Before I became a mum, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting myself into. I’d watched the videos, read the articles, downloaded the apps and spent months imagining what life would be like once my baby arrived. I knew babies cried. I knew I’d be tired. I knew my life would change.

What I didn’t realise was just how much.

Motherhood has been the most beautiful, exhausting, hilarious, overwhelming and rewarding thing I’ve ever done. It’s also taught me things that nobody really talks about.

So if you’re expecting your first baby, here are ten things I genuinely wish someone had sat me down and told me beforehand.

1. You Never Actually Feel Ready

Before I had my son, I spent months waiting to feel ready.

I thought there would be some magical moment during pregnancy where I’d suddenly unlock a secret level of adulthood. I’d have all the baby gear organised, know exactly what I was doing and confidently glide into motherhood like one of those women in the Instagram reels who somehow have a spotless house and matching lounge sets.

That moment never came.

In fact, if you’re waiting until you feel completely ready to become a parent, you might be waiting forever. Because here’s the thing nobody tells you: even when you finally get the hang of one stage, your child immediately decides to unlock a new one.

Just figured out the newborn phase? Congratulations. Here’s sleep regression.

Mastered sleep deprivation? Wonderful. They’re teething now.

Got used to them crawling? Fantastic. They’re walking and actively trying to launch themselves off furniture.

Think you’ve finally cracked parenting a toddler? Here’s a strong opinion about the shape of their toast.

The finish line keeps moving.

And every child is completely different too. What worked perfectly for your friend’s baby might be utterly useless for yours. You can read all the books, watch all the videos and collect advice from every parent you know, but eventually you’ll realise you’re raising a tiny individual who didn’t bother reading the parenting manual. The truth is that most parents are making it up as they go along.

You’re constantly learning, adapting and Googling things at ridiculous hours. You don’t suddenly become an expert one day. You just get better at handling the chaos. So if you’re waiting to feel ready, consider this your official permission to stop waiting. Nobody knows what they’re doing. Good luck.

2. The Love Can Be Instant…Or Not

One thing that isn’t talked about enough is that not everyone bursts into tears of overwhelming love the second their baby is born. Before having a baby, I’d seen all the videos. The mum gives birth, the baby is placed on her chest, emotional music starts playing somewhere in the background and everyone cries because they’re instantly overwhelmed with love.

And for some people, that’s exactly what happens.

For others, you’ve just spent hours pushing a human out of your body, you haven’t slept properly in months, you’re wondering why half the room has suddenly seen your nipples and you’re trying to process the fact that someone has handed you a whole baby and expects you to take it home.

Sometimes the first emotion isn’t overwhelming love. Sometimes it’s, “Oh. So you’re the one that’s been kicking me in the ribs for the last three months.” And that’s completely normal.

The bond doesn’t always arrive in one dramatic movie scene. Sometimes it sneaks up on you instead. It happens when they’re asleep on your chest and you realise you haven’t moved for two hours because you don’t want to wake them. It happens when they smile at you for the first time and your heart does something weird.

It happens when you leave them with someone for an hour and spend the entire time scrolling through photos of them on your phone. (Speaking from experience.)

3. Nobody Can Prepare you For The Tiredness

I’d pulled all-nighters before. I’d stayed up too late binge-watching TV. I’d survived early morning alarms after barely any sleep. I thought I understood exhaustion. Boy, was I wrong.

There is a level of tiredness that only parents understand. You know when you walk into a room and forget why you even entered in the first place? Imagine that but everyday, all day.

You become a different person when you’re surviving on broken sleep. A person who thinks eating a meal while it’s still hot is a luxury. A person who considers a four-hour stretch of sleep worthy of a national celebration. And the most ridiculous part is that you’ll still find yourself awake at 2am staring at your sleeping baby.

You’ve spent the entire day desperate for them to go to sleep, and now that they finally have, there you are zooming in on photos of them and wondering if they’re the cutest baby that’s ever existed.

(They are, obviously.)

The good news is that you do adapt.

The bad news is that just when your baby starts sleeping better, they discover something new.

Basically, every time you think you’ve cracked the sleep thing, your child unlocks a new update and the developers forgot to include the patch notes.

So if you’re expecting a baby and people keep telling you to “sleep while you can”, just smile politely.

Because you can’t store sleep in advance.

Trust me, I checked.

4. You Will Worry About Things That Never Even Crossed Your Mind Before

Before becoming a mum, I would say I was a relatively normal person. I worried about normal things.

Rent. Being late to work. Whether people secretly hated me after an awkward conversation three years ago.

Nobody tells you that parenthood comes with a permanent little voice in your head constantly asking, “But what if?”

