Remember that the baby you’ve imagined for nine long months won’t be the baby who is placed on your chest. Dreaming about the kind of parent you’ll be and the baby you’ll have are all part of the preparation, but don’t mistake your make-believe for reality.

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Newborns are unpredictable and weird-looking. First time mothers are unsure and in shock. Childbirth doesn’t look like it does in the Instagram reel already forming in your mind’s eye. Fantasies are lovely but when we invest in them too heavily, the beauty of reality can be mistaken for disappointment.

New mothers are told to enjoy every blissful, beautiful minute but most days don’t involve soft fabrics, bright sunlight, Enya and a gurgling stream of innocent giggles. Motherhood is overwhelming in its abundance – an abundance of love so powerful it can break down doors and an abundance of fear that any number of things could go wrong. Not to mention the abundance of worry that you’re doing every one of them.

It can be lonely. Really lonely. The isolation with which new parents are expected to raise children is not how this was meant to be done. Children thrive when they have a community of love and support around them – and so do their parents. Remember that the village is there for all three of you.

Please know that there is no glory in doing it alone or always knowing what’s best or declining offers of support. To ask for help, and to receive it with grace, is to serve others as well as yourself. The people who love you want to help. And one day you will sit proudly in the knowledge you modelled self-care for your child from the beginning.

We do this thing nowadays we call “warts and all” parenting, emphasising the hard and the yucky, thinking we’re doing newcomers a kindness. And it is true: you’re going to be short on sleep for a bit; you’re going to be grumpy at your partner with shocking regularity; you will talk a lot about poo; your nipples will never look the same.

You’re also going to have so much fun. More fun than you can possibly imagine. Fun that outdoes the wildest of dreams and resides in the messy, unplanned, impulsive, ridiculous parts of parenting. Fun that can be all yours if you’re able to guard against the pursuit of parental perfection which threatens to steal it away. The garden you grow for this child will not be planted in neat little rows, but scooped up lovingly in your arms, overflowing with happiness.

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