Tea time chaos: does this sound familiar?

It's tea time.

You're stirring the pasta with one hand and bouncing the velcro baby in the sling with the other, because the second you put her down, the grizzling starts. Meanwhile your toddler is on dinosaur fact number 47 and you're saying "wow, a stegosaurus!" in a voice you really hope sounds interested.

You want to be calm mum. You want your toddler to feel like you're properly listening to him. You want the tea to actually be edible and the kitchen to not look like a bomb has gone off.

But then it starts: the tightness in your chest, the frantic energy, the irritability creeping in that you're trying SO hard to keep a lid on.

If you often feel overwhelmed as a new mum, you are definitely not the only one but sometimes it can feel like that.

After you have had a stressful day and maybe haven't dealt with things brilliantly, that little voice can pipe up: other mums seem to manage this just fine.

They must have some secret formula for coping with all this multi-tasking on their own.

There must be something wrong with you if you're struggling. You just need to work harder to find the secret formula for coping that these other mums seem to have. And it makes complete sense that you'd go looking for that formula, especially if you were someone who used to have it all together before you had children.

But what if the problem isn't that you're not trying hard enough? What if you're not necessarily comparing like with like?

That mum who seems to breeze through tea time might have more help than you can see.

Maybe her partner is home by 5, or there's a grandparent who pops round most days. Or maybe she has a nervous system that is wired quite differently to yours.

Could you be a Highly Sensitive mum?

Around 20% of people are Highly Sensitive (note the capitals, it's a thing). It's a genetic trait, and it means your brain and nervous system process everything more deeply: the noise, the mess, your toddler's big feelings... More sensory input gets in, and it takes you longer to recover from it.

I like to explain that parenting little ones (for everyone) is a bit like standing in a downpour. Most people have a decent umbrella, so they get a bit wet but dry off fairly quickly once they're out of the rain. However, if you're a Highly Sensitive Person, your umbrella has holes in it; more of the rain gets through, and you need longer to dry out.

The problem is that nobody can see the holes, including you! So you look around and wonder why you're so much wetter than everyone else and then decide that you must be doing something wrong.

Two mums can be doing exactly the same things at tea time and one will find it much, much harder than the other. That is not a personal failing! It's a different nervous system, and a different nervous system comes with different needs. The trouble is that you might be ignoring those needs, because nobody ever told you they were there.

"I'll just tidy the kitchen first, then I'll sit down"

One of the biggest ways those needs get ignored is by overriding your body's signals so you can keep going. See if any of these sound familiar:

• You only go to the loo when you're absolutely DESPERATE.
• It's 4pm and you realise you've only had one cup of coffee to drink all day and no water.
• You're completely shattered in the evening, but you tidy the kitchen instead of sitting down.
• The kids are finally asleep and you're knackered, but you're still scrolling at 11pm instead of going to bed.

Your body is sending you signals all day long: I need the loo; I'm thirsty; I'm hungry; I need to rest. You're just turning the volume down on them so you can keep ticking things off the never-ending to-do list.

Why pushing through worked before you had children

Before kids, this approach probably worked pretty well for you. Think of the all-nighter you pulled at uni to get that essay in, or the mad, day-long tidy before your mother-in-law came to visit. You pushed through to get it done and probably felt quite good about it.

The difference is that back then, you could recover afterwards. You could have a lazy Sunday on the sofa or a whole evening to yourself with nobody needing anything from you.

Now? There's probably no recovery day coming; every day is just more of the same.

Borrowing tomorrow's energy to get through today

So you borrow a bit of tomorrow's energy to get through today. Then you do the same tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that.

Is it any wonder that overwhelm has become your constant companion?

If you're a Highly Sensitive mum, this is even more of an issue. You already need more rest and decompression time than most people, so running on empty hits you harder and faster.

The first step to feeling less overwhelmed isn't doing more. It's learning to tune back in to what your body has been trying to tell you all along, so that you can start meeting your basic needs again. Because meeting those needs is the foundation for feeling like you can cope. It's a case of slowing down to speed up.

How postnatal counselling can help with overwhelm

Knowing you need to slow down and listen to your body is one thing. Actually doing it when the washing is piling up and someone's shouting "MUMMY!" from the other room is a whole other kettle of fish.

That's where postnatal counselling comes in. Together, we work out WHY you keep pushing through. Spoiler: it often started long before the kids came along.

The patterns that are making life difficult now are usually the same ones that helped you feel safe as a child, so there's nothing "wrong" with you. You just get to choose new patterns that are more helpful now that you're an adult.

Alongside that deeper work, I teach grounding and nervous system regulation tools so that you have something to reach for when the overwhelm starts to build.

I offer postnatal counselling in Formby and online, so you can find support in a way that fits around life with little ones.

If you'd like to talk about starting postnatal counselling with me, you can book a free 20 minute call to see if we'd be a good fit:  https://zcal.co/ruthrenouf

Free masterclass: understand where your overwhelm is coming from

Want to get started straight away? I have created a free masterclass that takes you through the exact framework I use with clients when we are starting to unpick where their overwhelm is coming from so that it makes sense to them.

Understanding your overwhelm is the first step towards working out how you might like to do things differently in this season of your life so that you can be the kind of mum you want to be for your children. The kind of mum who doesn't sweat the small stuff and who has the energy to actually enjoy reading the bedtime story instead of desperately crawling towards the finish line at the end of the day.

Here's the link to sign up for the masterclass: https://formbypostnatalcounselling.com/overwhelm/