Why Do I Feel Like a Failure as a Mum? (And How to Stop)

Last Updated on October 13, 2026 by Ivana Poku

Hey, lovely lady!

I’m Ivana, a mum of three boys (including twins), author of Motherhood – The Unspoken. I started this blog, Mumsjourney, to help mums feel seen and supported.

If you ever feel like you’re failing in motherhood, this post is for you.

To be fair, I think we all feel like that (or felt like that) at some point:

Your baby cries and you can’t soothe them

You scream at your toddler who’s been pushing all your buttons (even those you didn’t know you had)

You forget about your child’s doctor appointment

And then you feel like every other mum is coping better.

I feel you on this one.

When our twins were babies, I felt like a failure almost every single day. And now, ten years later, I still occasionally feel like I’ve failed at something, but I don’t feel like a failure anymore.

In this post, I’ll show you how you can too.

More specifically, I’ll:

explain why you feel like a failure as a mum
help you change how you view failure
show you what you can do to stop this feeling from running your life

Let’s begin.

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Table of Contents

When “You’re a Good Mum” Feels Like a Lie

I’m sure many people around you have told you you’re doing amazing.

But when they do, you think: They’re just being nice. I’m not.

That’s because feeling like a failure isn’t really about the facts.

You know your child is fed, loved, and safe, yet it doesn’t feel like enough.

Because how you feel is not about one or two specific moments – it’s about how you see yourself.

So if you’ve read lists of signs you’re a good mum and nodded along, but nothing changed inside… that’s normal.

Reassurance can help, but to stop feeling like a failure, you need to know where the feeling comes from.

So let’s look at that.

7 Reasons You Feel Like a Failure as a Mum

1. The mum in your head doesn’t exist

Before you had your baby, you probably had a picture of the mum you’d be:

Coping better than mums before you
Always calm and patient
Organised
Baking with the kids every Sunday

Then real life happened, and now you measure yourself against that picture every day – often unconsciously.

And you never match it.

But the thing is: that mum was never real.

She was made from films, Instagram and the stories we’re told before we have kids.

You’re not failing to be her.

She was never possible in the first place.

See also my post on why motherhood expectations are so unrealistic.

2. You only see other mums’ highlights

You see the mum at the school gate with perfect nails and a perfect smile on her face.

Your friend posts her toddler eating healthy food with the caption: “I don’t understand how some mums can give their kids McDonald’s”.

Another mum posts a happy picture of her family in matching Christmas pyjamas, while your only task is to survive the day.

But what you don’t see is the mum shouting five minutes later or bursting into tears.

When you compare your real life to others’ best bits, you will always feel like you’re losing.

Always.

3. Mum work has no finish line

At work, you finish a task. Someone says “good job” and you get paid.

In motherhood, you wash the bottles, and they’re dirty again two minutes later.

You do a million things a day (or what feels like a million things), but nobody claps.

Hell, nobody even notices!

When your work is invisible and never finished, you start to feel like you’ve achieved nothing.

Even though you’ve achieved a lot more than you ever did at work.

4. You used to be in control

Before kids, you were in control of your life – or most of it.

You knew what you were doing:

at work
with friends
in your free time

Then suddenly, you’re a beginner again – at everything – and you have very little control over things.

You don’t know why the baby is crying, and you Google everything at night.

And going from “I’ve got this” to “I have no idea what to do” is a shock.

It doesn’t mean you’re failing; you’re just learning something brand new.

5. You’re running on empty

Exhaustion is not only brutal for your body, but it also changes how your brain works.

When you’re tired, everything looks worse.

Every small mistake feels like the end of the world, and every bad moment feels like a bad life.

So if you feel like a failure mostly in the evenings, that’s not a coincidence.

It’s not the truth talking, it’s the tiredness.

6. Your inner critic is very, very loud

Listen to the voice in your head for a second.

You’re useless.

Other mums cope better.

What’s wrong with me?

Would you ever say that to someone you love?

No way.

And the “best” bit is that this voice isn’t even yours. It’s a voice you picked up as a child, from a parent, a teacher, or just the world around you.

When you become a mum, that voice often becomes much louder.

7. It might be more than a bad day

Sometimes, feeling like a failure can also be a sign of postnatal depression or anxiety.

This was the case for me too.

After having our twins, I had postnatal depression, and the “I’m failing” feeling was one of the loudest parts of it.

If the feeling doesn’t lift with time, if you feel hopeless, or if you feel your baby would be better off without you, please talk to someone you trust.

