Transcript: Feeling Mom Burnout? Discover How to Set Boundaries That Work

This is a text transcript from The First Time Mum’s Chat podcast. The episode is called Feeling Mom Burnout? Discover How to Set Boundaries That Work and you can click on the link to view the full episode page, listen to the episode and view the show notes.

Helen Thompson: Hi there and welcome to First Time Mum’s Chat podcast, that’s here to guide you through the ups and downs of early motherhood. I’m your host Helen Thompson, a qualified child care educator and baby massage instructor with over 20 years of experience helping mums just like you feel more confident and connected as you embark on this incredible journey.

Each episode I bring you practical tips, heartfelt stories and expert advice. to make your parenting experience a little smoother and a lot less overwhelming. In today’s episode, I’m joined by licensed mental health therapist, Allison Ly, who shares her personal story as a second generation immigrant mum, navigating cultural expectations, family dynamics, and the pressure to get it all right.

If you’ve ever felt torn between wanting to honour family traditions and finding your own way, this conversation is for you. We’ll uncover how to set boundaries with confidence, whether it’s with grandparents who mean well, but overstep, or in laws who challenge your parenting style. Have you ever wondered, how do I keep the peace while staying true to my values? If so, you’ll love the actionable tips Allison shares to help you avoid burnout and strengthen the relationships that matter most.

So grab a cup of tea and let’s dive in to this empowering chat that’s packed with tools to help you thrive as a mum. You don’t want to miss this episode.

Alison, it’s an absolute pleasure to have you here on the podcast. As a licensed mental health therapist and second generation immigrant mum, you bring such a unique and valuable perspective. I know my listeners are going to benefit so much from your insights on navigating family expectations, setting boundaries, and finding their own parenting groove. Could you share more about your background and what inspired you to focus on this area?

Allison Ly: Yeah, so I am Allison Ly. I’m a licensed mental health therapist and I have my own private practice and I’ve recently started a coaching program. I am a second generation myself, meaning I have parents who immigrated to the country I’m born in. That experience was so significant to me and I’ve recognized that the people around me who were also second gens, had immigrant parents, dealt with a lot of the same struggles and challenges.

When I went to college and kind of got out of my little hometown, it wasn’t such a common experience yet, it was not talked about so much. So, this is why this is my niche, I love working with adults who have immigrant parents and are just trying to navigate figuring out who they are, where they want to hold their values and really strengthen the relationships that they have with their families, while also figuring out how they want to show up in the world.

That’s really important to me because that’s something that I had to struggle with and kind of figure out and I know that that’s generally a struggle that a lot of my friends, peers, and people I work with really struggle with as well. So that’s how I got to where I am and I wouldn’t be where I am today with my career and how I just grew up without people helping me along the way. So I just want to also be able to give back.

Helen Thompson: Yeah, it’s hard when you move from a different country and have to learn their ways. I had to do that cause I moved from Scotland to Australia and it is a hard challenge. So what are some of the boundaries that you found really hard when you first moved to, to where you are now?

Allison Ly: So my parents moved to the US and I was born in California but being the middle person, the glue between my parent’s culture, generations, language, and the new culture, new language, that was really difficult because I often, especially back then, sometimes was a translator, sometimes was filling out paperwork for her as a young child, just because I knew more English. It just was something I would want to help my family with, and I kind of also was expected to help.

So I think that was challenging in ways that where, a lot of adults who have immigrant parents and know the language of the country they’re living in tend to have a lot more responsibilities and expectations put on them, and they want to also help their family. So that sense of responsibility and kind of growing up doing a lot more than potentially other kids their age is really prominent.

Helen Thompson: As a mother now, how has it helped you to support mums who are going through the challenges that they may be going through now as an immigrant mum?

Allison Ly: Yeah, so, going back to the boundaries piece, knowing what my capacity is and knowing what our own capacities, our own needs are, are super important. I think sometimes when we’re used to, as second gens, being used to taking care of other people or helping out other people, their needs often gets put in the back burner.

