The first time I went to Baby Cafe, my baby was four months old.
Around me were mums with tiny babies, some only a few days or weeks old. They were getting support right at the beginning of their feeding journey, while I was turning up months later still struggling.
I remember feeling out of place. Like I had arrived late. Like everyone else had somehow got the memo about feeding support months before I had.
At four months, we were still struggling. At five months, we were still struggling. And every time I walked into a feeding support space, a part of me wondered whether I had missed my chance.
Looking back, I realise I was carrying a lot more than feeding difficulties. I was recovering from a traumatic birth and emergency c-section. I was sleep deprived, overwhelmed, and trying to adjust to life with a newborn. As an AuDHD mum, I was also trying to navigate a system that often felt unclear and inconsistent at a time when I needed clear information more than ever.
Before I left hospital, I was told I could have an infant feeding specialist visit me at home. My husband heard it. My mum heard it. I heard it. But when I asked about it later, I was told I was mistaken and that only midwives visit at home.
I wasn’t mistaken. Three people heard the same thing.
At a time when I needed support, I was left doubting my own understanding instead.
For many AuDHD people, that kind of experience can land particularly heavily. Many of us have spent years being told we’ve misunderstood things or misread situations when actually we were paying very close attention. So when you are already exhausted, vulnerable, and caring for a newborn, being told you are wrong about something you clearly remember can quietly shake your confidence in yourself.
Before I eventually got the feeding support I needed, I was also told that because my baby was older, it might be difficult to change things now.
I don’t think it was intended unkindly. But when you are already wondering whether you have missed a window, hearing that can feel like confirmation of your worst fear.
You are too late.
The problem was, I wasn’t too late. I was still trying. I was still offering feeds, still looking for support, still trying to understand what was possible, still trying to make feeding work better for us.
At the same time, I had returned to work two days a week after two months because self-employed maternity provision is so limited. So when I look back and ask myself why I didn’t get support sooner, I have to remember the reality.
I wasn’t sitting at home with endless time and energy to navigate complex systems. I was recovering from major surgery, learning to be a mum, struggling with feeding, and trying to keep my business going at the same time.
That context matters, because mum guilt has a habit of stripping context away. It turns complicated situations into simple conclusions: you should have asked sooner, you should have tried harder, you should have known what to do.
Then, at a parent and baby support group, someone said something that completely changed how I saw everything. It wasn’t that I hadn’t gone and got support. It was that I hadn’t been given the support I was meant to have.
I felt myself exhale.
Because for months I had been treating this as a personal failure.
But it wasn’t.
I had asked. I had followed the information I was given. I had kept trying. The support simply wasn’t there when I needed it.
That’s the thing about mum guilt. It takes situations shaped by systems, timing, capacity, and circumstance, and quietly rewrites them into personal shortcomings.
It tells us we should have known more, done more, pushed harder.
But sometimes the problem isn’t that we didn’t seek support.
Sometimes the problem is that the support wasn’t there.
I am still unpacking the grief that comes with that realisation. Grief for the support I should have received. Grief for the months I spent wondering whether I had failed. And grief for the version of me who was recovering from a traumatic birth, trying to keep going, and carrying far more than she should have had to carry alone.
But I am trying to let go of one thing.
I wasn’t late.
I wasn’t behind.
I wasn’t failing.
I wasn’t supported.