Early motherhood has a way of turning even the most grounded therapist into a 2am google detective. Suddenly every cry feels like a puzzle, every nap is a negotiation, and car-ride meltdowns become live experiments in emotional containment. Because motherhood truly is the great equaliser. No matter your training or how many theories you can recite, every mother eventually ends up slumped in the dark at 2am, scrolling with one hand while wearing a shirt mysteriously covered in spit-up.

This post grew out of those nights; the foggy, tender ones where big ideas about attachment bumped up against the messy reality of a real baby with real feelings. Here, I translate the spirit of psychodynamic thinking into everyday parenthood: the night wakings, the clinginess, the tiny separations that feel bigger than they are, and the reunions that reset your whole nervous system. If you’re a parent wondering whether you’re doing enough, you’re in good company. You and your baby are doing the complicated, beautiful work of growing together, one imperfect human moment after the other.

Feeling like a shell of yourself after months of broken sleep? You’re not imagining it. Chronic wake-ups change your brain, your mood, and your capacity to cope. This post unpacks why it feels so hard, why “catching up” takes time, and how to survive the nights with gentleness (and the occasional 2am Netflix marathon).

There’s a quiet reckoning that many new parents face — after the haze of newborn days fades, you might find yourself wondering, “Wasn’t I supposed to have a village?” This post explores the gap between our expectations of community and the reality of isolation, the loss of early support, and the deeper, ongoing transformation of matrescence. It’s a gentle invitation to acknowledge the grief, anger, and loneliness — and to imagine how connection can begin again, even if it looks different than what we pictured.