Exhausted mama moments: we are no stranger to those. We (Rebecca and Naomi) are both mums to two little ones, and we know the feeling of reaching that point where you’re so tired you have to laugh, or cry, or both.
Our friends at Peachy Keen Foods understand too. That’s why they’ve created this special life-saving hamper for exhausted mums packed full of fresh, homemade meals to give you a break from the demands of motherhood.
Enter the Competition to Win This Delicious Food Hamper
All you need to do to be in the running to win this amazing Peachy Mums Package is tell us about your most memorable exhausted mama moment. The competition is open until midnight 1 May 2017. We will choose a well-deserving recipient to have this phenomenal boost of yumminess delivered right to their door! Scroll down for details.
Our Exhausted Mama Moments
Whether you have a newborn in your home or your kids are older, parenting is tough, and knowing that we are all in this together has helped us pull through when the going gets really rough. Good nutrition (and someone to cook for you!) is more important than ever when you are run down, stressed out and time-poor, and that’s why we want to gift one lucky mama with this delightful prize.
To get the ball rolling, we’d like to share some of the moments where as busy mums we were more tired than we ever knew was possible. Then it’s your turn to share!
My Exhausted Mama Moments ~ Rebecca
I’ve had so many exhausted mama moments I don’t quite know where to start. I’m sure you have too!
For me they started pretty much as soon as my daughter (my eldest) was born. I was so shocked by the new parent thing and not getting enough sleep, I didn’t know if I was Arthur or Martha. I would have agreed to anything back then. Put a contract in front of me and I would have signed my life away, just to get you out of my face so I could fall back to sleep.
I remember being pregnant with number two and I was on a special bean bag with a hole in the middle for my belly – that was pretty cool – I was trying to play with my daughter who was then three and a half. I was telling her a story and I remember her grabbing my face and pressing on my eyelids saying mummy, mummy, you’re asleep! She was right, I just couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore, the tiredness was all-consuming and I drifted off mid-story.
There was a stretch of time of about four months or so, when Naomi had left work to have her first baby. We’d just moved the Red Tent Health Centre into our new premises in Bondi (previously we were at Woollahra) and I had to be back at work four days a week to cover for Naomi. My second bub was 10 months old. Because he was my second I was much more relaxed than with my first (sorry first) and so I’d already decided I was going to bottle feed him during the day and breast feed him when I got home. I’d made my peace with that as I was already exhausted and had done heaps of pumping in my life and couldn’t pump off the charts now.
So I’d made up my mind but so had baby. Baby was going to wait for me and wait he did. He wouldn’t have a bar of that bottle all day long, not even a sip. He’d wait for me and my Dolly Parton boobs to get home and he’d drink all night long, like eight times between 7pm and 10am. It was a crazy time. I was very in the moment, could concentrate on my bub and my clients and that was it. Anything else went by the wayside.
My Exhausted Mama Moments ~ Naomi
Zella (my eldest) was newbie and I was super hungry. Opened the fridge. Plenty of options. Too many options. I didn’t know what to eat. So I cried.
So tired. Bub took extra long to get to sleep. I ate and showered quickly, hoping to get at least 10 minutes of sleep. Ignored phone calls. Ignored emails, messages, washing up. The most wonderful feeling was to get into bed. That same moment, or possible 2-3 minutes later, baby woke up. I cried.
Second baby. Biggest mission ever was simply to leave the house. Packed bags. Packed car with kids. Boob hanging out. Couldn’t care less.
Avent bottles. How many times can you forget to put in that stupid blue ring?!!! Get splattered with milk whilst shaking bottle without it. Too many times. So dumb. Shrug. I stunk anyhow.
Ask me when her last poo was? No prob. Ask me when her last feed was? No prob. Ask me how many nappies a day? I can work that out, easy. How long did she sleep for? When is she due for her next sleep? Easy. No prob. When did I last sleep? Eat? Go to the dentist? Poo? Shower? What happened yesterday? No friggin clue. 13 + 22? Fuck off. Give me my phone.
Exhausted me to hubby: “Did I just say something or just think it really loud?”
Your Turn!
It’s your turn to share! Tell us about your exhausted mama moments in the form below. Whether it happened today or years ago, you deserve a break and a treat, mama! We’d love for you to win this beautiful hamper of tasty sustenance from Peachy Keen Foods.
The Prize
This lovely hamper (pictured at the top of the page) includes:
Our Signature Muesli
Homemade with love and delivered to your door!
Peachy Keen Foods is a boutique food delivery service located in the heart of Sydney’s Bondi. Delivering made-to-order, organic, healthy dishes for people who love to eat great food, but don’t have the time to cook. They prepare personalised plans and set 5-day meal plans focused on seasonality, and the highest quality locally sourced organic produce. As a midwife, co-founder Alice Vandyke specialises in antenatal and postnatal nutrition and writes widely on the topic.
The Fine Print
The Exhausted Mama Moments competition is open right now until midnight 1 May 2017 AEST.
The winner will be chosen by Rebecca and Naomi, and published in the Red Tent newsletter in early May. The winner will also be notified by email and you may be contacted by phone to organise hamper delivery. Your first name and town/suburb only will be published – your other details will be kept strictly private and safe.
We will also announce the winner on our Facebook page so be sure to like us there.