So if we’re not recognizing what our boundaries are, like, is this something I have space to do, is this something I can do, is this something I want to do today? If we’re not recognizing those questions and answering that, honestly, we can lead to burnout and that can make us more exhausted, tired, resentful, which then affects all the other relationships that we have, right!

So as a mom or as a child or as a partner, that also gets impacted. So especially as first time mums and this is like more of your population, as first time mums, we’re not sure, this is all new to us. What boundaries we have with our kids and a child with parents, our own parents or other people coming in to see our child.

So that’s why boundary setting, knowing what we’re comfortable with and being able to feel confident to speak up when something doesn’t sit right or we just don’t want this or don’t want that is so important for first time mums. This is already such a sensitive and new time and such a new experience so not having boundaries could be detrimental if it goes on for a really long time.

Helen Thompson: Yeah, I know whether you’re from a different country or not, some grandparents come in and say, oh why are you doing that with your child, I never did that with you, this is how you do it. I guess as a mum from a different country, as well as a new mum, it’s really hard for you to turn around and say, well, actually mum, this is how we do it in this country, or this is how I choose to do it so can we just come to some kind of arrangement?

If you don’t, as you said, you’ll be on burnout and get overwhelmed and you just won’t be able to stand up for yourself. That’s what you’re saying here that you’ve got to care for yourself and have the strengths in yourself to say, look, I’m hang on a moment mum, thank you for helping me, but you’re not helping me!

Allison Ly: Yeah, right or like this worked for you and this is how i want to do it and both ways could be right. Obviously our parents raised us enough that we’re functioning and alive now, so it worked to some capacity, but there’s also other ways to do things that can have potentially a same or a different outcome but, there’s more than one way to do things.

Helen Thompson: Yeah and sometimes you think you’re a bad mom because you’re not doing it the way your parents did it and you’re not doing it right. You may feel that you’re having a temper tantrum within yourself with your parents, because they’re not understanding and I guess that’s where it comes to the boundaries as well. Having that strength to maybe understand those boundaries.

Allison Ly: Yeah, or even share them. Cause I think sometimes, especially in some cultures too, where sharing our thoughts can become like seemingly disrespectful or whatnot, and that’s not always the intention, but it can be received that way, which is really difficult but even going back to different perspectives, even now, with how much social media is prominent, how much news and information is out there on Google, there’s so many perspectives and if we are not sure of what we want, we can easily have not only our parents, our family’s perspective sway us and make us feel like not a good mum or not a good parent.

It could also be what we see on social media. I should be doing this, I should be doing that but when we’re clear on our values, and if this is good enough for what we want with our family, then we can approach things with much more confidence than we would if we’re like feeling pulled in so many directions.

Helen Thompson: What was your own personal experience of this of the boundaries you had with your own parents?

Allison Ly: Yeah, and the first experiences as a parent was pretty similar to other boundaries that I had to set with my parents, where sometimes I didn’t know what boundaries I needed until something happened, just like with other people. Sometimes if a person asks me a question, I’m like, oh, that didn’t sit right with me. I might not recognize I need to set the boundary in the future until it happens. That’s the beauty and the con of boundaries is sometimes we have to have something happen in order for us to recognize that we need it. Where we have a reaction or we have a discussion we don’t feel comfortable with.

So of course, like similar to the example you shared, as a first time mum, there are times where my mum’s like, do this, do that and then I’ll be like, I don’t want to do that and then I’d have to be comfortable expressing that to her in a way that was true for me, but didn’t try to dismiss her and of course that always wasn’t perfect. The intention is to really acknowledge her and yeah, express my point of view. Even just like how I put her to sleep or how much food she’s drinking or how she’s eating, there’s so many things that could be different for parents previously.

Helen Thompson: Yeah and when you were saying that, I was thinking how, if you’re not confident as a person to be able to express that to your mom or your grandparent or whoever it is, because you’re in a state anyway, because you’ve just had your baby, you just want to do it your way and you just want to relax. Then you’ve got this parent coming in and all you want to do is just to tell them to go away so that you can get on and give yourself self care and your baby. If you’re not confident to do that as a person, what advice would you give to a mum who is going through that who doesn’t have the confidence to do what you’ve just shared?