What if they’re too hot?

What if they’re too cold?

What if they’re hungry?

What if they’re not hungry enough?

What if they sleep too much?

What if they don’t sleep enough?

What if they sneeze twice in a row?

At some point you’ll find yourself staring at your baby while they sleep just to make sure they’re still breathing. I drove myself crazy doing this.

But here’s what I’ve learned. The fact that you worry so much is usually because you care so much. Every parent worries. Every parent second-guesses themselves. Every parent has moments where they wonder if they’re getting it right.

You’re just a parent now. Welcome to the club.

5. Mum Guilt Is Ridiculous

You’ll feel guilty for taking a shower because your baby cried for thirty seconds while you were in there. You’ll feel guilty for ordering a takeaway because you’re too tired to cook. Then you’ll feel guilty for cooking because it took time away from playing with your child.

It’s genuinely one of the most confusing parts of motherhood.

The guilt gets even more ridiculous as your child gets older.

You’ll feel guilty because they watched an extra episode of television. You’ll feel guilty because dinner came from the freezer. You’ll feel guilty because you lost your patience after answering the same question forty-seven times in ten minutes.

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s how it works.”

“Why?”

“Honestly, no idea anymore.”

The truth is that no matter how much you do, your brain will always find something convincing you that you should be doing more. But your child isn’t sitting there making a list of your mistakes.

They don’t care if the laundry is folded. They don’t care if dinner was homemade. They don’t care that you forgot to buy the organic, hand-picked, moon-blessed toddler snacks that social media insists they need.

They care that you’re there, that you comfort them, that you cuddle them, that you laugh with them, that you love them.

So the next time mum guilt starts whispering in your ear, remember this:

If you’re worrying about whether you’re a good mum, you’re probably already one.

The truly terrible parents aren’t losing sleep wondering if they’re doing enough.

They’re certainly not reading blog posts about it at 11pm while eating cold toast over the kitchen sink.

6. Stop Comparing Your Baby To Other Babies

One of the quickest ways to lose your mind as a parent is to start comparing your baby to everyone else’s.

Trust me, there will always be a baby doing something before yours. You’ll open social media and see a six-month-old solving complex mathematical equations, filing their own taxes and training for a marathon.

Meanwhile your child is sat on the floor trying to eat a sock.

And somehow you’ll convince yourself your baby is behind. They’re not. Babies are basically tiny drunk humans. They all do things in their own time.

The thing nobody tells you is that babies aren’t checking milestone charts.

They don’t wake up in the morning thinking, “Right, according to the internet, today is the day I should start rolling over.”

They just do things when they’re ready. And every time you think you’ve figured out what a baby should be doing, you’ll meet another baby who is doing the complete opposite and thriving anyway.

There is no prize for being the first to crawl, walk, talk or master the art of launching peas across the kitchen.

One day they’ll all end up at school together anyway, and nobody will know which one started walking at nine months and which one waited until fourteen.

Well…except their mums.

Because we’ll remember everything.

7. The Little Moments End Up Being The Big Moments

I thought the moments I’d remember forever would be the obvious ones.

The first smile, the first word, the first steps, the birthdays. And don’t get me wrong, those moments are special.

But what nobody tells you is that some of the memories you’ll treasure most are the completely random, ordinary moments that happen on a Tuesday afternoon when you’re wearing yesterday’s leggings and haven’t had a hot cup of tea in three days.

It’s the way they fall asleep on your chest and suddenly become twice as heavy as they were five minutes ago. The way they get excited over something completely ridiculous. Like a leaf. You’ll spend £40 on a toy specifically designed to entertain them and they’ll be absolutely fascinated by a packet of baby wipes.

Some of my favourite memories aren’t the big milestone moments at all. They’re the little things, like the sleepy cuddles, the giggles, the way they reach for you, the little voice shouting “Mummy!” from the other room like you’ve just returned from war when really you only went to the toilet.

And then there are the things you don’t realise are happening for the last time.

The last contact nap, the last time they needed to be carried, the last time they mispronounce a word in the cutest way imaginable before suddenly learning how to say it properly.

Nobody warns you about that part.

One day you’ll hear a word pronounced correctly and instead of celebrating, you’ll sit there feeling personally attacked. “Excuse me? Since when could you say that?”

So yes, the first steps and first words are wonderful. But don’t spend so much time waiting for the big moments that you miss the little ones. Because years later, it’s often the tiny, everyday memories that sneak up on you and make your heart ache the most.

8. Asking For Help Doesn’t Make You A Bad Mum

I had this image in my head of what a “good mum” looked like.

