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Turia Pitt: The hardest part about being a new mum
Turia Pitt has opened up about her first few months as a mum and revealed her biggest struggle is ‘staying in the moment’.
The 30-year-old first time mum and fiancé Michael Hoskin welcomed their baby boy Hakavai in December, and while Turia admits she's absolutely loving motherhood, things can easily become overwhelming.
“I think this is a pretty common one for most new mums, but I’m just trying not to get too far ahead of myself,” Turia tells Be.
“It’s easy to get stressed and overwhelmed when your baby is crying or not sleeping, and get in that loop of ‘oh, if he doesn’t sleep now, then he won’t sleep later, and then I won’t sleep well tonight, which will make tomorrow stressful etc’.
“But that doesn’t help anyone! So I’m trying to stay in the present moment - and enjoy all of it," she says.
With a strong support network of family and friends that live close by, Turia says she has been able to focus on clearing her head and enjoying every little milestone.
And she has one simple trick she uses to help make sure that things don’t become too stressful.
“This tip of Megan Gale’s advice that I love is to swap ‘I have to’ with ‘I get to’,” Turia explains.
“So, for example, when I get woken up at 3am by Hakavai, instead of thinking ‘I have to go and feed Hakavai’ I think ‘I get to go and feed Hakavai!’.
“It’s a simple mindset shift that reminds me how lucky I am to have a healthy little boy.”
Turia became a household name in Australia after she was left with severe burns to 65 per cent of her body in 2011, when the ultramarathon course she was running became engulfed in a bushfire.
She has since gone on to become a motivational speaker and author, and made her first public appearance since becoming a mother at the Westfield Women in Conversation launch at Westfield Parramatta in Sydney, touching on how she's learning to balance professional and personal commitments with family demands.
When it comes to feeding and nappy changing, Turia says she and Michael don’t divvy up the parenting duties and rather try and focus on working as a team.
“It’s not really like ‘I’ve done this, now you can do that’. It’s more just helping each other out, giving each other some time out, and being there for each other,” she tells us.
While at this early stage Hakavai is still ‘pretty chill’, according to his mum, she does still try and take some time out to focus on her health and fitness.
Aside from surfing every day she can, while her mother looks after bub, she’s also joined a mums fitness class.
“It’s a good chance for all of us to catch up and debrief and do the occasional push up,” she laughs.
“For me, at this stage of Hakavai’s life, the focus is on clearing my head and feeling good about myself as opposed to making significant gains in terms of my fitness.”
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