Mum's burnout after striving to be the "perfect parent"
A mum who experienced burnout after striving to be the "perfect parent" has given her top tips to help others avoid the same fate.
Skye Edwards, 34, was a high-flying, career-driven woman who struggled with the transition into motherhood.
She found it hard to let go of control and felt overwhelmed by the conflicting books and advice on parenting.
Skye felt a pressure to fit her son, now four, into certain routines and to start him on formula milk.
She slowly realised the pressure she was putting on herself to be perfect was causing anxiety and burnout - and is something she labelled 'perfect mother syndrome'.
Now Skye prioritises self-compassion and has relaxed into motherhood - and helps others to do so too.
Skye, a trainee councillor, from Chelmsford, Essex, said: "I always had this fear 'you might mess them up'.
"Every single mother feels judged. No one wants to be a bad parent.
"But then you have issues with perfectionism. They don't know to see it's ok to make mistakes.
"There is a pressure to get it right to nurture our children to such perfection that leaves us little to no room to make any mistakes.
"We're going to mess them up no matter what we do.
"We may as well enjoy it.
"The mother I thought I was going to be before children is different.
"I wanted to have control. They are not a project for me.
"You lose control and you have to lean into it - that's not a bad thing."
Skye felt she had been able to "control" everything in her life before falling pregnant.
She said: "I was a high achieving woman. I had a good career. I was very organised.
"Life was in tip top form - or what it looked like on the outside.
"Everything was in it's order, in it's place.
"During the pregnancy I had this feeling of a lack of control.
"It was dawning on me I was about to be responsible for a tiny person."
Skye was excited to become a mum but overwhelmed by all the advice she read about parenting.
She said: "I have read every book under the sun about parenting.
"I was very well informed, educated on the emotional intelligence of raising little humans.
"It's a blessing and a curse. We're so much more aware."
Skye was very aware that anything she did as a parent would have a profound impact on her child and when she had her son in 2020 her mental health took a plunge.
She said: "I became a shell of a person.
"I was so desperate to get it right.
"I just felt like I was failing in every aspect.
"I felt like it was my baby and I against the world."
Skye says her relationships were impacted as a result and she cried a lot and struggled with sleep.
She felt a pressure to fit routines - and struggled with her son's sleeping issues that didn't fit the moulds she'd read about.
Skye said: "I felt pressure to fit routines.
"I felt pressure of moving onto formula. I felt pressure that they should be eating more or less."
Skye Edwards, 34, was a high-flying, career-driven woman who struggled with the transition into motherhood.
She found it hard to let go of control and felt overwhelmed by the conflicting books and advice on parenting.
Skye felt a pressure to fit her son, now four, into certain routines and to start him on formula milk.
She slowly realised the pressure she was putting on herself to be perfect was causing anxiety and burnout - and is something she labelled 'perfect mother syndrome'.
Now Skye prioritises self-compassion and has relaxed into motherhood - and helps others to do so too.
Skye, a trainee councillor, from Chelmsford, Essex, said: "I always had this fear 'you might mess them up'.
"Every single mother feels judged. No one wants to be a bad parent.
"But then you have issues with perfectionism. They don't know to see it's ok to make mistakes.
"There is a pressure to get it right to nurture our children to such perfection that leaves us little to no room to make any mistakes.
"We're going to mess them up no matter what we do.
"We may as well enjoy it.
"The mother I thought I was going to be before children is different.
"I wanted to have control. They are not a project for me.
"You lose control and you have to lean into it - that's not a bad thing."
Skye felt she had been able to "control" everything in her life before falling pregnant.
She said: "I was a high achieving woman. I had a good career. I was very organised.
"Life was in tip top form - or what it looked like on the outside.
"Everything was in it's order, in it's place.
"During the pregnancy I had this feeling of a lack of control.
"It was dawning on me I was about to be responsible for a tiny person."
Skye was excited to become a mum but overwhelmed by all the advice she read about parenting.
She said: "I have read every book under the sun about parenting.
"I was very well informed, educated on the emotional intelligence of raising little humans.
"It's a blessing and a curse. We're so much more aware."
Skye was very aware that anything she did as a parent would have a profound impact on her child and when she had her son in 2020 her mental health took a plunge.
She said: "I became a shell of a person.
"I was so desperate to get it right.
"I just felt like I was failing in every aspect.
"I felt like it was my baby and I against the world."
Skye says her relationships were impacted as a result and she cried a lot and struggled with sleep.
She felt a pressure to fit routines - and struggled with her son's sleeping issues that didn't fit the moulds she'd read about.
Skye said: "I felt pressure to fit routines.
"I felt pressure of moving onto formula. I felt pressure that they should be eating more or less."
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FunTranscript
00:00 My name's Skye, I'm a mentor for mummies and I'm also training to be a counsellor.
00:04 I want to talk to you today about how your inner critic is possibly ruining your motherhood
00:09 experience.
00:10 Here are some ways that it could be happening.
00:12 So first up is the perfectionist.
00:15 Forever feeling the high need to get it right and feeling really beating yourself up for
00:19 making any mistakes.
00:21 Being like overly critical of yourself.
00:24 Then there's the comparer where you're often looking at others and feeling basically quite
00:28 inadequate.
00:30 Then there's the doubter who's feeling really unconfident in their mothering abilities and
00:35 questioning whether they're getting it right, kind of looking at others for validation.
00:39 And then there's being a bit of a self-sabotager where you're basically only focusing on your
00:46 anxieties and everything that you, you know, overlooking everything that you do well.
00:52 My name is Skye, I'm a mentor to mummies and also a trainee counsellor.
00:56 And I want to talk to you today about whether you're suffering with something I've labelled
01:00 as perfect mother syndrome.
01:04 Something that is really great about this generation of parents is that we have so much
01:08 access to knowledge, education and information at our fingertips on child development and
01:13 parenting, the importance of infant attachment and everything in between.
01:20 However, what can come with that is such a high pressure to get it right.
01:25 To nurture our children to such perfection that it leaves us little to no room to make
01:30 any mistakes.
01:32 So with that, our motherhood experience gets terribly watered down with shame, blame, guilt.
01:38 I'm sure you've all heard the saying mum guilt.
01:41 Not to mention the burnout of unachievable perfection, high functioning, anxiety and
01:48 depression.
01:49 One of the first things to not let perfect mother syndrome eat us alive is to even acknowledge
01:55 its existence.
01:57 Then we can look at ways to ease these anxieties.
02:01 If this sounds like something that you could do with support with, head over to the link
02:04 in my bio with the guide on how to be a perfect, well, an unperfect mother, basically.
02:11 Also don't forget to follow along to join the tribe of perfectly unperfect mothers and
02:16 for more chat on motherhood and mental health.
02:20 So if you're new here, I believe that so many of us are struggling from something that I've
02:23 labelled perfect mother syndrome, which is where you are just so aware and educated in
02:29 the effects of early childhood and your parenting and the effects that other people can have
02:34 and society can have.
02:37 And it can ruin our relationships because we are not only just struggling with perfectionism
02:42 ourselves, but we're projecting that onto everyone else as well.
02:46 And it doesn't have to be that way.
02:47 We can manage this.
02:49 We have powerful minds.
02:51 We just need to know how to use them to get the best from them.
02:55 And that is something that I can help you with.
02:57 And if you want help with that, then just send me a DM.
02:59 So if you want your brain to stop just like Mariah does, and just like I've been able
03:02 to, then please hit me up.
03:04 [Music]