My guest on this episode is Rose Stokes, best known for her honest, nuanced writing on motherhood, women's health and living in a body the world won't stop having opinions about. You'll have seen her byline in the Guardian, Grazia, the Telegraph and Women's Health. Rose is also a mum of two, and she's just about to launch her first podcast, A Matter of Fat, with Cambridge geneticist Professor Giles Yeo.

Rose tells me why she recently went back on GLP-1 weight loss jabs after having her second baby, knowing exactly the criticism it would bring, and why she still isn't fully comfortable with the word "obesity".

We also chat about:

• Why she assumed breastfeeding would be the one thing she'd definitely be good at, and what happened instead
• The moment she realised motherhood wasn't going to "complete" her the way she'd always been told it would
• Having postnatal depression after her first baby and choosing to go again anyway
• Why she thinks the UK not classing obesity as a chronic disease is more complicated than it sounds
• What she actually wants listeners to feel by the end of an episode of A Matter of Fat
• Her son's brutally honest take on leaving nursery

Find Rose on Instagram: @rosestokes

Listen to A Matter Of Fat podcast: https://www.instagram.com/amatteroffatpod/

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and review — it really helps other people find the podcast. And you can follow the podcast to ensure you don’t miss future episodes. Thank you!

Not Another Mummy Podcast is brought to you by me, journalist and author Alison Perry. I'm a mum of three and I love interviewing people about parenthood and confidence on the podcast. You can check out my other episodes and you can come chat to me on Instagram: @iamalisonperry or on Threads: @iamalisonperry. You can buy my book OMG It's Twins now.

Music: Epidemic Sound

Artwork: Eleanor Bowmer

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/notanothermummy.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is Sarah Beeny - property expert, broadcaster and entrepreneur, mum of four boys, and the host of the podcast Seriously?, where she talks to her sons about pretty much every topic under the sun. She's also just relaunched My Single Friend, the iconic dating site everyone was talking about in the noughties, now reborn as a video app, and she's been working with the NSPCC on online safety.

Sarah talks to me about why she took a hard line on screens years before it was fashionable - she once organised a school sit-in to keep iPads out of the classroom. She tells me why she thinks the under-16 social media ban is only the start, why we've all muddled up "quiet" and "happy" when it comes to our kids, and why talking to them about absolutely everything (yes, including sexting and foreplay) beats crossing your fingers and hoping it sorts itself out.

We also chat about:

• Why the social media ban is just the beginning - and the bigger thing she'd ban tomorrow
• The advice from her brother that made every awkward conversation with her kids easier
• What all four of her sons say to her now about growing up with phones (brace yourself)
• How watching her boys on Snapchat gave her the idea to bring back My Single Friend

You can follow Sarah on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sarah.beeny/?hl=en

Listen to her podcast Seriously? with Sarah Beeny https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/seriously-with-sarah-beeny/id1784734492

Find My Single Friend on the app store https://mysinglefriend.app

Find out more about the NSPCC's work on online safety https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/

If you enjoyed this episode, please do rate and review the podcast - it really helps. And you can follow the podcast to ensure you don’t miss future episodes. Thank you!

Not Another Mummy Podcast is brought to you by me, journalist and author Alison Perry. I'm a mum of three and I love interviewing people about parenthood on the podcast. You can check out my other episodes and you can come chat to me on Instagram: @iamalisonperry or on Threads: @iamalisonperry. You can buy my book OMG It's Twins now.

Music: Epidemic Sound

Artwork: Eleanor Bowmer

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/notanothermummy.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is presenter, author and speaker Andrea McLean, best known for over a decade on Loose Women.

Her new book, Shameless, details how she left her TV career to build a business with her husband Nick, and watched it collapse - with a bailiff turning up at the door, debt, and eventually having to sell their home. She talks to me about applying for jobs in coffee shops and hearing nothing back, what she told her kids when the money ran out, and the health scare that nearly killed her and changed everything. She also opens up about finding out who her real friends were, and why she and Nick packed up the car and moved to Spain to start again.

