Trusting your gut instinct is one of the hardest but most powerful lessons in parenting. In all of life actually.

During my first pregnancy I really followed my intuition, I questioned everything that gave me that uneasy pang in my tummy. Then my baby came along and slowly but surely this trust came undone.

It’s such a vulnerable time. You wake up in a world that looks completely different and you’re thrown in the deep end with a hungry baby who doesn’t know the difference between day and night. It can take just one fear driven comment from a maternal child health nurse or a post on a parenting forum (that you read at 3am) to set you on the path of undoing. There’s so much noise.

I started following what everyone else was telling me. “Your baby needs formula top ups”, “you need to be pumping after every feed”, “just put him down in the cot drowsy and leave the room”. Needless to say i ended up an anxious, sleep deprived and lonely mess.

It’s taken a lot of work, a lot of tears and my second baby to regain this trust in my inner knowing. And I’m not gonna let anyone take that away from me again.