mothers safely acknowledge that sometimes it’s so bloody exhausting or overwhelming that they can’t enjoy it, nor should they have to.

Parents need to be able to say these things out loud without being met with shame or tut-tutting by the why-did-you-have-children-if-all-you-do-is-complain brigade. By pushing a Lego movie-style narrative of everything is awesome all the time in new motherhood, all we’re doing is piling on the mum guilt from the get-go for those who don’t, and trust me, there are bucketfuls of guilt waiting for them down the road. They don’t need to feel it from the outset.

What parents actually need

What exhausted parents, who might not be loving every moment of their new reality really need to hear is that two things can be true at the same time. You can feel burned out by the demands of early motherhood, but you can also love your baby. So why don’t we tell them that more often, rather than pretend every moment is joy on steroids? Because hearing it really does matter.

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I can remember my mother’s neighbour running out to the car to give me a new baby gift a couple of weeks after I’d given birth for the first time. To me, she seemed like she was a glamorous, well-put-together young mum, with two brilliant boys. As I struggled with the car seat, and my emotions, which were already overwhelmed by new motherhood, I remember wondering if I’d ever get to the point where she seemed to be at. Well rested, happy and pretty much flying it.

I turned to face her and prepared myself for the litany of familiar questions and statements I’d heard over the last few weeks from family members and strangers – “Is he sleeping for you? Are you doing breast or bottles? Is he a good baby? You’re so lucky. The days are long, but the years are short. Enjoy every moment” and so on.

But to my surprise, she looked at me, clearly clocking the giant dark circles under my eyes, slightly crazed hair and pale complexion, and put her arm on my shoulder and simply said, “If you can just get through these next three weeks or so, I promise it will get so much better.”

I could have cried. It was exactly what I needed to hear in the moment. Pure honesty with a hint of hope, from someone who had done it and survived. It was one of the few times in that newborn phase when someone told me, it’s okay not to be happy right now. She made me feel seen and validated my reality, instead of giving me the standard positivity script: “You should love every moment of new motherhood, isn’t it great, and so on.”

It’s only with hindsight I realise that this woman was probably not ‘well rested, happy and flying it’; she was simply in another phase of motherhood with its own invisible challenges I didn’t yet grasp. And while I didn’t want to hear it in the moment, I now fully understand the expression, ‘the days are long, but the years are short,’ especially as my firstborn hurtles towards 10.

But as much as I’m now able to look back on those foggy early days of motherhood and wonder how I got through the absurdity of it all, I know simply pretending it was all easy street at the time was not in any way helpful.

Yes, the days are long, and the years are short, but maybe today isn’t the day to remind that tired or burned-out new mum of that fact; maybe today is the day you tell her she’ll get through this phase and things will get easier.