To the exhausted mom who is overwhelmed, frustrated, tired, and even unhappy, let my experience encourage and uplift you.
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I have a confession … I feel like a fraud. A hypocrite. A big fat liar.
I’m The Merry Momma. My tagline is “Embracing Motherhood with Peace, Joy, and Intention.” On my blog, I encourage other moms to be joyful, to enjoy the season they’re in. My whole blog centers around the concept of joyful mothering.
But I have to be honest that there’s been a lot of joy missing in my mothering these last few weeks. When Andrew was first born, I was relieved that I didn’t have the bonding troubles I had with my first baby. But adding a second child and juggling the needs and meltdowns of a toddler and a newborn have really challenged me. And I’m ready to come clean and admit to you all that I have not been the merriest momma.
I had forgotten just how hard new mom exhaustion is. I am longing with every fiber of my being for a full night’s sleep, or even just several hours in a row. Weeks on end of interrupted sleep is HARD. And that kind of exhaustion makes it reallllly difficult to be pleasant and patient the next day.
Then there’s my 2 year old … Until Andrew’s birth, he was a relatively easy toddler, as far as toddlers go. Since bringing Andrew home, however, we’ve seen fits and tantrums all over the place. Fits when I can’t play with him, fits when I tell him no, and even fits when I give him exactly what he asks for!
Related Post: 7 Things I Wish I Had Known Before My Second Baby
Dealing with the temper tantrums all day long on top of taking care of the needs of a fussy newborn who fights sleep has about sent me over the edge a few times. They’ve cried … I’ve cried … we’ve had our share of not-so-pretty moments.
I’ve had moments when I thought, “I cannot do this anymore. I don’t want to do this anymore.” I’ve even had moments when I wished I hadn’t had another baby. And then I’ve been wracked with guilt because I wanted a second child. I prayed for a second child. I had felt a calling to the sacred role of intentional motherhood. And these moments of discontentment led me to believe that I must be failing the task I had eagerly accepted from God.
Related Post: Flip Your Mom Script: Replacing Negative Thoughts With Biblical Truth
I didn’t want to tell anyone just how much I was struggling. I often mention that we want more children, and I figured people would think, “If she can’t even handle two, she’s not cut out to have more.” I also didn’t want to share my struggles because I didn’t want to sound like I don’t love my kids. And thirdly, I didn’t share my struggles because … well… I’m building a blog around being a Merry Momma, and that’s just not good advertising!
So why am I sharing this now?
Because I know that I’m not the only mom that has ever felt this way after a new baby. The sleepless nights, the crying, the tantrums, the constant needs that must be met. They’re hard. They are SO hard. And finding joy in the midst of it all is a tremendous challenge. Even when you’ve been longing and praying for that baby.
I’m sharing my struggles and my failures because I recognize that there is no such thing as a perfect mom, and I don’t want my blog to be whitewashed. Motherhood is tough. It takes everything you’ve got and then asks for more. I try very hard to be a loving, joyful mother, but I don’t always act like it. I mess up. I yell, I cry, I long for simpler days when no one needed me.
But I also know that bad days do not make bad moms, as the saying goes. This transition has been difficult, and I haven’t always handled myself as gracefully or patiently as I had hoped I would, but I’ve had some really good moments, too. I have remained calm in the face of some serious tantrum-throwing. I have hugged when I felt like hitting (don’t tell me you’ve never had that urge!), laughed when I felt like screaming, and thanked God for my children when I felt like sending them back. I have managed to feed, clothe, diaper, cuddle, and talk to them every day. And even though I haven’t always been successful, I continue to try to appreciate each day and savor the season I’m in, knowing that it will be gone before I know it.
To the exhausted mom who is overwhelmed, frustrated, tired, and even unhappy, I hear you and I empathize. Know that your feelings do not dictate who you are. You may have bad days and negative thoughts, but that does not mean you are a bad mom. It means … well … it means you’re a mom! Pick yourself up, dust off your pants, and remember that tomorrow is a new day! You can do this! WE can do this!!
