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Life

30th Aug 2016

This new mum’s brutally honest Facebook post about having a baby has gone crazy viral

"20 things to know when you've just pushed out a baby"

Her

Nobody can really know what it’s like to have a baby until you become a parent.

For new mums, the experience comes with a seemingly endless list of physical and emotional side-effects that the majority of us – certainly people like me (i.e. a man) – couldn’t even begin to fathom.

Bravo, then, to Becki Pope, a new mother from Hertfordshire in England, who had put together a Facebook post chronicling the “20 things to know when you’ve just pushed out a baby”.

Writing as ‘Mummy Mumbles’, Becki covers everything from the pain that mothers feel after giving birth, to the discovery that a new born’s first poo is “tar”.

“The midwives sneak in over night, fill your baby’s nappy with treacle and then test you to see if you know to get rid of it, or to see if you decide to take one look at it and start googling ‘why do nappies come pre-filled with marmite?” she writes.

Perhaps the most vital point is the last:

“Stop worrying. You’re not superwoman. There is no such thing as normal, and there is no such thing as perfect. You are your baby’s normal. You are your baby’s perfect. They aren’t judging you. They are completely reliant on you and being responsible for another human being is not a piece of cake. It’s a piece of ‘oh my god I can’t do this’. You can. And everyday will get easier. Breath mummy. You just grew and pushed out a mini Mitchell brother. There’s nothing you can’t do. Except sleep.”

Since posting the list last week, it has been shared on Facebook over 78,000 times – meaning it’s really struck a chord with other new parents, as well as those who know them.

You can read Beckie’s full list below and on her Facebook page.