Allison Ly: Yeah, so the first thing is really normalizing that because again, this is a first time experience as a first time mum. So there’s no way you would have known how to do this, but it all comes down to practice. So really having self compassion, being nice to ourselves as we see it happening and don’t judge yourself or criticize ourselves for not being able to do it but hey, let’s make a plan for next time. If this really bothered me this time, where they were giving me feedback on how to dress my baby, what do I want to say next time that I feel good about? Practice it on our own, practice it with our partners or friends and then try to say it to them.

So confidence only comes with practice. It’s like if I never played soccer and I go and I play and I’m like, oh my gosh, I was terrible and I don’t feel confident, the only way to get more confident in soccer is if I play more and I practice. So the same thing with communication skills. This is a little different because how they respond is going to be out of our control, but as long as we practice and we feel good about what we’re saying, I think that is really important to, to remember.

Helen Thompson: Yeah, and it can also be a language barrier as well because if your parents or grandparents don’t have a good command of the language of the country that you’re in, and you do, or they don’t know the different ways because they’ve just come over to visit from their country it must be hard as well to set that, to say, well, look, thank you for coming over, I want to see you, but please just enjoy the time with your grandchild without telling me what to do, because it’s a different way of life here.

Have you ever experienced that?

Allison Ly: I definitely have and I think, what helps is really thinking about their perspective and why they’re doing what they’re doing because I know deep down, like when my mum says stuff to me, it’s coming from a place of love and care, she really wants to support me. This is all that she knew in how to raise a kid and it worked. I’m alive and functioning fine. So she wants to also carry that on, so I think I have to dig a little deeper, even at the first annoyance or struggle with hearing what she’s saying. Take some time to look underneath the surface of well, why is she saying this, it probably is coming from a good place and she just wants to support me and give me her wisdom and that’s her intention. I can not like it and also like that she’s trying to care for me.

Helen Thompson: Yeah, would it be the same if you had your in-laws doing that? You don’t know how they brought up their child. What sort of advice would you give to a mum who’s suffering in the same respect with their in laws?

Allison Ly: That’s a great question. So that I would defer to the partners a little bit and maybe try to communicate with the partners, the husbands a little bit more to get more understanding of the in laws because like you’re saying I don’t have that information and also generally maybe it’s how I try to think about things. It’s just assume positive intentions that they’re doing this with good intentions, but it just may not sit with me well, so I think communicating with a partner and having the partners really advocate for you and your boundaries as a couple, is important, if you’re not comfortable doing it. Then we still have to be able to articulate that to our partners in a way that’s acknowledging all the perspectives and our needs as well.

Helen Thompson: First Time Mum’s Chat is from the very early ages of childhood from babies up until roughly till about two when kids are becoming more independent. When would you start doing that? Would you start doing it when they’re two or would you start introducing the boundaries when the kids are babies?

Allison Ly: We should start setting boundaries even without kids, as of right now, if there are things that are on our mind that don’t feel good to us, or we want to advocate for, or talk more about and figure out a better resolution, we should start it as soon as possible. When a baby comes, there’s going to be a crying baby. There’s going to be postpartum moms, tired people and conversations get harder to have, not that they can’t happen. If we’re able to have any discussions at all ahead of time that’s great, just to prepare ourselves. Again, like I was mentioning earlier of like practicing and building up that muscle, so that it gets easier as things goes on.

Helen Thompson: Yeah, I can imagine if you’re pregnant and you’ve got your mum or your in laws saying, Oh, you must relax, you must do this, Oh, when I had you, I used to sit around and do nothing. Oh, you can’t go out for a walk, you’ve got to sit down and relax. That must be a hard thing to say to an in law or a parent as well I would have thought. The pregnancy side, because I think in those days pregnancy was very much, you’ve got to stay at home, you can’t go out and do anything because you’ve got to take care of that baby. You’ve also got to take care of yourself as well, and you’ve also got to have your own self care as well as a self care for the baby.

