Brittni (00:00.313)

Welcome back to the Resting in Motherhood podcast. I’m so excited to just sit down and chat with you today. And I have to share a funny story. Right as I was sitting down, I was getting my desk set up, getting my mic put in front of me, kind of shifting things around on my desk. I pushed one of my beautiful succulents off of my desk onto the floor. Soil went everywhere. My poor succulent fell out.

So I like hastily put it back in. I tried to put as much soil back in as I could. I got my succulent re -situated in the soil, but I have a nice pile of soil waiting for me to vacuum it up after I record this episode. And I just had to share this because the whole point of today’s podcast episode is just to get really real with you. And so I was like, I have to share this because if we’re getting real, if we’re getting honest, I want to share it all with you.

And it’s just like isn’t that life right like something always has to happen And before we get even more real, I will share with you how I’m currently finding rest in motherhood So how I’m currently finding rest in motherhood is by actually getting more rest I’m going to bed earlier lately like last night. I think I was asleep by like 935 at least that’s what my ring told me and I’m doing this because I’ve just been noticing at night that I’m

really tired and I think that I used to push past that and like keep reading my book. If you’ve, if you follow me on Instagram, you know that I’m a huge bookworm and I love to read. So you know that I am a huge bookworm and I love to read. So I sometimes will push through that tiredness because I’m like, oh, this is such a good chapter. I’ll, I’m going to.

go to sleep after I finish this chapter. And then I’ll get to the end of that chapter and then I’ll say, no, I’m gonna read one more chapter. And I’ll do that on and on until I’m like, okay, no, I really need to go to bed. But lately I’ve just been really tired. And instead of trying to push through that, I’m leaning into what my body needs and I’m listening to it. So as always, I hope this just gives you some time for reflection to reflect on how you’re currently finding rest in motherhood or how you could find rest in motherhood.

Brittni (02:19.065)

Because I know it’s hard. I had to chuckle the other day. I was doing an Instagram live Q &A and somebody asked, which I loved, is it actually possible to find rest in motherhood? And yes, it is, right? But I think it’s not always in getting more sleep. I think it can be in taking the load off of you. It can be being nicer to yourself, right? It can be dropping balls, which I have a full…

podcast episode on dropping balls. If you haven’t listened to it, I highly recommend listening to it. It can be by just chatting with a friend back and forth about what’s going on in your lives and what’s hard. So yes, I do think it is absolutely possible to find rest, which is where resting and motherhood came from. But I think it’s also about understanding that for some of us, it’s not going to be.

physical rest, maybe in the season that we’re in, except I do totally recommend like taking a load off, having a lazy day if you just want to like sit around and not do anything around the house and just really prioritize rest. If you can take a nap, I love naps, but I know that I used to get so mad when people would tell me to nap when Lila napped because I can’t just like fall asleep on demand. I could try and some days I would fall asleep with her.

But yes, I do think it’s possible to find rest in motherhood. It’s just about how you’re finding that rest and being realistic about it and being mindful about finding that rest because we have to advocate for ourselves and we have to take care of ourselves because if our cup is fully empty, we can’t fill our children’s cup. If we have a partner, we can’t also like fill, pour into their cup. So it’s really important to fill our own cups as well.

So today, I said at the beginning of the episode, today’s episode is all about getting real. And this was inspired by the fact that we are, or not we are, this was inspired by the trend on Instagram that says something like social media is fake, here are some things that I don’t talk regularly about on Instagram or social media. And…

Brittni (04:35.577)

I loved this trend. If you follow along closely in my stories, you will have seen that I did share some stuff in my stories about a month ago, probably. But it got me thinking because of the, I put up all of these raw, true, authentic things that I’m struggling with and the amount of DMs that I got, like I woke up and I have a big account, right? So I’m used to getting a lot of DMs, but I woke up.

totally overwhelmed in the best way possible by the amount of DMs and responses I got into the things that I shared. And some of them were just like, oh my gosh, like, I don’t know why I thought that like, I just had this picture of who you were as a mom in my head. And I was like, oh, she would never yell at her child. And it just seeing, like seeing you share that made me realize that I’m not alone, that I’m not a bad mom.

