Letters From a Mum With Older Kids (To the Mums in the Baby and Toddler Years)

When my kids were babies and toddlers I spent a lot of time thinking I was doing everything wrong... I am guessing like most new mums.
Those early years were loud, messy and overwhelming in ways nobody had quite prepared me for... it came as a shock to me and I don't think I was prepared for it.
I loved my children obviously, but I also felt constantly exhausted and unsure of myself, some days felt like survival more than motherhood... again I think that is like that for most new mums.

There were days I counted down the minutes until bedtime, only to collapse on the couch wondering if I had been patient enough, present enough, calm enough. Even though in my mind I knew other mums were feeling like I did.. I remember watching other mums when we were at the park or a play centre and they just seemed to be doing it all so naturally and quietly wondering why it felt so hard for me.

Now my kids are older...the house is calmer, there are fewer toys on the floor, fewer tantrums in the supermarket and fewer nights spent pacing the hallway with a baby who refuses to sleep and with that space has come something I didn’t have back then and that's perspective.

Sometimes I find myself thinking about those early years and wishing I could go back for just a moment, not to relive them, but to gently whisper a few things to the version of me who was right in the middle of it.
So if you’re a mum with babies or toddlers right now, this is what I would tell you.

Dear Mum Who Feels Like She’s Failing

You’re not, those early years are intense, you’re learning how to care for tiny humans while also trying to figure out who you are in this new version of life. It’s okay if you don’t feel like you have it all together.

None of us did.

Dear Mum Who Feels Touched Out and Exhausted

It won’t always feel this way I promise you, one day your children will sit beside you instead of climbing on top of you and they’ll pour their own cereal, get themselves dressed and walk into school with their backpacks slung over their shoulders. You’ll suddenly realise you have both hands free again.

And it will feel strange.

Dear Mum Who Thinks She Isn’t Doing Enough

You are doing more than you realise, the snacks you cut up, the stories you read, the cuddles you give when they’re upset, the patience you somehow find at the end of a long day.

Those things might feel small right now, but they are quietly building your child’s entire world.

Dear Mum Who Is Worried She’ll Miss These Years

You probably will but maybe not in the way people talk about, you might not miss the sleepless nights or the constant noise. But you might miss the small arms wrapping around your legs, the way they mispronounced words or how they reached for your hand without thinking.

The moments you’re living now are becoming memories, even if they don’t feel magical in the middle of them.

Dear Mum Who Feels Like It’s All Going Too Slowly

One day you’ll blink and it will feel like it all went too quickly, you’ll find old photos of messy highchairs, prams and tiny shoes and wonder how so much time passed.. As everyone always says... the days might feel long right now, but the years truly do move faster than you expect.

If I could go back and give my younger self one piece of advice, it would be this: You don’t have to be a perfect mum.

Your children don’t need perfect days, perfect routines or perfectly calm moments, they just need you. The mum who shows up again tomorrow, even when today felt hard, because even on the messy days, the loud days and the exhausting days, something meaningful is still being built.

Love and that turns out to be the thing they remember most.

Love from a mum who is well and truly past this stage of life.