Entry is open to everyone, however the winner will be chosen from Australian entrants.
To be eligible, you must complete all fields in the form below.
GOOD LUCK MAMA!
Read some of our favourite entries below. You ladies crack us up! Don’t forget to share your exhausted mama moments with us in the entry form above!
HANNAH:
There are so many…and there still are. My husband works away a lot and one night when he had just got home from being away I put my son to sleep…without a nappy on!! And you wouldn’t believe it he slept through the night. When i got him up the next morning he was so wet (the poor thing) but super happy. I thought it might be from sweat (which I freaked out about) but no when i unzipped his sleeping bag he didn’t have a nappy on! Lucky there were no number 2’s!! :)
NATALIE:
Right now! I’ve been co-sleeping & breastfeeding on demand for 2 years now & have no family who help. My little boobie monster is showing no signs of being happy to night wean. Also the time I was so exhausted during the newborn days that I forgot to use the sticky tabs on the nappy to secure it & ended up with a poosplosion in the whole pram. Good times!
AMANDA:
It was during a heat wave of scorching 40 degree plus days, I had been up all night with my screaming 2 week old daughter. I was a first time mother and was still learning the language of my baby.
We had recently had a new air conditioner mounted in our lounge room and it was there, I felt coolest and most comfortable to breast feed my baby.
The feed was done and we must have dozed off together, me sitting in the zombie upright position in my embracing recliner, when I was suddenly awoken by a knock at the door.
I bolted upright and strode quickly to the door with my babe in arms.
As I opened the door, the extremely dry, scorching heat began to seep in past me. My unexpected door knocker was the postie, with a delivery for me. Yay! It was from my aunty! “Lovely baby you’ve got there,” the postie had chirped from beneath his Australia Post issued helmet and his rainbow reflective sunnies, “Can you sign here please?” indicating to his little EFTPOS machine thingamajig. No problem, I can manage that. “Just a moment, I’m right handed,” I quipped as I quickly moved my baby from my right side to my left, freeing my hand up to sign. The postie handed my parcel across and turned back as he walked off my porch “Don’t get sunburnt”, he said with a laugh. “No, I won’t, I’m staying in. Thanks!” I replied as I turned back in to my gorgeously cool, airconditioned lounge. “Gee whiz! I must have the aircon cranked up a bit hard, it’s chilly in here,” I thought to myself. As I reached to place the parcel down, it occurred to me that I had been standing chatting to the postie with my right boob exposed the whole time and when I’d moved my baby, he’d got an even better view of it!
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A few days later my next door neighbour came in to drop off some mail that had been accidently put in her letterbox, I explained what had happened with “the boob” incident. We laughed as we decided that it clearly affected the poor postie!
NGAIRE:
14 months of almost no sleep from my none sleeping daughter, averaging about 3 hours a night during that time. I was also primary carer for my mother with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. I was also running two businesses with 45 employees! My lowest point is when my GP was asking if I has post natal depression and all I remember saying was ‘sleep, I just need some sleep’. With number 2 due in early May I’m hoping that this time I get a sleeper!!!
YOLANDE:
My girlfriend and I had a catch up and play date when our bubs were 3 months old. It was so lovely to have some adult daytime company. We ate, laughed and chatted through our exhaustion. While chewing my food in my happy, sleep-deprived daze, I didn’t line my jaw up properly and I bit with my jaw all crooked like a cow chewing the cud… OWEE – I cracked a tooth. Painfully tired!
KELLY:
For some reason my car key was not on my key ring. I’d been out to get groceries (lots of cold stuff) with a 3yo and baby in tow. Got home and realised I didn’t have my keys so figured I’d locked them in the house. Drove an hour and a half round trip in traffic to pick up the spare from husband to only get home and discover the key was at the bottom of my bag the entire time.
SHANRA:
A year ago when I bought baby no 3 home. It had been nearly 7 yrs since having my last baby & id forgotten how hard sleep deprivation was. Adding to that having 2 other hectic boys & let’s just say the first week or so was really exhausting! I’d of given anything to have someone drop off some homecooked meals & snacks.
EMILY:
I was loading the dishwasher and I fell asleep standing up!!:(
LOUISE:
..we were at the swimming pool with my toddler in the middle of his swimming lesson and my newborn sleeping soundly in the pram. I was congratulating myself that i had remembered a change of clothes, a bag for the wet swimmers, homemade snacks, his water bottle and everything you need minus the kitchen sink when you’re out and about. As my three year old reached the end of his lesson and was getting out of the pool, i realised i had forgotten his towel. A nice mummy saw my look of dread and handed me a spare towel. Crisis averted! Another sleep deprived moment was when sitting at the table with 20 relatives, i looked around and in my delirious state shouted ‘where’s Alexander?’ At everyone’s look of confusion, i then realised the three year old had been sitting elbow to elbow with me the whole time. Lol remembering all this, which was only five months ago!
BRITTANY:
In my sleep deprived state I took my 3 year old daughter to the toilet in the early morning, I sit her on the toilet and short while after we’ve determined that she hadn’t done anything we stumbled back to her bed,I put a clean nappy back on her and we both go back to sleep. Later in the morning I was woken by my husband who was confused to find when he went to change our daughter to find she was wearing 2 nappies.I forgot to take her nappy off, and put a clean one over the top. Oops!