Four Years


When I met my partner six years ago, I was a nursery assistant at a local nursery and after school club daycare. It was the job I'd dreamed of, but in reality, I hated it. I loved working with the kids, and I have some of the parents on my personal Facebook, and it's lovely seeing updated photos of the kids and how much they have grown. Most of them are roughly the same as Mia too. It's a little scary how fast time goes. When I fell pregnant with my second, Elliw, my partner and I decided it would be a good idea to move in together before the baby arrived. It all happened so quickly. We moved in together October 2011, and I gave birth in March 2012. In April 2012 we moved to our second private rented house. During my second pregnancy, I was still going to work, but I had to travel on bus 2-3 times a week. It was a 25-30 minutes journey on the bus, as I couldn't drive. I suffered from nausea, really bad. I also had a severe back ache. I decided to go on maternity leave at 30 weeks. It seemed the right thing to do as I knew I'd be in and out of hospital each week once my liver disorder, Obstetric Cholestasis started and it did, not long after. I was due to go back to work around September but decided to quit my job instead. It was the right thing to do as Mia was starting pre-school and I wouldn't have had enough money to put her in a nursery while I worked, as well as travel costs.


Not long after Elliw turned one year old, I saw an advert on the TV about Blogger. Writing down memories. It was something that interested me. Then, I saw a local blog OhSoAmelia. She was a sister of my brothers best friend. I asked her a lot of questions, and she was always helpful, still is. I decided to start my blog. I remember trying to think of a name which was quite difficult but in the end Life as Mum seemed the right one for me. I'm still not keen on the dashes in between, but it doesn't matter now.

When I wrote my first post on the 5th of January 2013, I kind of backed off and wrote nothing again up until the 15th of May 2013 and that is the date I started blogging. At that time it was just my hobby. I wrote some extremely cringe posts, ones I want to delete but I won't because everybody's got to start somewhere, don't they? I remember that first e-mail I had to ask if I'd review some clothing for a brand, Stardust Kids which you can read here. I remember phoning my partner up while he was at work and I was super happy that I had actually got the chance to review something. As the weekends went by I was contacted by two big brands, Tommee Tippee and Water Wipes. You can read my reviews here and here. You can probably tell that my review posts have improved a lot since that time. I've learnt a lot in the past four years of blogging. I'd like to say I've improved 100%, but I hope to improve even more these next few years too.


I've finally had the courage to book a ticket to the BlogOn event in September. I was in two minds of either BritMums or BlogOn, but a few of my favourite bloggers were going to BlogOn, and so that's why I decided to go there instead. I'm super nervous. Although I've been blogging for just over four years, I still feel like I don't 'belong' in the 'blogging world'. I'm the kind of person who keeps myself to myself. For the past few months, I have been trying to be more sociable with other bloggers and still reading and commenting other blogs. But I know I'm going to terribly nervous when the time comes.

From when I started blogging, it was something I loved doing, I still do. I never thought I'd be getting my own income from my blog. Some months can be ok, some can be rubbish and others can be amazing. Working from home is the right thing for me to do and I feel lucky that I'm able to do it. I would like if I had certain set days and hours to do my work but I know that time will come. Once Freddie starts sleeping better during the evenings it will be a little easier to catch up with my work. Right now, it is difficult to get time to do it. But I try to catch up on a lot when I can.

I've had people turn round to me to say blogging is not a job. I've had people tell me that they're proud of me of what I've achieved with my blog. I've had people take the mick out of me. But at the end of the day, my blog is mine. I write what I want, I will share what I want. I have worked with some amazing brands, whether it's social media work, product review, site reviews, guest or sponsored posts. I've had a contract with a brand. I get paid to work with brands, except for reviews unless a certain amount. How someone can turn around and tell me it's not a job, bizarre me. I guess everyone has different views on working from home. I am self-employed and I earn money through my blog, which I am extremely proud of. It feels good that I'm earning money from something I love doing.

Since becoming a Mum at seventeen, I've never really had that life after college of going out with friends every weekend or going abroad with the girls. I've had the life of a Mum. That's what I've been used to. I've lost tonnes of friends since having my first child, even more after my second and more after my third. I have my handful of friends who I trust and call real friends. But this is my space where I can feel like 'me'. I am doing something for me. No one else and I think it's one of my biggest reasons why I've stuck to it four years later.

One thing I have been really interested in for the past year or so is vlogging. I have followed a few vloggers, and I enjoy watching them. This year I decided to start myself. I love filming, but I was super nervous to talk in front of a camera for a vlog. I plucked up the courage this year and though "If I don't do it now, I never will" and so that's when that began. The uploading was taking forever, and so it put me off vlogging for a couple of months until I realised I needed to cut my videos to be shorter. Since then I've tried my best to upload once a week or fortnightly. I have tonnes of videos I need to edit and upload, but yet again it's all just been about time. I'm really pleased that I've managed to get 100 subscribers and if you don't follow, we would love to have you on board (if you're interested). You can subscribe to our channel here.



I am so grateful for everything that my blog has learnt and given me through the years. As I finish writing this post, I thought I'd give a little shout out to just a few of my favourite bloggers, who inspire me to write and also, who I think you should read/follow;

Mummy Daddy MeHello ArchieMy Petit CanardLilypad and BowLets Talk MommyTwin Mummy and DaddyOh So AmeliaBump to BabySparkles and StretchmarksDear Little DaisyLamb and BearRaising EmilySophie Ella and MeThis Mama LifeWhat The Redhead SaidWrite Like No Ones WatchingDIYDaddyLived With Loveclick here to see more.





1 comment

  1. You've achieved so much in 4 years Beth, you should be super proud of yourself! I love your blog and can really relate to a lot of the things that you say :) Thanks so much for mentioning my blog xxx

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