**Note: One thing that has helped me tremendously as an exhausted mom is the book Real Moms…Real Jesus
Recommended Reading:
- When You’re Not the Mom You Want to Be
- 10 Life-Giving Mom Affirmations (When You Feel Like a Failure)
- Flip Your Mom Script: Replacing Negative Thoughts With Biblical Truth
- 6 Steps to Freedom From Mom Guilt
- 10 Ways to Refuel Your Mom Tank Every Day
- 7 Calm Down Strategies For Moms
This is a great post, not only because it’s so relatable but because it opens a dialogue toward mothers being able to admit without shame that motherhood is hard. So many moms are walking around right now in a toxic state of shame and embarrassment because they can’t be perfect all the time and they mess up in ways they wish they hadn’t, or because sometimes they’re outright sorry they took on the job of motherhood in the first place. But I think it’s important to be open about how hard this job is on the spirit and the heart, and there’s no better way to do that than with compassion. <3
“being able to admit without shame” – yes! We go at it alone much too often because we’re afraid of what other moms might think. If we all just started being more honest, we would all be a lot better moms.
Yes a thousand times to all of this. I struggled with many of these feelings, too, especially when #2 was tiny and #1 was still adjusting. It did get easier as #2 got older… and then hard again when she learned how to crawl and then walk!
We don’t have one set emotion—and think of how boring that would be anyway! It’s absurd to expect moms to be happy 100% of the time. We’re human beings in addition to being superheroes (haha!), and that means we have off days – or weeks.
Your sharing this gives other mothers the space to feel like they are ok, too. Way to go, Mama.
PS – My blog has an entire category dedicated to the hard parts of motherhood. You are so not alone! And for double reassurance, this is my post about how mothering 2 kids DOES get easier: http://tenthousandhourmama.com/2016/05/16/raising-two-kids-gets-easier/
Thank you for sharing! Your post was lovely, and very reassuring! I love that you said you wish you could show the mom you were during the newborn phase how well-adjusted you became. I think we all just need to cut ourselves some slack those first few months, don’t we? 🙂
Fantastic refreshing post. It’s hard to admit that motherhood isn’t always what we thought it would be. It’s hard enough to have the feelings of regret or wondering how to handle it all. But then to have the guilt and shame, like Brandi mentioned on top of it is such a heavy weight to bear. Letting anyone realize you feel this way is so taboo in our society it just adds insult to injury. Now as I am starting to enter the teen years with my oldest the joy sucking is anew. I might still be sleeping at night, until the going out late begins, but it’s a different kind of tired.
It is a heavy weight to bear! I shared in my post When You Don’t Bond With Your New Baby how alone and flawed I felt when I didn’t form an immediate bond with my first baby. After I came out the other side of that struggle, I determined then and there that I was going to do whatever I could to make sure the new moms I knew didn’t feel like something was wrong with them. If more moms were honest about the good AND the bad in motherhood, we would all be better off!
This must of been written for me! I’ve been struggling to live out my blog tag line: finding balance, joy, and strength- and I appear not to have any of them this past few weeks neither. Thank you for the empathy, I think I just needed to stumble onto your site today! Blessings sister!
I’m so glad I could offer some solidarity. 🙂 Thank you for sharing!
Lisa,
What a great posts. I love posts like these that really tell it like it is. I struggle all the time with stress.
I learned that I’m stressed because I’m tired. Knowing this has helped me shape up my sleeping patterns so that I am not exhausted by midday.
I also learned that I live in the future a lot. I stress about what will happen or could happen and I know as moms that’s just what we do (don’t climb that high! You’re going to fall!).
I try to live in the moment now but it’s hard! Thanks for the tips.
I agree that my stress is often worse when I’m tired. Before I had Andrew I was working on going to bed earlier, and I was feeling so much better. Getting enough sleep is difficult with a newborn, but I know I’ll get it again one of these days!! 🙂
Lisa! Oh thank you for sharing this. I too blog a lot about mamahood and the hard parts of it. Just because it’s the best job in the world doesn’t mean it’s not hard, stressful or utterly exhausting! Do you think you suffer/ed with PPD? I have with both my babies (and love to share encouragement about it) and it’s NO joke. We Mamas need to support each other through these times instead of judging each other and being afraid to share because of the judgement. Thank you for sharing even tho you had that fear, too! I’m sure you are going to help many mamas in the future with this post! <3
Oh my goodness, thank you for the encouragement, Tiffany! That is my sincere hope – that my story will encourage other moms to be honest with themselves and each other.
I don’t know if it was PPD, but I definitely had a difficult time adjusting after each baby. I had a harder time after my first, which I talked about in my posts, When You Don’t Bond With Your New Baby and . What saved me after Andrew’s birth was knowing from experience that it would get better and I would readjust.
Thank you again for your kind comment. Feel free to leave a comment with a couple of your best posts about PPD! It would be a great added resource to this post.