Maternity Leave and the Mental Load: What No One Tells You About the First Year

There’s a version of early motherhood that gets spoken about a lot. The love. The awe. Even, the exhaustion.

And then there’s the part that tends to sit underneath it all that we all take on as just a normal part of parenting… because we have no choice really. Or at least it feels like it. It’s the constant mental tracking. The invisible organising. The feeling that your brain is never quite off.

This is what people are often describing when they talk about the mental load of motherhood. And if you’re on maternity leave, especially in that first year postpartum, it can feel like it arrives all at once (it kind of does!).

I remember reading Fair Play about a year after my first son was born. Up until that point, I kept telling myself I was struggling with the transition into motherhood. Which, to be fair, I was. But the book helped me see something more specific.

It wasn’t just the baby.

It was everything wrapped around the baby.

The running list in my head that never seemed to end. Thinking about which nursery he might go to, how we’d manage drop-offs, whether we had enough nappies in, when he last saw his grandparents, whether I’d remembered to reply to that message, book that appointment, restock that cupboard.

It wasn’t one big thing. It was a hundred small ones. Constantly ticking over.

And what I notice now, both in my own experience and in the therapy room, is how common this is. There’s often so much love for the child. But alongside that, there’s a quiet overwhelm that can feel harder to name.

Because on the surface, nothing is “wrong”.

But internally, it can feel like you’re holding everything.

Why the mental load hits so hard in the first year postpartum

The first year of motherhood (or adding another child) is already a huge psychological shift. Your identity is changing. Your body has been through something truly spectacular. Your routines, your time, your sense of autonomy all look different.

And then the mental load layers on top.

You become the default person who remembers. The one who anticipates needs before they happen. The one who carries the logistics of family life, even if someone else is helping in practical ways.

This is where tools like the Fair Play cards can be really helpful. Not because they magically fix everything, but because they make the invisible visible.

They give language to something that often just feels like a low-level, constant pressure.

The emotional side that doesn’t get spoken about enough

What I often hear from mums is a kind of quiet resentment that’s mixed with guilt.

Resentment that they’re holding so much and guilt for even feeling that way.

There can be a sense of “why am I finding this so hard when I wanted this so much?”

And that question can be quite a painful one to sit with.

From a therapeutic perspective, it makes complete sense. You’re navigating a major life transition, often with very little structured support, while carrying an ongoing cognitive load that rarely gets acknowledged.

Of course it feels like a lot.

A gentle place to start

If you’re recognising yourself in this, the aim isn’t to overhaul your entire life overnight. It’s more about starting to notice, name, and redistribute where possible.

Here are three small ways to begin:

1. Get it out of your head and onto paper
Spend a bit of time writing down everything you’re mentally tracking in a typical week. Not just the obvious tasks, but the thinking behind them. Planning meals, remembering birthdays, anticipating nap times, researching nurseries.

Most people are surprised by how long the list becomes. There’s something quite grounding about seeing it outside of your mind.

2. Look at ownership, not just “help”
One of the key ideas from Fair Play is the difference between helping and owning a task.

Helping is being asked. Owning is carrying the mental responsibility from start to finish.

If everything still ultimately sits with you to delegate or check, the mental load doesn’t really shift. Even small areas of full ownership being passed over can make a noticeable difference.

3. Notice the emotional cues, not just the practical ones
Often the first sign that the mental load is building isn’t the to-do list, it’s the feeling. Irritability. Snapping more quickly. That sense of being “on edge”.

Rather than pushing that away, it can be useful to treat it as information. Something is asking for attention, not because you’re failing, but because you’re carrying a lot.

There isn’t a perfect system where the mental load disappears completely. Life with a baby is, by nature, full and demanding.

But there is a version of it where you’re not holding it all alone. Where it feels named, shared, and a little more spacious.

And sometimes, it starts with realising that what you’re feeling isn’t random or personal.

It’s structural. It’s common. And it’s valid.