00:02I think, I think sharing and being honest as a mum is the best thing you could ever
00:07give to other people, other mums in particular. So in my book, I do it in my blogs as well,
00:13but in the book especially, I was just, I just thought let's just share it, let's just
00:17get it all out there. And if I don't like it at the end, if I don't, if I think
00:20I don't
00:21want to put that in, I don't feel comfortable people knowing that, then I can just take
00:24it out. And actually I got to the end and I just thought I want all of it in there
00:28because
00:28that's the complete picture. And I think it's all very well us showing little snippets of
00:33our lives. But the point of my book is to let people know that we're all in it together
00:38and that we're all struggling. And yeah, I just think we all feel judged and we all feel
00:42like we're failing all the time and we're not. We're getting it right because we care.
00:46I think being married to Tom is a tricky one because I think I've all, as far as like the
00:53public have known, we've always been together. So like Tom was in the public eye and I was
00:58his partner. So I don't feel like I'm someone that's kind of swooped in and I'm the girl
01:03that he met at school. So I'm therefore approachable, I guess in that way. Yeah, I guess that, no,
01:11I've never really found that there's an extra pressure. I think I was so relieved when I
01:15started being honest and being open to get the response back that actually it didn't matter
01:22what, you know, what that extra bit of limelight meant. I don't think it actually meant anything.
01:26If anything, it made us kind of go, actually, we're all just mums and we're all just doing
01:31the best we can. And I do think there's so much judgment these days and people feel like
01:35there is a right way to parent and that all of us are getting it wrong. But if we're all
01:40in it together, holding our hands up and saying, I don't know what I'm doing, then yeah, I just,
01:45I just think it's so powerful. It's all supporting each other. And dads too, you know, so many dads
01:51now are a huge part of bringing up children. It's not like it used to be where dads go back
01:56to work
01:57and they don't have anything to do with it. They're much more involved. So yeah, it's for everyone
02:01to kind of go, this is fine. It's fine to be finding it difficult. Someone said it to me
02:04scientifically the other day is because you're constantly on the go as a mum and even when you
02:08go to sleep, you never really stop for long enough so that your body can start going really
02:12quite quickly. Whereas if you have that 10 hours sleep, it's kind of like you've been stopped and
02:16you need to like re-boot yourself. So I'm going with that theory. So I'm just never stopped.
02:20So Buddy is one and Buzz is almost three. Well, he will be three by the time this goes up.
02:26Yeah. And Buddy still wakes up in the night. Sometimes once, sometimes a bit more of his teething.
02:31At the moment he's got a croup, so he's got a cough that sounds like a barking dog, which is
02:36horrible.
02:36So he was in our bed last night just so I could keep an eye on him. But you just,
02:39you just never know.
02:40You just never know what you're in for. It's that thing. You get to bed at night and you're like,
02:42good luck. I've made a lot of women cry. Something that I wasn't prepared for at all.
02:48I really wasn't. So many mums come over and they just literally weep in my arms.
02:54And it makes me really emotional because for me, I think I use my social media to help me realise
03:01that I'm not alone. But then I don't really realise that I'm making them feel like they're not alone
03:06as well. And yeah, it's just lovely. It's so emotional.
03:09Well, yeah, the good thing is that my boys now go to bed at seven. So a lot of the
03:13time
03:13I get to my computer at seven and I start writing. It used to be that I finished at 10.
03:18It started
03:18getting creeping up and up and up to midnight. But when I'm feeding Buddy at night, I've got
03:23my phone and I can write. I find most of my hello blogs are written when I'm breastfeeding
03:26at night time. Just because I find it really easy to kind of write at that time. I keep myself
03:31awake.
03:32But yeah, definitely the time where they're asleep is the best hump you can write. I once
03:37got told that an author friend of mine, by another friend, I got told that she wrote one
03:41book that I absolutely love while her baby was really, really young. And she used to put
03:45the baby in the bouncer and she used to just be able to tap it with its foot. So I
03:50had these
03:50ideas that that is what it was going to be like for me. And it wasn't. I tried and it
03:54just
03:54didn't work. My baby was too alert and needed mummy huggles, mummy cuddles. But yeah, for
04:02me it's literally about snatching time where I can. So there's a textbook to tell you, loads
04:07of textbooks to tell you how to raise your child. And I studied them all. I studied every
04:11single one. And then point by point as I got it wrong, as this didn't work, that didn't
04:16work, I just felt like I was failing, failing, failing, failing. And I wasn't listening to
04:20my natural instincts. And that's what we've all got to start doing, I think. I feel like
04:25we should be able to share so that we can just gather support. Because yeah, I think
04:29that you go through so many things as a mum and you think you're the only one going through
04:33it. I can remember when Buddy, when Buzz was really, really small, just finding it really
04:38overwhelming. You know, it's a completely new stage in my life. And all Buzz could do was
04:42cry. And I just felt like I didn't have a material bone in my body. You know, I just didn't
04:47know what I was doing. And I think if someone else had told me that that's perfectly normal
04:53and that everyone goes through it, I'd have felt a lot calmer. So I hope by me sharing
04:58that, even though it might make people go, oh no, you know, people that don't know or
05:02haven't experienced it, if I can make a hand for the mums feel like they're not alone, then
05:07that's great. Because we all know post-notive depression and everything like that, it's
05:11such a huge topic and we should just share. I think sharing is just a major part of that.
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