Don’t wait until it gets worse. Even if it’s not depression, if you bottle your feelings up, it can quickly escalate into it.

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How to Stop Feeling Like a Failure as a Mum

Now that you know where the feeling comes from, let’s talk about what can help.

These are not general tips, but what truly helped me personally when I felt like a failure myself.

1. Stop seeing failure as a bad thing

One of the best things you can do is change the way you see failure.

Do you see it as a personal trait?

As if the world stops spinning?

What if I told you that failure is not bad at all?

Personally, I see failure as an inevitable part of life and growth.

When you learn anything, you will fail many times in the process. It’s not something to fear, but something to embrace.

Without failure, there would be no progress, and no joy.

If you try to avoid it, you’re avoiding living.

Failing and making mistakes are as natural as breathing.

2. Learn to love yourself again

Having compassion for yourself is just as important.

When you do something you regret, instead of repeating to yourself over and over how much you’ve failed, try to review the situation and ask yourself what led you to this point.

For instance, if you lost it in front of your child, you may realise that:

they were pushing your buttons all day

you haven’t slept for weeks

you haven’t had any me-time for even longer

So it’s kind of logical that you lost it. How could you not?

Instead of beating yourself up, zoom out on the situation, and you’ll find that your actions were pretty reasonable given the circumstances.

And if you want to take it a step further, make a plan of how you can handle things differently in the future.

3. Notice the good things that happen to you

We humans are wired to notice negative things around us.

But when you start consciously noticing everything good that happens to you or around you, real magic happens.

You can do this anytime in the day, but evenings are generally best – when your mind calms down – and it also sets the mood for the next day.

Review the whole day (or the day before) and look at it from a different angle.

See it as a challenge where you have to notice all the good that happened that day.

Have fun with it!

It’s very liberating and will dramatically shift how you feel.

4. Say it out loud to someone

The feeling of failure grows in silence.

When you confide in someone you trust, it deflates like a popped balloon.

I always recommend speaking to a fellow mum who gets it. Because then, not only will you feel lighter, but you will also feel less alone when they say: “Me too.”

When I had PPD, I’m not exaggerating when I say that speaking up saved my life. Seeing I wasn’t the only one feeling the way I did was too liberating for words.

It was the best medicine, and it can be for you too.

5. Embrace being imperfect

Mums (and people in general) aim to be perfect and are terrified of being seen as imperfect.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Why would you want to do everything perfectly and make no mistakes? Don’t you think life would be incredibly boring then? That you would be boring?

The beauty of life is in its colourfulness and mixture of joy and pain, love and suffering, wins and losses, highs and lows.

To be a human means to be imperfect by nature.

Trying to fight it is like trying to stop the sun from shining or water from flowing.

What a waste of time, right?

6. Let someone help you

Many mums (myself included once) feel like asking for help and support means we’ve “failed”.

Who says so? It’s all in your head, honey.

This belief is especially intriguing to me because it’s not like there are many mums around us who are smashing it without help and we simply strive to be like them. Mums like that don’t exist – they never have and never will.

So what makes you think that help equals failure? What is this belief based on?

You were never meant to do motherhood alone. They say it takes a village for a reason. Because it does.

No great mum does motherhood alone, so why should you?

Remember: asking for help doesn’t mean you’re weak; it means you choose to remain strong.

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Final Word

Feeling like a failure as a mum doesn’t mean you are one.

Failing and making mistakes are a natural part of life, so instead of aiming to avoid it, embrace it!

Great mums allow themselves to fail, learn, and grow. That’s what makes motherhood (and life) exciting.

So remember:

Stop seeing failure as a bad thing
Give yourself lots of love every day
Notice the good things that happen to you (and around you) every day
Talk to a fellow mum who gets it
Ask for help like it’s your job (because it kind of is)

The goal isn’t to feel “perfect”, so don’t beat yourself up if you “fail” at any of these.

You will – and that’s okay!

The goal is to feel better.

And the more you do these, the better you’ll feel over time.

If you have any questions, or you just want to tell someone how you feel, please drop a comment below. I read and reply to every single one.

Your next read:

Ivana Poku

PhDr. Ivana Poku is the author of Motherhood – The Unspoken, an award-winning blogger and maternal mental health advocate. Through her work, she is on a mission to create a world where mums feel seen, heard and supported. Ivana is also a mum of three boys, including twins, and lives with her family in a small coastal town in Scotland.

Why Do I Feel Like a Failure as a Mum? (And How to Stop)

When “You’re a Good Mum” Feels Like a Lie