Áine with her beautiful baby girl Ava.
Hi everyone. This week is all about what actually happened in those early weeks of maternity leave; where adjusting to a very different working day was a lot different than I had expected.
Paid months off work, days of fun with your bundle of joy and all the time in the world to plan adventures. Sounds easy, but when you add the feeding, changing, entertaining, crying, sleeping, lack of sleep, it’s a lot more work than you might think.
by Aine Lafferty
I had so many plans for maternity leave. I couldn’t wait to dive right in and be the super mum I’d imagined in my head. Although I had the best 9 months off work, the early days of maternity leave were a lot different to what I had expected.
Some of these might sound familiar:
“I’m going to have a really productive day tomorrow’’- On those days I was usually still in my baby vomit stained PJ’s at 2pm.
1 Sleepless night, still in my pj’s and finally enjoying some breakfast. It’s 2pm!
“I’ll get all the dishes, washing and cleaning done when little one is napping’’: The dishes can wait. Facebook, Instagram and online shopping were far more important.
“I might get into a new TV series with all this time at home’’: The closest I got to a TV series was Jeremey Kyle playing in the background as I did those dishes that had been lying there for two….or three days.
“I’m going to explore so much of London’’: I walked to the same three parks most days and very rarely ventured any further because that involves planning.
“I’m going to be so busy and I’ll have things planned everyday’’ :Yes, I was busy but doing something every day gets expensive so maternity leave can get lonely at times. Some days I didn’t leave the house and I counted down the hours until Will got home so I could a) have some adult conversation again b) I could hand over and have some me time.
“I’m not going to be one of those snap happy mums’’:I spent a good half hour most days taking selfies with Ava and uploaded daily photos on social media. #proudparent
2 There’s always time for selfies
“I can’t wait to make mum friends and have weekly lunch and playdates” :Making new friends was harder than I thought. You need to make a lot of effort and put yourself out there. Side note: Playdates and wine are a great combination.
“I’ll have the house cleaned and Will’s dinner made for when he gets home” : I was good at multi-tasking, but not that good. Poor Will.
“I wonder what ‘work from home’ jobs I can do. Then I’ll never have to go back to work” : I didn’t want maternity leave to finish however, I did quickly realise that being a stay at home mum is probably the hardest job ever.
I’m sure some of the above will sound familiar to those of you who have been on maternity leave.
Oh, to have those days back.
Until next week,
Thanks for reading. Have a lovely weekend.
Áine x
