A Year (almost) of motherhood - 10 things I wish I'd known a year ago

1. Turn your phone off when your due date arrives.

We got inundated with texts, emails, and phonecalls/messages from around the world as soon as the 18th May arrived. What the frick did these people think? That the baby would shoot out at the stroke of midnight?

2. Stuff your face just before you go to hospital

I know food might be the last thing on your mind when you're in labour agony, but it could be the last meal you eat for at least a day, if not two days. The boyf made the mistake of going to Nando's during the labour and from the moment he came back with a vague smell of finely cooked chicken, I convinced myself for the next 36 hours that despite a catheter, I was starving.

3. Don't bother cleaning and organising before you pop

Trust me, you'll spend the rest of your days cleaning up and organising - get some sleep! Not going all OCD on the cleaning and organising is great preparation for when your brain turns to mush as soon as you pop and you start forgetting everything.

4. You will never have concept of time again

Days and weeks zip by quickly. When I was on maternity leave, the boyf would say "So what did you do today?" and even though I would have been super busy, my brain would go blank. I never seem to have enough time! Will I ever have time do nothing at all ever again? I should have done even less before I popped...

5. People are bloody annoying with inane questions and advice

I've become very good at filtering and tuning out but when I first had a baby, I became The Great Receiver of Unsolicited Advice.

6. You'll sometimes forgo sex for sleep

In the past you'd happily kiss sleep goodbye, but now you have to weigh up the pros and cons of getting a shag but possibly been woken up only a few hours later by a baby that wants to play...at 3am...versus not getting a shag but getting a few hours if not a whole nights kip in...

7. Mothers are very competitive

And no matter how hard you try, you get sucked into the melodrama. I had to bake a cake the other day because I didn't want to be 'The Only Mum That Didn't Bake'... OK, I lie... I did bake, but I popped out and got a Betty Croker mix. I almost got away with it until I made the mistake of saying that I'd managed to bake the brownies and clean the house in one hour... Overkill...

8. Women Who've Popped and Have High School Tendencies can be right bitches!

There's competitiveness and then there are the Other Mothers that enjoy making other mums feel uncomfortable by acting superior, ostracising, lecturing, and forming stupid cliques. That's why I developed the IDGAF - I Don't Give a F*ck attitude or the "Oh f*ck 'em" mentality...

9. Babies are set to the 'destruct' button

I was prepared for the bambino to be super mobile and destructive when she was over a year. Instead, the moment I became self-employed she started crawling at high speed, walking around the furniture, and systematically trying to destroy, lick, suck, or throw in water, everything that comes in her path. Recently she has taken to using things that she finds as an assault course and climbing frame to attempt to get on the bookshelves....

10. Motherhood is bloody exhausting but amazing

There are times I could hurl myself on the floor like the Haribo advert and have a tantrum of my own. I'm time poor, knackered, over stretched, and juggling motherhood, home, and being self-employed. But who knew that a feisty little diva with a penchant for being a pain in the arse could make me laugh at 3am when she's decided she doesn't want to sleep but does want to stick things in mine and the boyfs ears and noses?

Natalie Lue has is a mumpreneur. Yeah, I'm trying that word out on myself ;-)