Why throw shade at new mums?

Remember when you gave birth and people on the internet immediately started judging your post-baby nutrition plans?

Yeah, me neither.

And thank God for that because my plan once I delivered Ella was to stay in sweatpants for the foreseeable future and do everything in my power to keep this tiny human alive.

That was it.

I had no aspirations past giving round-the-clock care to my new arrival and more fool me because mum’s post-birth nutrition plan is just as important as baby’s.

So when I saw that singer Una Foden had come under fire for sharing her post-baby nutrition plan with the world, I thanked my lucky stars that anyone who had judged my new mummy nutrition plan had done it behind my back.

Like good friends and family do.

The only nutrition I cared about was Ella’s. I survived on coffee, toast and ready meals because cooking was a luxury I felt I couldn’t afford when I had a mewling newborn on my hands.

What if I spent so long making a dish, I forgot I had recently become a mother? What if I laboured so long over a bearnaise sauce like I would in my pre-baby days that Ella learned to walk, hopped the playpen walls and made for the main road?

Ridiculous, yes. But did that thought cross my mind numerous times a week? Also, yes.

Best to play it safe, keep my eye on the baby at all times, gnaw on chewy toast and eat properly only when a meal is placed in front of me by a concerned partner, worried mother or incredulous friend.

Was I a mess? Absolutely.

This is why I find it so hard to believe that women have thrown shade at Una for taking her own nutritional needs and wants into account at a time when those needs and wants should be recognised.

Seeing that she had been told to “stop worrying about her weight and enjoy being a mummy” made my blood boil.

I think we can all be fairly sure Una doesn't intend to leave  baby Tadhg to his own devices while she attends a week-long bootcamp or chooses to leave him sitting in the driveway because she needs more room to facilitate her organic fruit and veg.

Una taking care of her body when it really needs it is what will help her to ‘enjoy being a mummy’.

And more power to her if she manages it.

I know I didn’t.