On the episode we also talk about:

• Why she used her own savings to fund the business instead of bringing in outside investors, and what she'd tell her 2020 self about that decision
• The moment a bailiff turned up at her front door, and how she ended up making him a cup of tea
• The friend who pulled a work offer at the worst possible moment, and what that taught her about who shows up
• Being told she was 24 hours from death, and how that reshaped the way she works and lives now

You can find Andrea on Instagram @andreamclean1 and her book, Shameless, is out now wherever books are sold: https://link.amazon/B0f2y45Yg

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and review - it really helps other mums find the podcast. Not Another Mummy Podcast is brought to you by me, journalist and author Alison Perry. I'm a mum of three and I love interviewing people about parenthood and confidence on the podcast. You can check out my other episodes and come chat to me on Instagram: @iamalisonperry or on Threads: @iamalisonperry. You can buy my book OMG It's Twins now.

Music: Epidemic Sound

Artwork: Eleanor Bowmer

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/notanothermummy.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest on this episode is the always fantastic Dr Louise Newson. Louise is a GP, hormone specialist, and the woman described as the medic who kickstarted the menopause revolution. She's just come off the back of a sell-out UK theatre tour, and her new book, The Power of Hormones, is out now.

Louise talks to me about something that might surprise you - how the contraceptive pill doesn't actually contain any real hormones at all. We talk about what's really in it, why she believes we're not being warned properly about the risks, and why she thinks there's a link between the Pill and cancer that's being ignored.

We also chat about:

• Why so many women are handed antidepressants when what they actually need is hormones, and how to tell the difference
• Progesterone for PMS and PMDD in teenagers, and why her own 15 year old takes it
• Why HRT should be seen as a basic health essential, not a last resort
• What really happened after the Panorama programme, and how her clinic ended up rated Outstanding by the CQC
• Whether all of us should be on testosterone, and why the UK's "licensing" of it hasn't actually made it any easier to get

Follow Louise on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/menopause_doctor/

Listen to The Dr Louise Newson Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@menopause_doctor

Order The Power of Hormones: https://link.amazon/B05wPyPsU

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and review — it really helps other people find the podcast. And you can follow the podcast to ensure you don’t miss future episodes. Thank you!

Not Another Mummy Podcast is brought to you by me, journalist and author Alison Perry. I'm a mum of three and I love interviewing people about parenthood and confidence on the podcast. You can check out my other episodes and you can come chat to me on Instagram: @iamalisonperry or on Threads: @iamalisonperry. You can buy my book OMG It's Twins now.

Music: Epidemic Sound

Artwork: Eleanor Bowmer

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/notanothermummy.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest on this episode is the brilliant Amy Hart. Best known for hitting our screens on Love Island, Amy is a TV personality, content creator and host of The Mums Club podcast.

Amy had her eldest son Stanley at 30, has just had her second boy Dexter, and is very much in her mum era. But she's very honest about the fact that the second time around has been harder than she expected - not because of Dexter, but because of the identity wobble that comes with spinning more plates and stepping back from some of the regular work she loved.

We also chat about:

• Why she froze her eggs at 26 after a fertility MOT revealed she might be following her mum and nan into early menopause - and why she'd tell every woman in her twenties to do the same
• The moment she seriously considered becoming a solo mum by choice, and what changed
• Why she has absolutely zero mum guilt about working, going away for the weekend or leaving the kids with their dad (and why she thinks the backlash is pure double standards)
• The day she took a three-month-old Dexter to a Downing Street garden party and why she'd do it again without hesitation
• Her honest assessment of her own podcast... what she got wrong, what she'd do differently and how she's planning to refocus it when she comes back

Follow Amy on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amyhartxo/?hl=en and on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AmyHart

If you enjoyed this episode then please leave a rating or review - and you can follow the podcast to ensure you don’t miss future episodes. Thank you!

Not Another Mummy Podcast is brought to you by me, journalist and author Alison Perry. I'm a mum of three and I love interviewing people about parenthood and confidence on the podcast. You can check out my other episodes and you can come chat to me on Instagram: @iamalisonperry or on Threads: @iamalisonperry. You can buy my book OMG It's Twins now.

Music: Epidemic Sound

Artwork: Eleanor Bowmer

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/notanothermummy.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest on this episode is Ben Cajee - CBeebies and CBBC presenter, BBC Sport broadcaster and now debut children's picture book author. His book, The Panda-Badger, is an uplifting story about a little character who doesn't quite fit into a world of pandas or badgers - and what happens when he realises that being both is actually his greatest strength. It's inspired by Ben's own experience of growing up mixed heritage, and it is already a firm favourite with my kids.

Ben chats to me about what it was like to be asked, in 2020, to speak publicly about his own experiences of racism. He explains how the viral CBeebies link he wrote himself, came about, and the harder, more personal one that followed... and the online pile-on that came with it.

