One evening, around two weeks ago, I suddenly realised that something had shifted: we’d finally hit once again the season where we didn’t have to turn on the lights at dinner time and the sun was just setting when bedtime for the boys started. The dark winter days were finally coming to an end.

For the first time since November 2018 - when I was about 4 months pregnant with my first child - I travelled on my own in January. While our children regularly spend a night or two with their grandmother and my husband and I go on a staycation once a year, this was the first time in a very long time that I actually got on an airplane without my family and spent three nights in another country. Here are some insights that I got during this travel.

New year, new me? While I love doing end of year reflections and setting goals for the new year, I have to admit that I have been stuck this time round. Sickness and travel made that I couldn’t get round to it before the end of 2022, and 2023 somehow have left me feeling uninspired. I have an overall ideas of what I want the new year to be like, what goals I would like to achieve - I’m just struggling to put pen to paper simply because there has been so much going on in my life with two little ones at home, a part-time job and a dream of a business that I would like to set up in the next 12 months.

Since I was 2 years old, I‘ve regularly travelled to Singapore, most of the time with my parents, since 2011 more often with my husband and now with our two kids. They say when you travel with kids, you just shift your „work“ to another place. In a way, that‘s true - and yet, this trip is so much more, for us as well as for them.

„Welcome to Singapore, Ladies and Gentlemen, and to all Singaporeans and residents of Singapore, a warm welcome home“. Two and a half years have passed since we last heard that sentence on a Singapore Airlines flight. At the end of 2019, we took our baby onto a 12h flight for his first Christmas and celebrated with friends on the other side of the world. Shortly after that, the pandemic hit. And now, we are back here, one pandemic and a baby later.

I recently had a discussion with a friend about the regretting motherhood movement: women admitting that if they could, they would not do it all over again. Parenthood is hard, there is no doubt about it, and I think it’s amazing that women - or parents in general - dare to speak up about this topic. And that got me thinking about how I felt, especially now that I’m in this newborn chaos phase with two kids under 3, sleepless nights and days where I feel like I’m doing 100 things at once, but nothing really for myself or my self care.

In many cultures, the first weeks after birth are a special period, a time where the family comes together to support the mother with her newborn, makes sure that she is taken care of and eats the right food that will help her recovery. My second pregnancy made me reflect on what I could do to make this postpartum period the easiest possible for myself.

No matter how long, complicated or easy the labour, giving birth is strenuous on your body! And it doesn’t end there, with the arrival of a new tiny human. Your body has been running marathons for months, survived the final leg… and now, it has to keep this little person alive. Read how journaling has helped me through this period.

Parenting seems to be a delicate topic - just like pregnancy, everybody has an opinion on it and is convinced that they know best. I have hesitated to start this category on the blog - yet it is something that I feel passionate about. My aim is not to tell you what is right or wrong - because only you as a parent know that - but I would like to share my experience and with time also suggest some coaching exercises that might make the one or other reader reflect on their situation.

Read about why I decided to train as a life coach and how you can benefit from coaching sessions.