She did everything herself. The house was spotless. The washing was always done. Dinner was cooked from scratch.

The baby was happy.

She looked vaguely hydrated.

And somehow she managed all of this without asking for help.

Now, as an actual mum, I’d quite like to know where she is because I’d love to have a chat.

The truth is that motherhood can be hard.

Not all the time.

But enough of the time that trying to do everything yourself is a very quick route to sitting on the kitchen floor eating cold toast and questioning your life choices.

For some reason, mums put an incredible amount of pressure on themselves. We convince ourselves that asking for help means we’re failing. That we should be able to cope with everything alone. That everyone else is managing perfectly.

They’re not.

They’re just hiding the chaos better.

Every parent has days where they’re overwhelmed. Every parent has moments where they need support.

And despite what social media might have you believe, nobody is winning awards for struggling in silence.

If someone offers to hold the baby while you shower, let them. If someone offers to bring food, accept it. If someone offers to help with the washing, hand it over before they can change their mind.

You don’t get bonus points for doing everything the hard way.

One of the biggest shocks for me was realising that babies don’t care how independent you are.

They don’t sit there thinking,

“Wow, Mum folded all the laundry herself this week. Incredible effort.”

So ask for help. Accept the help.

And remember that even superheroes had sidekicks.

Although unlike Batman, your sidekick will probably arrive carrying a lasagne and offering to watch the baby while you have a nap.

Which is arguably much more useful.

9. You Will Change — And That’s Not A Bad Thing

And before anyone panics, I don’t mean that in a dramatic, identity-crisis, sell-all-your-belongings-and-live-in-the-woods kind of way.

I just mean that motherhood has a funny way of reshuffling things.

Before my child, I could leave the house in under five minutes.

Now leaving the house requires the planning and organisation of a small military operation.

Nappies.

Wipes.

Snacks.

Spare clothes.

Emergency snacks.

Backup snacks for the emergency snacks.

And somehow, despite carrying half of Tesco in your changing bag, your child will still need the one thing you forgot.

You change in ways you don’t expect.

Your camera roll changes. At some point, you’ll realise you have approximately 14,000 photos of your child and one blurry selfie from three years ago.

Your conversations change too. You’ll find yourself discussing bowel movements with alarming confidence.

Not your own.

Hopefully.

You’ll become weirdly interested in topics that would have horrified your younger self.

You’ll celebrate things that make absolutely no sense to non-parents.

“She ate three bites of broccoli!”

“He slept until 6am!”

“Nobody cried in Tesco today!”

Huge victories.

Absolutely enormous.

You’ll become stronger than you thought you were. More patient than you thought you could be. More protective than you’ve ever been in your life.

You’ll function on levels of exhaustion that should probably qualify as a superpower.

You’ll solve problems on the spot, adapt to situations you never saw coming and somehow keep going even when you feel like you’ve got nothing left in the tank.

The strange thing is that while you sometimes miss parts of who you used to be, you also discover parts of yourself that didn’t exist before.

Motherhood changes you, but it doesn’t take away who you are. It simply adds new layers.

Although admittedly one of those layers is being able to identify the source of a mysterious smell in under three seconds.

A skill nobody asks for, but every parent somehow develops.

10. You’re Probably Doing Better Than You Think

If there’s one thing I wish every mum could hear, it’s this: You are probably doing a much better job than you think you are.

Because for some reason, becoming a parent also comes with the ability to completely ignore everything you’re doing right and focus exclusively on that one thing you forgot three weeks ago.

“I can’t believe I gave them the blue cup when they clearly wanted the green one.”

Parents are incredibly hard on themselves. Meanwhile, our children are usually having the time of their lives.

They don’t have a clipboard.

They aren’t writing performance reviews.

“Mother was thirty-seven seconds late with my afternoon snack. Very disappointing. One star.”

And here’s something I think a lot of parents need reminding of:

Bad parents don’t usually spend hours worrying about whether they’re bad parents.

The fact that you care enough to question yourself is often proof that you’re trying your best.

Will you get everything right?

Absolutely not. Nobody does.

You’ll forget things.

You’ll make mistakes.

You’ll have days where you count down the minutes until bedtime and then immediately miss them once they’re asleep.

That’s parenthood. There is no secret club full of parents who know exactly what they’re doing. We’re all just winging it. Some of us are simply better at looking confident while we do it.

So give yourself a break. Give yourself some credit.

And remember that your child doesn’t need a perfect parent.

They need their parent.

Even on the days when you’re wearing yesterday’s clothes, reheating the same cup of tea for the fourth time and wondering whether you’ve completely lost the plot.

Especially on those days, actually.