Staying Off Social Media Was The Best Thing I Did As A New Mum

Motherhood brings unique joys and pains to every mum, and we are better off acknowledging that. In this series called Mum Truths, mums reveal their secret successes, miseries and gripes about parenting in a no-holds-barred first-person recount.

I thought I had reached a good point in my relationship with social media at the ripe old age of 30. I was mindful of the content I consumed, I no longer have the tendency to compare myself to others, and I am super careful about sharing too much. 

Then I became a new mum, and all of that went out the window. 

The devil works hard, but social media algorithms work harder. The minute I gave birth, the algorithm gods started serving up so much mum content. Instead of style trends, funny memes, and celebrity news, my homepage was completely flooded with mum content from self-proclaimed baby experts and mummy influencers. 

Here’s how to get your baby to sleep through the night at two months old! Are you doing these things during your baby’s wake windows? By the way, your baby should already be hitting these milestones. Oh and here are 5 “bad habits” to avoid if you want an independent baby who can self-soothe. Meanwhile, have you gotten rid of your mummy tummy yet? Here’s what you should be eating to help you lose weight BUT ALSO remember to eat this many calories so that you produce enough breast milk to exclusively breastfeed your child! 

So there I was, knee-deep in the fourth trimester and killing myself trying to teach my Velcro baby to self-soothe, putting him down “drowsy but awake”, and adding a new baby item to my Amazon cart every other day because social media will deem me a failure of a mum if I don’t get him the Fisher Price Kick N Play Gym (to be fair, it was 100% worth it). 

It was nuts. I broke down over every little thing because the self-doubt was relentless. I constantly felt like I wasn’t doing enough, and I was exhausted from trying to keep up. 

The straw that broke the camel’s back was when I saw an ab-baring selfie from an influencer who was only 7 days postpartum. I spent two days crying and feeling bad about my stomach, which is now flabby, hairy, and covered in deep purple lines - a far cry from the flat stomach that I used to love flaunting in crop tops. 

That was the wake-up call I needed to stay off social media. I started by unfollowing that influencer, plus other mummy influencers who were selling me unrealistic expectations of motherhood. I fervently blocked mum content from my social media feeds. Eventually, I worked my way to drastically reducing the amount of time I spent on social media apps, to the point where I’d only check in once a day for a limited amount of time. 

Looking back, I realised how harmful social media had been for me in those early days. I was too busy parenting the baby that Instagram projected on me, instead of listening to the baby in front of me. 

Once I stopped letting social media cloud my judgement, I was able to figure out my baby’s personality which led to more responsive parenting and fewer tears overall. He is a Velcro baby, so I abandoned all expectations of self-soothing and fully leaned into babywearing. Sleep is a huge challenge for him, so guess what? We’re safely co-sleeping and contact napping even at 5 months. He also started showing signs of readiness for solids pretty early on at 4.5 months, so we’re happily going down the list of first foods - and he’s having the time of his life discovering new flavours and textures. 

That’s not to say that social media isn’t helpful. I consider it part of my village, with the caveat that I only follow a few select accounts run by certified experts. My personal favourites are @heysleepybaby for mums who don’t want to sleep train, @solidstarts for baby-led weaning advice from doctors and paediatric feeding experts, and @ourlittleplaynest for positive parenting tips from an ex-school teacher. I also like The Doctors Bjorkman on YouTube. She’s a gynae, he’s a PD, and they are so honest about their struggles as new parents, especially with two under two. 

So here’s my number one, unsolicited piece of advice for new mums like myself - stay off social media! And this includes posting content as well. Privacy concerns aside, I find that social media updates from new parents almost always invite unsolicited and unwarranted comments or advice. Sure, some of these people might be well-meaning but it can also be extremely triggering when you’ve done everything you could and someone suggests something blatantly obvious. Like gee thanks aunt Sally, I didn’t think of swaddling my baby who refuses to go down for a nap! 

Ultimately, if your baby is fed, happy, and loved, you’re doing a great job as a new mum. It is just unfortunate that social media has a tendency to make you feel otherwise. 

Serena Yeo is your typical millennial and now newly-minted mum to one very vocal baby boy. It is no coincidence that she is also slightly deaf in one ear now.