And so I was like, this needs to come on the podcast. I need to talk about it more in depth instead of just like a few story slides because that’s where this podcast was born. Yes, I’m passionate about sleep. I’m passionate about helping baby parents and toddler parents get more sleep. But as my business has grown and as I have grown as a mother, I am becoming really passionate about just meeting you in motherhood.

about making motherhood feel easier and more enjoyable for you, about helping you find rest in motherhood, right? Like I wanna talk about the taboo things. I wanna talk about the things that maybe we feel guilty about or that we feel like we’re the only ones going through it because I guarantee you we are not or you are not the only one going through it. Especially like I said, after I received those DMs,

after I had shared some of the things that I’m gonna be talking about today. And I’m gonna share more things today as well that I didn’t share on Instagram. But we feel alone and we’re not, right? So let’s understand that none of us are perfect. We’re all human. Parenting is the biggest, hardest, also most joyful, but biggest and hardest.

Brittni (06:57.017)

responsibility or job that we will have in our lives. And it can feel really lonely, especially in this social media driven world where people are only showing tidbits of their life. They’re showing what they want you to see. And I try to be as authentic as I can on Instagram. But let’s also remember that like what I’m sharing, I’m choosing to share too. I try to share the hard moments, but sometimes like,

If I’m just in a really, really hard place, the last thing I want to do is open my phone and like be posting on Instagram about what’s going on in my life right now, right? So it doesn’t matter how real the person is that you’re following. You’re not seeing their whole life. And I just want us to really be aware of that because especially like I’ll use the example for sleep. Like if you see a friend, it doesn’t even have to be like, like a business owner or an influencer or whatever you want to call them.

It doesn’t have to be somebody like that. It could just be a friend who’s sharing like, oh, my baby slept two hour nap today. And you’re like, ha ha ha, good for you. I hate you. I’m kidding. Or it starts making you feel bad. Why is your baby taking a two hour nap? Mine will only sleep 15 minutes in the crib. We don’t know what’s going on. We don’t know who that baby is. We don’t know their temperament. We also don’t know if they did.

like two weeks of hardcore sleep training or two days, whatever, you don’t know the full story. And so that’s what I want to bring light to today is the fact that I don’t want you to compare yourself to anybody on social media because you’re not seeing their whole life. But I also want you to know that you’re not alone in the things that you’re struggling with because motherhood can feel so lonely. And I think that…

I’m really blessed because I have this community. And so even though like in the first few years of motherhood, I didn’t have a lot of mom friends, it felt really uncomfortable to me to kind of try to make mom friends because I didn’t want to talk about sleep. I didn’t want to be judged for breastfeeding my toddler. I didn’t want to be judged for co -sleeping. So motherhood was really lonely. But I started this page when Lila was only 13 to 15 months old.

Brittni (09:19.417)

I can’t remember exactly how old she was. I want to say she was somewhere in there. And so I had this community grow along with me. And like, I still have followers who I remember from the very early days of my page, like when I had 50 followers, right? And so I have this beautiful blessing of having this community. And so I don’t feel alone in motherhood, but…

I know how lonely motherhood can be and that’s why I’ve tried to make my page as much of a community as I can because I want you to know and truly feel that you’re not alone in motherhood. So let’s talk about some real things that go on in my life that you don’t see on social media that I haven’t talked about on the podcast. At least I don’t think I’ve talked about them on the podcast. The biggest one is I yell.

It’s not something that I like doing. It’s so funny because like before, like up until Lila was like, I would say maybe like two, maybe two and a half. I had never yelled at her and I was really proud of that. But jokes on me because like those were the easy, like that was the easy time. And then like she started growing more and getting more vocal and.

man, did I start getting triggered and the yelling started and I was like the first time I was horrified. Oh my gosh, I’m such a bad mom. I’m never gonna do that again. I’m gonna do the internal work. And I do a lot of internal work and I still yell. And I just wanna share that because I think that that was one of the big ones that I shared on Instagram was that I yell.

And I wish I had saved the DM, but there was a DM from a mom that was like, I just always had it in my mind that like, you were this good mom, and then you shared this and she’s like, and it made me cry because good moms yell too. And I was like, yeah, exactly. Like yelling doesn’t make you a bad mom.

