Motherhood is a journey filled with immeasurable joys, but it's also a role that comes with a hidden weight – the mental load. Beyond the visible responsibilities of childcare and household tasks, mums often carry an intricate web of emotional, organisational, and mental challenges. The concept of the mental load sheds light on the cognitive labour that goes into managing every aspect of a family's life, and understanding and addressing it is crucial for the well-being of mums.

When we first have our baby, it can take up to the first 12 weeks postpartum for us to ‘survive’, with many learnings along the way about how best to care for your baby. Once we start coming out the other side of the first number of weeks, it is really common for mothers to feel lost and unsure of who you are anymore. The mundaneness of caring for a baby can be all consuming and you wonder where the old you has gone.

We have moved through hundreds of years of traditions and rituals around death in our cultures, yet one of the things we haven’t gotten good at in our society is talking about it. But in life, comes death. One of the best things we can do is talk about it, because it is part of life, and it will affect all of us at some point, and to some degree.

In this blog we will look at why emotional meltdowns in young children occur, ways that we can prevent it or minimise the severity and frequency, the different schools of thought in parental management of tantrums, and how we can cope with the triggers our children’s behaviour can cause for us.

Most women experience significant changes in their relationship with their partner after having a baby. For some it lasts months, for others years. For many it can come as a complete surprise. Did you find that you started bickering and arguing after having a baby where this didn’t exist before?

Research tells us that mother guilt can come from our own personal insecurities, especially if we have experiences from our childhood or early adulthood that made us feel that we weren’t worthy, that we weren’t good enough.

It started in my studies of psychology and social work some almost 30 years ago when I learned about attachment parenting and the emotional and psychological benefits of this for babies and children. I’ve worked with mums of young children for all of my career so I’ve seen the struggles that come with parenting, especially in relation to managing the behaviours that children challenge us with. I’ve faced it myself with my own children.

Mothers over the years have told me so many things that impact their mental health regarding the changes of their body after having a baby. Mostly, it’s the failures of the system, the change in size and shape of their body, not being able to exercise, or lacking motivation. It can result in great feelings of dissatisfaction, self loathing, and being hyper critical of yourself. Read more to see how you can support yourself while you learn to accept your new body.

Mums find they are faced with criticism and judgement even before conceiving a baby, during pregnancy and following birth. As a mum of teenagers, I’ve either experienced or witnessed criticism and judgement at all levels. I find it incredibly frustrating. We need more kindness and support!

Baby-led weaning is a way of introducing solid foods that allows babies to feed themselves. The baby sits with the family at mealtimes and joins in and feeds him or herself with the same food as the family eats. It is a totally different approach to feeding babies pureed foods on a spoon. Let’s have a look at what the research says about why it’s a great idea.

Screaming, clinging to you, pulling on your clothes, legs, arms, climbing on you, holding out their arms and getting pulled away while crying…. sound familiar?

This was a big topic in the Mama Village mothers groups when we explored four typical styles of parenting, and reflected on which style our parents used.

Postnatal depression and anxiety can be diagnosed up until your baby turns 12 months of age, so it’s important to be aware of the symptoms in case you develop it later (or even to be helpful to another mum who might be experiencing some of these symptoms).

Dealing with toddlers lying is really tricky because it is something that naturally occurs with all children, but it can really push our buttons. Honesty is often a core value most parents have for their families, and one we try hard to teach our children.

Two big things are happening for mums that make being a new mum just plain hard.

Is your return to work looming? Child care has been organised. Tick. But your first day of work feels like a day of doom coming. How do you deal with the thought that you won’t be there to comfort your baby when he’s crying, that they might let him cry for longer than you would at home, and that he’ll now have to rely on someone else other than you?

The transition into motherhood for most mums can be an isolating and lonely time. Even mums who have worked with babies and children in their careers before motherhood can find it a challenging time.

We all need to get stuff done, right? It might be the errands at a shopping centre, or it could be grocery shopping. Trying to do so with babies and toddlers in tow is definitely not easy.

When I read back through my notes from the early days of breastfeeding, a few big things stand out – my desire to breastfeeding because I believed it was the normal and natural way to feed a baby, my misconception that breastfeeding would be easy, the conflicting advice I received, and the pain and subsequent emotional upheaval I went through.

Are you a stay at home mum? Who stays at home? Who has all day to get stuff done, yet suddenly it is almost dinner time, your partner is about to walk through the door and the place is a tip? The guilt sets in.