In the last few years I’ve come to the realisation that I find it very difficult to accept help from people. My first instinct is to say thanks but stress that I’m perfectly capable of handling things. Because admitting that you need help is akin to admitting to weakness in my mind.

But it’s become apparent lately that it’s so important not just to accept help when it’s offered, but to ask for help when you need it. I’m lucky to have a fantastic husband, who is a wonderful father, but sleeps like a log so rarely wakes up in the night if Max is upset. And he’s been upset a lot lately, having had a succession of colds, and a nasty bug which have left him coughing and wheezing during the night and being generally pretty upset. And because I struggle to sleep even if my husband goes in to settle Max, it seems easier to go in myself rather than wake him up.

So that’s how we’ve handled things in general. Except when I caught Max’s cold from him and my immune system was low due to being so exhausted, it quickly spiralled into a nasty and excruciatingly painful ear infection that a week and a half later I’m still struggling to shift - I’m on the second round of antibiotics, which seem to be having some effect, so fingers crossed. It struck me that, had I asked my husband for more help in the first place, the ear infection might never have happened. We’re a great team, and I know he wouldn’t have minded the odd night-time wakeup. And I realised that this is a recurring situation in my life - when Max was a newborn, there were offers of help, but I rejected these on the basis that they weren’t specific; people would just say ‘if there’s anything I can do to help…’ and I felt that had the offers been more concrete, i.e. can we make you dinner, or, can I do the washing up, that I would have been more inclined to accept. But I suspect that the reality is different, that I would have batted these offers off as quickly as I did the ones that were actually made.

So I’ve decided to make a conscious effort to try to accept help where it’s offered, and to ask for it when it’s needed. To be a little bit more humble and accept that sometimes I can’t do it all.