Ben also talks about:

• Being physically sick with nerves before a live half-hour BBC broadcast - in a wetsuit, in October, with nowhere to hide
• Presenting Blue Peter, achieving the thing he'd always aimed for, and sitting on his sofa afterwards thinking it didn't feel how he thought it would
• Why he refuses to let anyone describe him as just one thing (and the conversation with a former NBA star that helped him see why)
• What it felt like watching his own links back to improve, and why he thinks not everything should be perfectly polished
• The celebrity author narrative, and why he's not remotely bothered by it

Find Ben on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ben_cajee/?hl=en-gb

Buy The Panda-Badger: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Panda-Badger-Ben-Cajee/dp/0241562600

If you enjoy the podcast, please do leave a rating and review - it really helps other people find it. Not Another Mummy Podcast is brought to you by me, journalist and author Alison Perry. I'm a mum of three and I love interviewing people about parenthood and confidence on the podcast. You can check out my other episodes and come chat to me on Instagram: @iamalisonperry or on Threads: @iamalisonperry. You can buy my book OMG It's Twins now.

Music: Epidemic Sound

Artwork: Eleanor Bowmer

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/notanothermummy.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm joined on this episode - for the fourth time - by awesome psychotherapist and bestselling author Anna Mathur. Her new book How to Stop Snapping at the People You Love (as Well as the Ones You Don't) is a brilliant exploration of why we snap and how to respond when it happens.

We kick of by chatting about what it's like to be the expert on rage when you're also the person in the car park crying over a WhatsApp group message asking for a fiver.

We also cover:

• Why snapping is rarely about the thing that triggered it - and what the carrier bag metaphor tells us about how we actually reach our limit
• The difference between anger and rage, and why anger is more useful than we think
• Why the shame spiral after a snap keeps your body in the same stressed state, making another one more likely, not less
• How being a "good girl" becomes a survival strategy, and why it turns into resentment
• What Anna's ADHD diagnosis taught her about her own nervous system - and how she parents a child with big feelings when she has them too
• The perimenopause connection: what's actually happening hormonally, and why Anna started HRT
• What a real apology looks like (and the version that actually makes things worse)
• Anna's own burnout - what it felt like, and how it changed the way she lives now

Follow Anna Mathur on Instagram at @annamathur and check out her new book here: https://amzn.to/4btSdF6

If you enjoyed this episode then please leave a rating or review - and you can follow the podcast to ensure you don’t miss future episodes. Thank you!

Not Another Mummy Podcast is brought to you by me, journalist and author Alison Perry. I'm a mum of three and I love interviewing people about parenthood and confidence on the podcast. You can check out my other episodes and you can come chat to me on Instagram: @iamalisonperry or on Threads: @iamalisonperry. You can buy my book OMG It's Twins now.

Music: Epidemic Sound

Artwork: Eleanor Bowmer

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/notanothermummy.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm joined on this episode by neuroscientist, parent and content creator Dr Michele Veldsman, and Dr Elizabeth Milovidov, Roblox's Head of Parental Advocacy and a digital parenting expert.

Our kids are growing up in digital worlds that many of us didn't experience ourselves. And if you've ever found yourself wondering whether you're getting screen time "right", feeling overwhelmed by gaming, or worrying that your child knows far more about technology than you do, you’re not alone.

On this episode, we talk about why gaming can be confusing for parents, what children are actually getting from online experiences, and why not all screen time is created equal. We also discuss how children's digital needs change as they grow, how to balance safety with independence, and why parents don't need to become experts in every app, game and platform their children use.

Plus, we explore Roblox's new age-based accounts and parental controls for younger users, designed to help families navigate gaming in a way that's appropriate for different ages and stages.

For more details visit Roblox’s Safety Centre

This episode is brought to you by Roblox, the immersive gaming and creation platform.

If you enjoyed this episode then please leave a rating or review - and you can follow the podcast to ensure you don’t miss future episodes. Thank you!

Not Another Mummy Podcast is brought to you by me, journalist and author Alison Perry. I'm a mum of three and I love interviewing people about parenthood and confidence on the podcast. You can check out my other episodes and you can come chat to me on Instagram: @iamalisonperry or on Threads: @iamalisonperry. You can buy my book OMG It's Twins now.

Music: Epidemic Sound

Artwork: Eleanor Bowmer

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/notanothermummy.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.