Brittni (11:30.201)

It just means that you were triggered. It means that your nervous system reacted before you could actually stop and think about it. And so, yes, I yell. I really try not to. It’s something that I’m still actively working on every single day of taking that pause, recognizing how I’m feeling and trying not to yell. But sometimes it happens. And it’s a sign to me when I am yelling, like, what’s going on in my life? Am I not?

prioritizing time for myself. One thing that I noticed recently that was happening with me and Lila was I was feeling really stressed and feeling like a lot of things in my life were out of control. And then here comes Lila and she was just like triggering me so hard because like I would be, I would say something and she would totally do the opposite of what I asked or blatantly like look me in the face while I was asking her not to do something.

and do it. And I was like in this period, I would say the last month, month and a half where I was yelling so much like, and I was, I hated it. And then when I like stopped and reflected, I remember I had actually listened to a podcast episode. And who I was listening to, she was talking about how like, sometimes you just need to get like, feel the feelings and let the shit out. So Lila had gone to bed.

I sat down with my journal and I was just journaling everything feels hard, getting all of the bad feelings out. And after I got them out, I sat there and I was like, what’s going on? Why am I having such a hard time staying patient with Laila? And it occurred to me, it’s because life feels really out of control right now. So feeling out of control is a really big trigger for you. So when you feel out of control with her behavior, she’s totally

totally disregarding what you’re saying. It’s bringing all of that shit up and it’s making it really hard to be patient because your nervous system is already like, I’m stressed, I’m stressed, I’m stressed. And then it’s like, she hits that detonate button and it’s like, boom, here I go. So it’s something that I’ve been working on, but I just want you to know if you yell, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad mom. We can only do the best that we can. I talked about this in my episode with Charlotte Irving, my life coach.

Brittni (13:57.145)

about the power of repair and saying, I will say that every time I yell at Lila, I will tell her, I am so sorry I yelled at you, you do not deserve to be spoken to that way. And then if like I yelled because I was triggered by something that she did, I make sure not to blame her. Like I don’t say I yelled because you did this. I just take ownership of what I’ve done, how I’ve treated her.

I’m sorry I yelled, you don’t deserve to be yelled at. And then I will usually I’ll like wait a little bit because again, I don’t want her to ever feel like I’m saying like, I yelled at you because you did this. So later on, I’ll say something like, hey, earlier when we were both upset, I know I shouldn’t have yelled, I shouldn’t have reacted that way. But what are some things that you could have done differently in that moment too? And then she’ll say like, I should have listened to you.

or I shouldn’t have hit you, right? So there’s beauty in repairing and showing our children that we’re not perfect, right? Like how beautiful for her to know that, okay, mom screws up, but she apologizes and doesn’t make it my fault. I actually just saw something on Instagram that said something like, I just realized that the amount of times that I apologize to my child today is more than I’ve ever received.

from my parents and my whole life. And it was like, I’ve only apologized twice, which is like, wow, right? A lot of us didn’t grow up with parents who apologized to us. And so there’s just power in knowing that like, it’s okay to screw up. We’re all going to screw up. Just own it. Try to work through it, right? You can do the internal work, but also know that you’re human and it’s gonna happen again. So hopefully that makes you feel less alone.

because that one, like I said, I went to almost, I can’t remember specifically, she was either two or two and a half years old. And I was like, up until that point, I’m like, I don’t yell at all. And it comes in waves. It’s some days or some weeks, we’re in this good flow where I’m like, motherhood is so easy. Like I’ve got this. And then we’ll hit a really rough patch. And I’ll be like, I’ve yelled three times in the last three days.

Brittni (16:20.665)

what is going on or on a really bad day. I’ve yelled twice already and it’s only 10 a .m. So you’re not alone. I see you. And if you don’t yell, kudos to you. I’m clapping for you because you’re amazing. But it also doesn’t mean that the people who yell aren’t amazing. We’re all amazing. We’re all doing our best. Another thing I want to share with you is some days I just really don’t…

enjoy being a mom. It’s not that I don’t love Lila, it’s everything else around it. It’s making the breakfast, trying to ensure that she’s eating nutritious foods, cleaning up the dishes, trying to get out the door somewhere, and it’s just a lot. And sometimes I just truly don’t enjoy it. And some days, like on the really, really hard days, I have days where I like…

fantasize about like getting in my car and running away from all of the responsibility. And that’s the key there. It doesn’t mean that I don’t love my child. It just means that the responsibility feels too heavy. It’s all too heavy and I don’t enjoy it.