Allison Ly: Yeah, it’s again, that worry. I Think it does come down to the worry like maybe, especially, generations ago, if there’s less information about what’s okay and not okay, or if things seemed more dangerous in some way, it comes down to, again, what’s underneath that and generally speaking, I think it’s just people want to make sure that everyone’s safe. So it takes extra time and effort to really look beneath the surface of people’s intentions but I think generally it’s like I said, it’s mostly trying to be protective and we can still do things in a safe way if we’re mindful about it and maybe that’s something that could be shared too. Like, hey, I hear you, I appreciate you looking out for me and I’m going to do this thing and I’m going to be really careful, I’ll have this person with me, don’t worry.

Helen Thompson: Yeah. So the points you’re making here is you can start to live your life more in the ways that you want, if you set those boundaries early and you can also start to strengthen your most important relationships, which is your baby, which is your partner, and which is also your parents and your in laws.

Allison Ly: Yeah, because we don’t go around setting boundaries all the time with people we don’t care about. If I’m walking down the street and someone yells something mean to me, I may not care because I’m never going to see them again. The only times that we do really work on setting boundaries is with the people we care about because we want them to be in our lives because we want to have them feel acknowledged, we want to feel acknowledged and we want this relationship to go well. So I think that’s really important to keep in mind too, because there’s a myth that boundaries ruin relationships. People get mad and then they don’t talk to us anymore, which could happen, but as long as we’re giving them more reasons and explaining and really advocating for our own needs, hopefully they come around and understand. So it’s just something to think about too, where boundaries actually strengthen the relationships that we care about the most.

Helen Thompson: It’s interesting you said that was a myth. I think there’s also a myth that, the grandparents or the in laws will mold the child into what they want the child to be rather than what you want the child to be and when you’re not there, they might do things that you may not be happy with.

Allison Ly: Yeah, they have their own expectations with the kid. Now they’re grandparents and they get to have fun and aren’t as strict.

Helen Thompson: Well, yeah, which I think in some ways is good. I know my parents were like that. They wanted to have fun with their kids and I think that’s important, but I also think that if you have a set routine for putting your child to sleep, or if you have a set routine for a mealtime that you know works for your child and if they interrupt that, then your child is just going to be very disruptive and not sleep and it’s not going to work for you and your child. The in law or the grandparent has uprooted that, they’ve said, Oh, well, I’ll let you have your sweet before you go to bed or whatever it is. Then when you come back, the child will say, Oh, but grandma let me do that. You’re thinking, well, hang on a moment, that’s not what I want to do. So that’s another boundary you have to set, please have fun with your grandchild, but please keep those certain boundaries or routines.

Allison Ly: And I loved how you explained the consequences of it and I think that’s really important to include in our boundaries when we share them with other people, like, hey, please don’t give them candy because they’re not going to sleep well at night and I don’t want them to not sleep well, cause they might make me not sleep well and they might get sick or whatever it is.

If you give them a bigger picture of the reason why you want something a certain way, they’re more likely to be receptive to it. Whether or not they do, that’s totally up to them, but it’s better than just don’t give them candy, then they’re like, well, no, I’m going to give them candy. So giving them the bigger picture really helps a lot.

Then to another point that I was thinking about as you were talking about the boundaries is yes, we can set the boundaries with the grandparents, the in laws, other people who come over and whether or not they do it, we can still set a boundary with our child. We could say, hey, I know grandma gave you candy, but we don’t eat candy at night. It just happened this time, but in the future, you’re not getting candy before bed. So don’t expect this to become like a routine. I know they’re young, but you could still say these things to them so that they start understanding too a little bit more. Even again whether or not they understand it at least you’ve communicated it and then you can like start instilling this practice of boundaries with them as well.

Helen Thompson: I think also particularly with babies, when they’re sleeping, the sleep routine is so vital because you’ve got to know your baby and you’ve set that routine and if a grandparent comes along and disrupts that routine, it makes it harder for the baby to settle again, because they’re used to one routine.

We all know that babies don’t sleep during the night that’s just ,normal, they don’t. You may set a routine where you feed them every four hours and then you put them down and if they cry straight afterwards, you don’t immediately pick them up. You might just go and stand by them or pat them or something. If the grandparent then comes along and picks them up and cuddles them or breaks that routine, it’s going to be harder for the baby to adjust because they’re not used to having that different routine. I’ve spoken to a lot of sleep therapists who say that routines are good. Then you’ve got to be flexible, but you don’t want a grandparent or an in law coming around and making it worse for you.

