I remember so vividly still, walking out of the hospital with my first baby and thinking: "I can't believe they are actually going to let me just take this baby and go."
I literally felt like giggling – it just all felt so surreal, that with no safety check and no "are you sure you can handle this now?" questionnaire to fill out, they were literally going to let me stroll out of there with an actual baby – that I had no idea (I thought) how to actually keep alive.
However – I learned – as we all learn – that there is no magic instruction manual. Motherhood means learning on the job, on our feet, all in, head first.
And somehow we all learn. Amateur hour by amateur hour, we find out feet. Figure it out. Get to a place where this all doesn't feel so scary anymore. But it does take time. For all of us.
Motherhood is perhaps the biggest transition many of us will make in our lifetime, and it is totally normal to feel like you don't know what you're doing at first.
In fact, a recent survey of 2,000 American mothers conducted by OnePoll suggests it actually takes almost 14 weeks for new mums to feel like they've got the hang of motherhood,
the New York Post reports.
And while these marketing surveys are not exactly scientific,
an actual study published this month in the journal Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare backs them up. It suggests that, for most mums, the confidence boost of feeling like we are doing OK when it comes to motherhood doesn't come, for most of us, before the 6-month mark.
"About 25% of first-time mothers experienced a period with low maternal confidence, low maternal mood and high parental stress; yet, for most mothers, their confidence, mood and stress improved in the first 6 months after birth," the study's authors write.
So if you're feeling like you don't know what you are doing today, mum, know that one day soon, you will.
We have all been new at other things and felt a little overwhelmed at first. New in college, new at the office, new in a new town or city. Things take time. Figuring out change takes time. For all of us.
And guess what? It's perfectly okay to be new at something. You got this, mums!
