The big problem with 'moodboarding motherhood'.

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In the heady days of navigating a newborn, the literal last thing on my mind was what I was wearing.

But my mind was on many other things.

Instagram provides a convenient log of what consumed my thoughts through the days and months of the first year of my child's life, thanks to a collection of Saved posts I labelled "Bub".

How quaint! How unassuming. How naive I was.

I started the folder during pregnancy and added content to it as I went along, and still do to this day (my daughter is now two-and-a-half).

946 saved posts, and a peek inside the parenting psyche. Image: Supplied.

The folder is messy. A pastiche of parenting inputs, some helpful and some just plain relatable.

There are lists of choking hazards and the Very Best Prams and "7 signs your child has a high IQ". There's nursery inspo, plates of green and orange vegetable mush and tips for starting baby-led weaning. How to help your baby drink from a cup, what toys to introduce at what age, how to perform the "kiss of life" in an emergency. Baby pressure points. DIY sensory trays. Swaddling instructions. Navigating night wakes.

Cartoons that perfectly illustrate the frustration of life with a toddler, quotes that summarise the juggle of career and motherhood, conversation starters if you're experiencing resentment towards your partner, and a very long segment of posts devoted to the complex mathematics of sleep schedules.

And thank goodness such content exists.

Every post gave me a little nudge in the right direction, like a proverbial hand on my shoulder saying, "you've got this; others go through this; it's ok to feel like this."

But what about the *other* content?

We're seeing a rapid rise in what you might call 'motherhood moodboarding' — social accounts devoted to the experience of parenting through a highly aesthetic lens.

Australian e-commerce destination The Inarra is all about "supporting the journey of motherhood, in style". Its tasteful Instagram feed profiles fashionable mums and their recommendations, from the postnatal wardrobe to nursery essentials.

It's peppered with grounded quotes about parenthood, alongside photoshoots of gorgeous pregnant bellies in lovely clothes.

The Inarra's feed is a tasteful look at modern motherhood. Images: The Inarra.

Independent publication Spread The Jelly offers a more chaotic, but still stylised, take on new motherhood.

The brainchild of Lauren Levinger, an LA creative director and mother, and New York DJ and mum Amrit Tietz, it promises to explore "the sticky side" of mum life — through scrapbook collages centred around diverse mamas across the globe. Some are famous (think actor Ilana Glazer and viral chef Alison Roman) and some are not — but all are achingly cool in their own way.

Framed within magazine-grade graphics, they share their worldly wisdom on everything from 'caregiving in capitalism' to the use of psychedelics to help manage the mental load.

There are birth stories told in handwritten font, and introspective musings on the identity shift that comes with matrescence.

Spread The Jelly offers an artistic collection of maternal musings. Images: Spread The Jelly.

The goal might be maternal enlightenment, but for the chronically online mum-to-be, this content is now the kick-off point for their parenting journey.

We've never had this much information about what motherhood can or should look like. But is it actually helpful? I'm not so sure.

On the one hand, as a fashion editor and creative person who felt woefully out of touch with that side of myself when motherhood became my new job, I've found solace in these accounts — proof that there's life beyond the nappy changes and laundry piles.

I love seeing stories of mums kicking professional and personal goals while they raise little humans. It gives me hope.

But it's a double-edged sword. These accounts also position motherhood in a way that feels unattainable for most; especially in the early phase when your day-to-day is literally about life or death — not which expensive oversized shirt to pair with your maternity bra.

And it all feels very far away when you're doom-scrolling at 2am after two hours spent patting your colicky baby on the back.

For many women, this idealised visage of motherhood is something they can't even hope to emulate.

I only have the capacity to engage with this type of content now, a whole three years into my motherhood arc, when I'm finally coming up for air. Now the fog of sleepless nights has (for the most part) lifted, and I'm not plagued with the crippling anxiety and intrusive thoughts that consumed my experience of early parenting.

In the early days, motherhood looked like this. Images: Supplied.

Now I can scroll these pages and enjoy these stylish women's stories, and save the outfit recommendations to my folders. I can flick through toddler gift guides in my evening downtime, while my little one peacefully snoozes through the night.

But I do think we all suffer from a kind of collective amnesia once we're past the baby phase. The newborn days are like a distant memory, and we forget what they really looked like.

They were not chic. They were filled with despair.

The reality is that parenting, especially in the early months, can be a mind-numbingly boring and isolating experience.

Which is perhaps why we do need these accounts, if only because they offer an invitation to a community.

Online villages can sub in for real ones, providing a lifeline for new mums. A kind of digital mother's group, and a vital connection point.

Any resource that exists to help women shoulder the burden, or merely escape it for a little while, is a resource worth having.

We just need to remember that we can choose to disengage from what doesn't serve us, and save the parts that do.

Feature image: Instagram/@spreadthejelly; @tezzabarton; @theinarra.