Allison Ly: Yeah, and that’s a great point too. So another way that we can set boundaries is also through timing and the physical boundary. If we know that sleep time, nighttime is really precious to us and we want to make sure they sleep well, we don’t want this nighttime sleep disrupted, maybe we make sure grandparents don’t help out during nighttime sleep. Maybe they come over during the daytime or if they want to help out in the daytime when it’s a little bit more flexible and it’s not so impactful on our own sleep. Also really recognizing if we’re asking for help from people, how can we also let go of some of these expectations if we know that they are not going to be able to meet it.

Then the question is, do we want to have them help us then or do we hire someone who will follow us, to the T of what we’re saying? So there’s different options in terms of when we ask for help, who we ask for help and just the timing of things that could also be boundary setting and not just the verbal.

Helen Thompson: Yeah, understand that and I agree with that 100%, but an in law or grandparent might feel offended that you don’t want them to help, that you want somebody else in when they’re saying, Oh, well, I can do it for nothing and I love my grandchild. That must be so hard for a mum to actually turn around and say, well, look, mum, I appreciate your support and I really want you to be here for me but in this case, I really need somebody else here and not you because you’re hindering me, you’re making it harder for me. That must be a huge thing a young mother to say to their parents.

Allison Ly: Yeah and again, there could be more context to that too and depending on what is true for them. For me personally, if nighttime is a difficult time for me, I would tell them like, hey, I would prefer to be alone at night with my husband to take care of the baby at night, but you can come over during the daytime and that’s when you can play , she’ll be awake more, and if you want to do something different or help me out, you can help me out there and that would be the best time to help me. We could also say other things that are true that resonates with us and highlight that a little bit more while acknowledging their feelings, like, I know you’re hurt and you want to help me out even more, but this is great help already I appreciate it. Trying to also give them more validation for what they are doing what we want them to do, but it is tough, it is a very tough conversation and yeah, we never know how other people receive it.

Helen Thompson: Yeah, exactly and as you say, it’s better to start at the beginning when you know you’re pregnant and to just set the boundaries then to your in laws and your parents, and then they know exactly what to expect when the baby’s born, so then if you do have postpartum or you do have depression, at least your parents can understand where you’re coming from and what you want, and they’ll probably respect it more because you’ve had that discussion early on.

Allison Ly: Yeah and then we can be flexible and say, Hey, I know I asked you not to come at night, but this night we’re gonna do something, so can you watch them for this night only. We could even acknowledge what we had said previously and make it a very specific request for a certain thing that we need from them, so that we also don’t feel like we can’t ever ask anyone for help after we set a boundary. Boundaries are meant to be flexible too as long as we communicate them.

Helen Thompson: Allison, thank you so much for joining me today and sharing such valuable insights. Setting boundaries is something many mums find challenging, and I know your advice will make a real difference for those listening. It’s been wonderful having you here and learning from your expertise. I appreciate the time you’ve taken to empower our listeners, and I’m sure they’ll take away so much from this conversation. So how can people get in touch with you?

Allison Ly: Of course, thank you for having me and for the work that you do for first time mums too, it’s very important work. Yeah, they can find me at my website at HeyAllisonLy.com. So that’s Allison with two L’s and I, and the last name is spelled L Y and that’s the same handle on Instagram if they’re hanging out there.

Helen Thompson: As I wrap up this episode of First Time Mum’s Chat, I wanted to extend a heartfelt thank you to my guest, Allison Ly, for sharing her invaluable insights on setting boundaries and preventing burnout. As a new mum, her experiences and advice offer practical steps to help you navigate the complexities of early motherhood.

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Please take a moment to rate and review the podcast. Your thoughts help me improve and reach more mums who could benefit from this content. Remember, you’re not alone on this journey. I’m here to support you every step of the way. Thank you for joining me and I look forward to having you with me in the next episode of First Time Mum’s Chat.