Welcome to the Club
There’s something nice about people around you having babies after you.
Not because you suddenly become an expert. You absolutely do not.
But because they start saying things you remember thinking and you realise, oh. So it wasn’t just me.
The exhaustion.
The guilt.
The feeling that you should be enjoying it more while simultaneously counting down until bedtime.
The guilt about the older sibling when the baby needs you all day.
Apparently, we all feel that one too.
It’s also quite satisfying being validated for the things people probably thought you were being a bit ridiculous about the first time around.
Like being a complete routine and schedule nazi.
It wasn’t because I enjoyed having a timetable. It was because I knew what happened when a baby got overtired.
A crying, screaming baby. An exhausted mum. Everyone wondering why we’d bothered leaving the house.
So yes, I was protecting nap time.
I stand by it.
Having kids also changes how you talk to people who are about to have them.
Before kids, you say things like, “Enjoy every second.”
Now you know better.
You also learn not to give pregnant women a full briefing on every difficult part of motherhood. There’s no point. They’ll find out soon enough.
And when they do, you can actually be useful.
Not with “just wait until…”
Not with advice they didn’t ask for.
Just, “Yep. Same.”
Or, “That’s really fucking hard.”
Or, “You’re not doing anything wrong.”
Because once you’ve been in it, you know.
You know what it’s like to be awake at 2am feeding a baby and wondering if every other mother on earth is also awake.
Probably.
Somewhere, there’s always another mum feeding, settling, pacing, checking the monitor and quietly praying for sleep.
And I think that’s one of the strangest parts of motherhood.
There are women you’ve never met, living completely different lives, who are doing the exact same thing you are.
You just know.
And when someone around you has a baby, suddenly you get to be validated in the things you thought were just your thing.
And you get to give that validation back.
No judgement.
No “I told you so.”
Just a mutual understanding that sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s completely fucked, and quite often it’s both at the same time.