Bringing up a small child is both incredibly hard and extremely mind numbing

The other day (it might have been a Wednesday, but at this point who’s counting?) I identified the 21st-century equivalent of watching paint dry – on my TV, when you’ve been watching it for too long, it puts itself on to sleep mode.

Various screensavers come on – mountainscapes, beach scenes, lush green forests – and on this particular day I sat and watched them, weirdly mesmerised, for hours.

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Some of them were places I’d been to in my old life as a travel journalist, a long, long time ago in a place far, far away.

As I watched them flick before me, trapped under a feeding baby on the sofa, the sky outside got dark, the room got colder. And then eventually the TV turned itself off. And so, it seemed, had my brain.

Before I had a baby I thought things were either hard and challenging (like algebra) or easy and boring (like vegging out in front of Selling Sunset). But bringing up a small child is both incredibly hard and extremely mind numbing.

My whole day is occupied and busy, but not with things I find interesting.

It can feel like an endless cycle of wiping, patting and removing a swollen nipple from a damp, leaked-on bra. On repeat. Forget Groundhog Day, this is Groundhog Every-Three-Hours. 

Admitting that you find it boring looking after your own baby still feels like a taboo.

I feel worried to even write it here, scared that one day my daughter Blake will read this and think that I didn’t love her or love this time with her, which everyone reminds me is so precious, and goes so fast.

I feel guilty that my friends who are desperately trying to conceive might think I’m being ungrateful

Kate Wills

I know how lucky I am. But I think it’s possible to love your baby almost scary amounts, and also find spending time with them incredibly dull.

I knew that the early days of parenthood would feel isolating and lonely, which is ironic given that I now have a small person by my side almost constantly.

But in normal times there would at least be activities to go to – baby cinema! baby yoga! baby wine-tasting! (if only).

But because of the pandemic, most of these infant-prefixed activities are out and I can easily spend 10 hours straight not talking to another person, or at least not a verbal one.

Yes, I could text one of my new mum friends to meet for a walk, but having barely met most of them in person, I feel very out of the loop in a WhatsApp group that is 700 messages deep and talking primarily about nipple shields.

Sometimes I think of my primary school teacher who told us “only boring people are bored”, and most days there are things I can do to lessen the tedium.

Podcasts are good. Even a pixellated friend on FaceTime is better than nothing. And getting outside can be a lifesaver.

I know I’m not alone in finding life tedious right now.

Covid-19 has robbed pretty much all of us of excitement and spontaneity.

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I feel envious of my partner Guy, who is back at work and doing wild things like having meetings, in person, sometimes in cafes! “How did it go?” I asked him, when he got home, the day of the TV zone-out. “Oh y’know, it was work,” he said. “It was boring.”  

●Follow Kate on Instagram @katewillswrites

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