The Competitive Mum

They have tales of how well behaved their child is and how they never ever cry and even though they’re only 17 weeks old they can already recite the alphabet not only in the correct order but also backwards whilst standing on their head and tidying up all their toys at the same time.

Ok so that might be a slight exaggeration but why do some women insist on making other mums feel bad? Like they’re a bad parent if their child suddenly starts crying for no apparent reason whilst you’re in the supermarket or because you have some baby food stains on your jeans and one tiny hair is out of place.

Yesterday my husband and I were in town doing some shopping and a colleague of mine, well someone that works for the same company as I do but whom I haven’t spoken to or seen since we both worked in the same department together about 2 years ago bumps into us with her 17 week old baby girl. After saying hello and getting the pleasantries out of the way the first thing she said to me was: 

“Do you breast feed? Oh I can’t live without it!”

This then leads to me having to explain that the twins were born early and were in incubators being ventilated and surrounded by many other machines so breast feeding wasn’t an option, however I did express my milk for them and they had that exclusively for around 2 months (which is pretty damn good considering I had two mouths to feed) but sadly they didn’t take to breast feeding because they were so little when born that the warmth of my skin on theirs simply meant they would drift off to sleep and quite frankly they didn’t have enough energy to so much as suck a breath of air in let alone suck milk from me. 

Another favourite of mine is when asked if the twins sleep at night. 

“No, they spend most of the night partying and when they’re not running around dancing to drum and bass they’re climbing up the curtains pretending to be a monkey running away from a rhino.”

Of course they sleep at night. That, however doesn’t mean they sleep all night. They wake for a cuddle or a dummy to be put back in or just because they were quite happy lying lengthways across the bed with their bum in your face and one foot either side of your head but now they’re not happy because you’ve moved them into a more ‘traditional’ sleeping position. 

The child who never cries is another one until the mum changed her mind and says well they never cry unless they want something. To me that’s the only reason a child cries. Whether they want feeding, a cuddle or just because they know crying is loud and after while can start to grate but all the same they want to because they can and they will! 

No child is perfect. Of course I think my children are perfect but at 5am when a little hand is patting me on the forehead I sometimes think otherwise!

Lets stop the mummy competition, lets be honest and most importantly let’s support each other.