Many mums feel like a bad mum because of the impossible expectations placed on mothers, combined with an inner critic that turns ordinary hard moments into proof of failure. Motherhood has no performance reviews and no way to get it all right, so the question "what could I have done better?" rarely switches off. Feeling like a bad mum is very common, and it usually says more about how much you care than about how you're actually doing. Learning the difference between guilt an

The two lines appear, and everyone expects you to be overjoyed. And maybe part of you is. But mostly you feel braced. Frightened. Unable to let yourself believe it might work out this time. Where other people seem to get an innocent, hopeful pregnancy, you got the one where you already know, in your body, exactly what can go wrong. If pregnancy after a loss feels more like holding your breath than celebrating, you are not ungrateful, and you are not doing it wrong. You are ca

It arrives out of nowhere. You are carrying your baby down the stairs, or standing by the bath, or watching them sleep, and a sudden, horrible image or thought flashes through your mind. Something terrible happening to them. Or, worse and harder to admit, something you might do. It is gone as fast as it came, but it leaves you shaken, sick with guilt, and certain you must be the only person in the world who has ever thought such a thing. You are not. And it does not mean what

You are standing in the kitchen at 3am. The baby will not settle, the muslins are somewhere you cannot find, and your partner has just asked, in a perfectly reasonable voice, whether you have tried feeding again. Something in you snaps. A wave of anger comes up so fast and so hot that it frightens you. An hour later, once everyone is finally asleep, you are left wondering what on earth is happening to you. If this sounds familiar, please know two things straight away. You are