03/02/2019

Mum guilt

Isn't mum guilt just the worst?!

Peyton is crawling now which is fab, but also a living nightmare. She is everywhere and in everything. I tried to go for a wee one morning last week - obvs had to leave the door open so I could see what she was doing - and she face planted one of her toys and made her mouth bleed. Honestly, I've never leapt off the loo so fast in my life.


This bloody robot that she was playing with: she's obsessed with it! But when she plays with it she can be so rough. She hits it, pushes it over, kicks it - she's a proper brute! And when she was playing with it this morning she pushed it over with such force that she fell on top of it and bashed her pretty, little face.

I felt horrendous.

She cried but as soon as I picked her up she stopped. And once she caught sight of herself in the mirror she was smiling and giggling away. Little creep.


But it didn't stop me feeling guilty. I don't know why,  because even if I'd been sat next to her chances are she'd have still done it. Yet mum guilt is something that hits you at the weirdest of times, over the weirdest of things.

This week she's started pulling herself up to stand at stuff. She learnt it on Monday (shortly after the face planting robot incident) when she was playing with her activity table. She'd been kneeling at it for a few days, then started bending one knee as if she were popping the question, and, literally, before I knew it she was standing up.


Since then I can't take my eyes off her for a second.

Our coffee table is now devoid of its actual purpose and is simply a balancing table for her. I can't put anything on it that I don't want to end up in her mouth.

She got a bit too brave on Friday night and decided to let go, with both hands, at the same time! She lasted maybe a couple of seconds before she face planted the carpet. Cue more mum guilt.


She's become hard as nails this week with all her tumbles; she doesn't even cry anymore. I just ask if she's ok and nine out of 10 times she flashes me this really cheeky smile.

We really need to get some stair gates but I need Tom to be home to check I've measured everything right.

Mum guilt is honestly the shittest thing in the world. You're forever feeling guilty for every little thing. That you're not parenting well enough, questioning your decisions and whether you're a good mum...it's a dangerous rabbit hole to go down.

Not only am I feeling it at the moment from all the tumbles P has been taking, but because it's creeping closer to me going back to work.


I can't believe I have had over eight months off already!! Four weeks tomorrow, though, I go back to work; and Peyton will go into nursery three days a week.

I don't feel guilty as such for putting her in nursery because I know she'll have the best time. She's got a really obsession with other kids at the moment, she just gets so excited when she sees them and is desperate to be off. We went out last weekend and she saw a little girl and went racing over to her. She did stop in her tracks when she got to her, I don't think she'd thought through what she was going to do!

But I know she'll love having other children to play with all day. And playing is just her favourite thing! She would play with her toys all day, everyday.


No, the guilt is more that I will be going back to work full time and not spending all my time with her. I know every mum who goes back to work after maternity leave must feel the same; but it doesn't make it any easier on any of us.

We go from spending every waking minute with them, logging every single milestone they meet and getting to be there for all of their firsts, to only seeing them for a few hours morning and night.

Just when I feel like I'm (finally) getting us into a routine, it's all going to change again. I know I'm worrying about nothing, but that realisation doesn't make it any easier.


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