What Triplets, a Heatwave and a Poo on the Carpet Taught Me About Survival Mode

Motherhood was never meant to feel like this

I’m not going to dress this up.

I’m struggling.

I don’t generally moan about how hard being a triplet mum is because I’m so grateful to have healthy boys after the journey we’ve all been on. But, honestly, 3 x 3-year-olds + a heatwave = mama on the edge.

(Photo of me sighing out, looking hot and DONE)

They are going through a particularly testing stage where they’re answering back, saying mean things, even hitting me sometimes. They are louder than ever, all shouting over each other, or all doing increasingly stupid things for my attention, and it’s a LOT.

On Sunday, the bedtime routine took 2 hours (and 2 fans). I was crying well before those two hours were up. They were wild. There is something in that phrase “Mad dogs and Englishmen”. Well, I have three mad English hot puppies, and they were going nuts.

At an absolute low point, one pooed on the carpet in protest.

Motherhood has been tough recently.

I didn’t even manage to write to you last week, and I’m sorry about that. When I was breastfeeding, I remember saying they were literally taking every drop of my energy, and it still feels like that tbh.

The hardest thing about Sunday evening is it had been such a lovely day. I’d been at a yoga and painting workshop in my friend’s garden. I’d come back feeling my heart was open and happy. I’d felt so content quietly sat around a table with the other women painting. I didn’t know most of them, we weren’t talking much but we were relaxed. For those hours, I didn’t have to plan, fire-fight, feed or referee anyone. I could just be me.

I was just being.

Then I came home and almost immediately found myself back in survival mode.

Three hot, tired triplets. Dinner. Bedtime. The constant noise, demands and decisions.

It felt like I’d stepped out of one world and straight back into another.

And it made me wonder how many of us are spending so much time in survival mode that we don’t even notice it until we get the rare chance to escape it for a few hours.

Have we become so accustomed to survival mode that we’ve started mistaking it for normal life?

Has survival mode become normal life?

A new report The Motherhood Index just proved what I’ve been saying here for weeks - mum stress has become wallpaper. 93% of us experience burnout with 58% experiencing it “often or most days”.

This is a crisis hiding in plain sight.

We can’t even see it because the very same report found that most mums (61%) rate their own wellbeing as “good”.

I’ve said it before, Mama, we are not fine. We’re not coping nearly as well as we’ve convinced ourselves we are. We are stretched to our absolute limit with the mental load, the planning, the organising, the risk-reducing, the juggle, the knowing we’re going to drop a ball because we’re so exhausted and worrying about which one it’ll be.

In fact, our “Mum jugs” are so dangerously full, we’re so close to what our brains and body can actually handle, that it only takes one extra thing, like something completely out of our control - a heatwave, and we’re in tears.

• Have you noticed yourself slipping into survival mode today?

• Is it just how we have to function?

If motherhood has started to feel more like survival than living, you’re not alone.

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