Parenting Fails – How Not to Have Your Nails Done

Any new mum (or experienced mum for that matter!) knows that you are likely to encounter a few “parenting fails” when it comes to having kids.  Some might be serious, but chances are most of them will be hilarious stories for you to tell for years to come!  It’s taken me over a year to share this epic parenting fail, but it is so hilarious, I don’t think I should keep it to myself anymore.

When it comes to pampering, it can be hard to find some “me” time once you have a baby.  You may think it is just better to take baby along with you when you have a nice treatment booked – they’ll probably just sleep anyway, right?  Maybe you should read this account of how NOT to have your nails done before deciding whether to leave the kids at home or not next time….

1) Decide what kind of treatment you would like and book the appointment

My lovely sisters bought me a beauty treatment voucher as part of my baby shower gift.  The idea was to have my nails done whilst I was on maternity leave before the baby came.  However, I had so much to do, I never quite got round to it, so I decided to save it and have my nails done for when I was a bridesmaid for my best friend.

2) Arrive at said appointment on time

My appointment was at 11am.  My husband was at work, and although I could have asked someone to watch the baby, I thought I’d be fine.  It was totally normal to take your baby to a nail appointment, right? What could go wrong, he was only 3 weeks old.  We were only 5 minutes late for the appointment (a win in my book) and Alfie had fallen asleep on the walk down to town, which was great news!

3) Figure out a way to actually get in to beauty salon

So there I was, smiling smugly to myself that I was about to get 30 minutes of baby free pampering.  Until, that is, I realised the pram didn’t fit through the shop door.  Oh.

Luckily, as he was still small, he was in his carry cot, so I thought I’ll just lift it off and place him on the floor in the carry cot – not actually that easy, seen as how I’d only had a c-section 3 weeks ago.  I kind of dropped him on the floor instead of placing down gently, so he woke up.

4) Get baby back to sleep and settle down for your pampering 

I manged to shush him and he went back to sleep.  Result!  I settled down and picked my nail colour – purple to match my bridesmaid dress.  The nail girl was quite young, but lovely, and was asking me questions about Alfie and being a mum.  It was a lovely conversation – for the 3 minutes before Alfie woke up.  She had just put on the first coat of polish and it was an agonising minute whilst it dried under the UV lamp before I could pick him up!  Once I picked him up, he settled for a moment while she did the other hand. Cue another agonising minute as he started crying once my hand was placed under the UV lamp.

5) Feed baby halfway through your appointment

I suddenly realised he wanted feeding.  I was breastfeeding and so far had just been living in vest tops that I pulled down when I was sitting at home.  Although I had fed in public before, I had always dressed appropriately so I could be discreet – I’m not a wap a boob out kind of girl – until now!  Luckily it was a private room, so it was just me and the nail girl, but even so, I was getting quite stressed at this point.

I luckily had a muslin, so I draped that over my shoulder, and started feeding him.  One bonus of being a breastfeeder is that you only need one hand, so I could still have the other hand attended to whilst he fed.  All was going fine until Alfie decided he had finished feeding but was going to be incredibly fussy.  My hand was being painted, I had three nails done, two to go, when all of a sudden he pulled his head back!  This knocked the muslin slightly so I had to try and stop it falling off and revealing my whole boob, whilst keeping hold of Alfie and trying not to smudge the nails that had just been painted.

That wasn’t even the worst of it.

6) Completely humiliate yourself, then realise you have to stay until your nails are finished

As the baby’s head moved away, the milk didn’t stop flowing, and squirted right out of my nipple, across the nail table and into the face of the nail technician. Being a new mum, my milk supply was still unsettled and I had quite a powerful let-down.  Something the nail girl definitely found out.    I wanted the ground to swallow me up!  By now my nail was smudged, Alfie was crying and then to top it off, the muslin fell off completely.

So there we were, screaming baby, nail technician with breastmilk on her face, new mum with her swollen boob hanging out.

7) Complete appointment, run home and cry. Remind yourself to get a babysitter next time

This is definitely a story of how not to have your nails done.

There was a happy ending – I sorted myself out, the nail lady was lovely and laughed it off, she finished my nails and Alfie fell asleep on the way home (typically).  We went to the wedding the next day and had a wonderful day – no breastfeeding dramas there!

Thank you to the lovely Claire at Life, Love and Dirty Dishes for featuring a version of the above post in her Rookie Mistakes series – you can read this, and other hilarious parenting fails, over on her blog here.