So if you don’t enjoy being a mom every single day or every single second, you’re not alone. And to piggyback off of that, one thing that I’ve really been struggling with is I feel like I enjoy running my business more than being a mom, which makes me feel like this huge imposter because here I am running a page.

for moms about motherhood. I want motherhood to be easier for you. And I feel this intense guilt that like some days, like for example, right now, Lila’s at school while I am working a little bit. And some days like when the time comes to go pick her up, I’m like, ugh, I like dread having to turn on my mom mode. I wish I could just like keep working, right? Like I get in the flow. I love what I do. And some days I enjoy.

Brittni (18:33.529)

running my business more than I enjoy being a mom. And that one’s been really hard for me lately because my mom was a stay at home mom. And so, I mean, a lot of the way that I’m parenting, like breastfeeding past infancy, well, not actually past infancy because infancy is actually three years. Well, actually then I did breastfeed past infancy because I breastfed until she was four.

But like my mom breastfed me till 18 months. So like I had it in my head, okay, I wanna breastfeed until at least 18 months. My mom quit her job when I was born, which I know is a very big privilege. And so I had this picture in my head before I even had Lila like, okay, I wanna be a stay at home mom. I wanna breastfeed till at least 18 months. And then I started my business when she was about 13 to 15 months and…

It was more so that I could stay home with her, which I am so thankful that I have this business that it allows me to stay home with her. But sometimes I feel this guilt about like, I started this business to allow me to stay home, but now like I actually enjoy the hours that I’m working sometimes more than I enjoy being a mom. And it doesn’t mean I don’t like being with her. And I know that if you’re listening to this, you’re shaking your head yes, or you’re like, yes.

Like we all get it. It’s just a really big role. And so that’s something that I’m navigating and I don’t really have the answer for it. Maybe the answer is simply that like this is normal and it’s okay. I can be, I can have a role outside of mother. One thing that I do think is unique in my situation, well, not totally unique. There’s lots of solo mamas in my community, but, and I was talking to my mom about this and,

because I asked her like, how did you do it? Like, how were you a stay at home mom? How were you sane by the time dad got home every single day and you had dinner on the table for him? Like, how? And she was like, well, I didn’t have to worry at all about finances, Brittany. I didn’t, I wasn’t running a business. She’s like, you’re doing two roles, really three, right? I’m doing the role of mom, other parent, and business owner.

Brittni (20:53.785)

Right, I’m doing it all. And she’s like, so you’re a stay at home, but you’re also like, you have to worry about how you’re gonna feed your child, how you’re going to keep clothes on her back. You have to worry about running your business. And she’s like, I was just able to focus on you and your sister. That’s it. I didn’t have to worry about the other stuff. And so I think that that’s so true. I have these…

I’m focusing my mind to somewhere else too. And maybe that’s why I enjoy running the business side more sometimes than motherhood because I’m also providing, so I’m in the provider role. So I know like, okay, when I’m working, I’m providing for her. I’m putting food on the table. I’m clothing her, right? All of these things. So that’s something else that I struggle with. And so if you’re feeling that way, I want you to know that you are seen and that you’re not alone.

Another really big struggle that I have is Lila’s eating. And this has been something like she never took, she was never a huge solids girl. Like when we first started, it was like a few bites here and there. I don’t think she really started eating like a lot and still I would not consider it a lot compared to a lot of other children, but a lot for her until about 18 months. But.

This is something that I really struggle with. It’s something that I’m really insecure about because I see these kids on Instagram eating like these elaborate meals. And here my child is, like she does not want sauce on her pasta. If I put chicken and rice in front of her every night, like that I could guarantee that she’ll eat. And so oftentimes that is, it’s like simple, like chicken and rice or chicken and pasta.

