I started to feel behind in motherhood because I hadn\u2019t taken my baby to a \u201cproper\u201d baby group early on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In my head, there was a version of motherhood where you start quickly, meet other parents, settle into a routine of classes and groups, and already know where you fit.
Because we hadn\u2019t done that yet, I began to feel like I had missed something important, like there had been a window of time I was supposed to step into and I had arrived after it closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But when I look at what we were actually doing, that story doesn\u2019t really hold up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We had been going out. We had been to Baby Cafe, feeding support, and parent and baby spaces like It Takes a Village. We had been in rooms with other parents and babies, talking, feeding, asking questions, and trying to make sense of early motherhood outside the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those experiences just didn\u2019t fit my internal definition of a \u201cproper\u201d baby group, so I didn\u2019t fully count them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that\u2019s where comparison crept in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t based on what we were doing, but on an imagined standard I had absorbed without realising. I would hear other parents mention baby groups and assume they had started earlier, were more organised, or simply understood something I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My brain turned those moments into evidence that I was behind, without ever seeing anyone\u2019s full reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think being AuDHD made that stronger. When there isn\u2019t a clear structure, my brain creates one. It turns patterns into rules, so \u201csome parents go to groups early\u201d becomes \u201cyou should have gone early too\u201d, and \u201cthere are many ways to spend time with your baby\u201d becomes \u201cthere is a correct way and I\u2019m not doing it\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those rules feel real, even when they aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there is no fixed timeline for baby groups. There isn\u2019t a point you are supposed to start or a checklist for doing it right. There are just weeks shaped by sleep, feeding, recovery, work, and capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I shared in my last post, I had already returned to work two days a week after two months because self-employed maternity pay is so limited. So my week wasn\u2019t empty space waiting to be filled. It was already full in ways that don\u2019t always show from the outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A baby group might look like one hour, but it isn\u2019t one hour. It is everything that leads up to it and everything that comes after it. Planning feeds, naps, travel, bags, timing. Then stepping into a completely new sensory environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For an AuDHD nervous system, that can take more energy than it looks like on the surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And sometimes the decision isn\u2019t even about baby groups specifically. It is about capacity. Whether there is enough energy in the system that day, whether leaving the house will help or overwhelm, and whether the win needs to be social or something quieter and contained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes the most supportive choice is not the one that looks like \u201cdoing motherhood properly\u201d, but the one that keeps everyone regulated enough to get through the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think I had absorbed the idea that baby groups are a marker of doing it right, but they aren\u2019t. My baby doesn\u2019t know where we are. He knows connection, safety, voice, and presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rest is adult meaning layered on top.
So I\u2019m loosening my grip on the idea that I\u2019m late.
There is no baby group deadline.
No correct starting point.
No prize for doing things earlier than someone else.
Just what we can do in each stage, with the capacity we actually have, not the version of motherhood I imagined.
And maybe that\u2019s enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I started to feel behind in motherhood because I hadn\u2019t done \u201cproper\u201d baby groups early on. This post explores AuDHD parenting, comparison, and how easily invisible expectations turn into guilt that doesn\u2019t match reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-divergently-parenting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118,"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions\/118"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}