Strictly Come Dancing contestant Helen Skelton has opened up about mum guilt and thanked fans for the hundreds of messages she has received in support of her.
As part of Lorraine's new Me Time segment, where viewers are encouraged to ask for advice, Helen helped answer some of today's questions. One of the topics discussed was mum guilt and Helen admitted she herself struggles with it.
The 39-year-old told presenter Ranvir Singh that no one had told her about it before she had her children. She said: "It's normal, it's common, it's across the board.
Read more: Strictly's Helen Skelton and ex Richie Myler 'avoided each other for year before split'
"Talk about it, talk to your friends and family. I guarantee you'll got mum friends in your circle who will want to help you and you can help them."
Sharing more tips on how to cope with it, the mum-of-three said: "If you can snatch 15 minutes here and there you will benefit and your kids will benefit."
For mums working from home while also looking after their kids, Helen, who recently moved from Leeds back to her native Cumbria following her marriage split, stressed the importance of switching off. She said: "To me, one of the biggest, most liberating things it to put your phone away.
"Put your phone on a shelf, put your phone in a drawer, get yourself an alarm clock because it's so easy to get sucked into work emails and extra tasks. Clearly, if you are a conscientious person, you always think you can do a bit more and do a bit extra. But box it off, your working day finishes at a certain point."
She added: "I've said it before, feel free to delegate. You know there are other working mums out there, who might want to do extra, who might want to do some ironing, who might want to do some cleaning. If you can't fit that into your day, feel free to delegate some things out.
"The thing that I am hanging on to, that I encourage everybody to do, including myself, that Amir said, was tell other people that when you are carving out that me time for yourself, that's your little backyard of protecting yourself - and lists, lists are good, write down what you need to do and it's out of your brain."
The Countryfile and Blue Peter star believes mums are not helping each other enough, saying: "It's not a competition."
She said: "It's all a sort of trade-off. My kids love it when their kids come around for tea and you are doing tea for three kids anyway, two more, they entertain each other, your kids are get a better experience with other kids. And like you say, it's a trade-off.
"My friends will then have my kids over for tea or flipflop taking the boys to football, so that you are helping someone else, you'll feel better about that but you are getting yourself that window of opportunity to do something for you."
She added: "I don't think mums help each other enough. It's not a competition, it takes a village and we are all in this together."
Helen also thanked fans for their support following last Saturday's show in which her dancing partner Gorka Marquez revealed Helen was having a difficult time. He also revealed how she had been struggling with her confidence and needed to believe in herself.
Helen and Gorka will once again take to the Strictly dance floor this Saturday. The duo is set to dance a Charleston to the Blue Peter theme song as part of the BBC's 100th anniversary celebrations.
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