She does like sourdough bread, luckily, like with seeds, like multi -grain. So she is, and she likes nuts. So I remind myself when I get self -conscious about it, she does eat nutritious foods. She loves apples. She loves anything with fruit, really, or any fruit, I should say, but vegetables. That girl, like I can put spinach in our smoothies, which she will drink, but that’s about it. Like if I put a carrot on her plate,

Brittni (23:08.057)

Oh my gosh, why mom, why did you put a carrot on my plate? And so we’re working on, it’s okay, you don’t have to eat it, just leave it on your plate. So that’s something that I’m really secure with is this girl, and I never wanna be the one that’s like trying to force her to eat, but like, we all laugh because we live with my parents, and that’s actually something we’ll talk about in a little bit. But we all laugh that like, if…

getting paid to avoid eating was a job like Lila would be a millionaire because every night we’ll sit down to dinner and there’s like a million other things that she needs to like get up and go check on or show us or do. She will avoid eating like the plague. And so it’s a really big insecurity of mine and a really big struggle. And I’m just trying to do my best, trying not to make it a big deal, trying to put the…

the nutritious options in front of her and just trust that she’s going to do what her body needs. But if it were up to her, she would have ice cream for breakfast, cookies for lunch, and chocolate chips for dinner. And I’m not kidding that girl, like ice cream and chocolate, man, like that’s all she wants. And it’s so, it’s like such a fight every single day. Can I have chocolate chips with breakfast? No, we’re not gonna have chocolate chips with breakfast this morning.

And then it’s a huge fight. And I’m sure if you have a toddler, you know these fights and it’s some days it’s just hard. So if you’re struggling with solids or just eating in general, I see you again. You’re not alone. Another thing talking about us living with my parents is this one’s interesting, but another thing that I really struggle with is I sometimes feel like I’m an imposter or like.

I can’t say motherhood is hard because we live with my parents. And it’s so funny because why do I feel that way? Like a lot of people, like I’ve worked with a lot of clients who do live with, like either their parents live with them or they live with their parents. It’s not unheard of, especially like in other cultures, it’s very common. And then if we look like back to like long ago in villages,

Brittni (25:26.649)

Everybody lived together, right? They supported each other. And so I have this village literally in my home. And they do like, my mom is a saint because she can tell on the nights where I’m like, how am I gonna make it to bedtime? She will like take the lead and be like, okay, Laila, like let’s rough house or let’s, and she helps me so much.

And so I don’t know why I feel like I’m an imposter or when I say solo motherhood is so hard, I’m like, well, but I do live with my parents. Well, yeah, but still they’re not her other parent. So that’s something else that I struggle with. Another thing that I struggle with is, and this one goes back to I enjoy,

I sometimes enjoy running my business more than I enjoy being a mom. I often find it really hard to be present with Lila. And this is something that I’m really noticing lately. And maybe it’s just because I just launched my toddler course and so that’s where my mind was. But I find it really hard a lot of the time to be present and not thinking about my business. Like, how can I serve my community? What next can I do to help my community?

And so that’s something that I’m really struggling with is like turning off CEO brain and just being a mom when I’m with Lila. And again, that’s one that I don’t have the answer on. It’s just something that I’m struggling with. And that’s the point of this episode is to just share with you what I struggle with that I might not share on social media so that you feel us alone. Our struggles might not be the same. They might be the same, but it’s just to show you that we’re all struggling with something.

that none of us are perfect, that motherhood is hard for every single one of us in many similar ways and then in different ways for us as well. So those are the things that I’m really struggling with. Another one is I am really struggling with…

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solo motherhood. And again, I feel guilty even just saying that one because of the fact that like we live with my parents and I do have that support. Like I cannot imagine, well, I did it for a year and actually over a year, two years. Yeah. A year and a half. Yeah. I think about a year and a half of living completely alone while doing solo motherhood. But the difference is, is when we lived in our apartment,

Lila was going one night a week with her dad and that one night a week was like life -giving to me. It like gave me time to just like really recharge. And right now, and I’m hoping things are gonna be changing soon. We’ve had some conversations, but right now she goes with him on Tuesday, comes home Tuesday night. I do bedtime. We go to bed. We wake up. I get her fed breakfast and then he picks her up Wednesday morning and then brings her home Wednesday night before bedtime. So.

I’m doing bedtime seven nights a week and it’s just feeling really heavy, like the weight of it all. And like the mental load, right? Because I’m really, I have sole custody of her, especially since he’s not doing overnight. And so a lot of that falls on me, right? Like all of the mental load. And one thing, actually getting real, my child has five cavities.

my sugar -loving child. And let me tell you, I brush her teeth. I do it all. One thing I have been really trying to be better about is like flossing. Even when she’s like fighting me about it, I just try to say like, we’ve got to take care of your teeth. But anyway, so she has five cavities. And how I first even noticed it is I like saw a little tiny like black spot between her two front teeth.

And I like started spiraling, stress spiraling, like, oh my gosh, okay, now I have to like find the time to take her to the dentist. And I was like, wait a second, tell her dad, tell him that you’re gonna make an appointment on his day with her and he can be in charge of it. And so this is how I am fixing the feeling like overwhelmed by solo parenthood, is I took something off of my plate and I put it on his plate and he was happy. He was happy to take her.

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And he’s taken her now. She got one. We have to go in three phases to get the cavities filled That’s just like that’s being really Vulnerable sharing that with you, right? Like I feel like such a horrible mom and I think that was also part of this heaviness is like I’m the sole one in charge of brushing her teeth and I felt like I failed

And so that’s just vulnerable, vulnerability in itself. But he’s been in charge. I left it all up to him. I said, take her to that first appointment. You can schedule the appointments for the fillings. I’m going to leave that ball in your court. And he’s taken the ball and run with it. So he is like, I think part of me feeling overwhelmed in this solar motherhood is that I was also trying to do too much by myself instead of outsourcing and.

taking things off of my plate where I could. And the last thing that I’ll share with you today that is something that I struggle with on social media is sometimes I don’t feel like I’m as relatable as other moms who do similar things to me or like other sleep coaches in the Instagram world.

I don’t feel as relatable as them since I don’t have another baby, right? Like I don’t get to share like, this is how my baby slept today, or this is how my baby slept last night, or here’s how we’re dealing with this. I have my older toddler who, thankfully I’m so happy, it wasn’t always like this, who sleeps through the night, right? And so I sometimes find that I feel like I’m not as relatable because I don’t have a baby. And I also just like, I get…

jealous sometimes when I see like these beautiful families and a pregnancy announcement or baby was just born because I do want that. I want a husband. I want a baby. Maybe three more babies. Who knows? We’ll see at least one. And so that’s something that I really struggle with is just like knowing that it’s not my time yet and it’s okay. It will come. I don’t have to rush it. I don’t have to try to force it. I can trust that it’s going to come.

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when it’s meant to come. So this is a really vulnerable episode, raw and real. When I first started the podcast, I said it’s gonna be the real, raw and relatable truths of motherhood. These are my real and raw truths. These are things that I’m struggling with. And like I said, all this episode is meant to do is to get real with you, but to help you feel less alone. So if you’re struggling with something,

Shoot me an email, shoot me a DM on Instagram. Let’s chat. I want you to feel less alone. I wanna be a part of your mama village, even if it’s a virtual village. I hope this episode was helpful. I hope it made you feel less alone. I hope you have a beautiful day. It’s a beautiful spring day here. The sun is shining. There’s literally not a cloud in the sky. And it was funny because I knew I was gonna be recording this episode.

because I was driving home from dropping my loft. I was like, life is good. I’m actually in a place right now where motherhood does feel really easy. Like we just got over this big hump, sleep, like bed times easier. And so I’m like, life is good. Like, do I really want to talk about all of this heavy stuff today? And then I was like, yeah, you do, because that’s a beautiful example of how life is not black and white. Like,

there’s things that we can be struggling with while we’re still thriving. We can have really hard seasons and then brighter, beautiful seasons come. So this is just a reminder that if you’re in a heavy season, I see you. It is just that it’s a season, it’s not forever, and you’re doing an amazing job. And go find some time to prioritize rest for yourself this week in whatever way that looks like. Maybe it’s going on a walk, maybe it’s…

going to an exercise class, maybe it’s going to get your nails done or buying yourself a coffee or taking a nap or sleeping in while your partner, if you have one, takes the morning shift with your little one. Whatever the case may be, prioritize rest for yourself this week. I will see you next week. Have a beautiful day.