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"I wish I had broken the rules more." Carrie Bickmore's decision to be a spontaneous mum.

 

Carrie Bickmore has decided to be more spontaneous.

With a gruelling schedule so many mums can relate to – working full time, raising two kids, managing all those cycles of life  – Bickmore’s life is typically a strict regime. Her parenting, thus far, has been based on routine.

“I can count on one hand the number of times Ollie has slept in my bed,” Carrie wrote for the launch issue of the Sunday Telegraph’s Stellar Magazine. “I raised him on a strict routine: I never rocked him to sleep, never fed him to sleep and never brought him to my bed when he woke at 5am.”

“My decision to raise him like this was partly due to necessity, because I worked full-time and needed his carers to know his routine; partly because I had huge personal stresses going on at the time and needed that part of my life to run smoothly; and also because I had him at 26 and had no idea what I was doing.”

But a few nights ago, something changed for Carrie.

She’d had a tough week. She’d interviewed a family who’s little boy was dying from brain cancer; covered a terrorist attack where children had died.

She thought it was time to break her own “rules”.

“I woke up my eight-year-old son, Ollie, brought him into the big bed and slept with him in my arms all night,” Carrie wrote. “All I wanted to do was have Ollie close.”

The joy this brought her made Carrie realise something.

“My desire to have my kids fit into my schedule, for our life to run to plan, to know I can leave them with anybody, and to have them sleep like hibernating bears just so Mama doesn’t lose her rag, means that I’ve been missing out on some of the best moments ever,” the television personality wrote.

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And she’s right. Some of life’s best moments do often come from breaking the “rules” a little bit. Skipping your afternoon gym session to go feel the sand between your toes. Saying “no” to a meeting you really should be at, for the sake of a sleep in. Going out and staying out on a week night, just because.

Carrie’s determined to make it (semi-) habit.

“I wish I had broken the rules more with Ollie – hopefully there is still time. And now, when Evie is refusing to get in her pram because she wants to walk on her own, I try like mad to stop and remember that if something happened to them tomorrow, I wouldn’t spend my days reminiscing about how many hours a night they slept. Instead, I’d recall the time I drove Ollie around for two hours on a Sunday just to chase Pokemon. Or how, the other week, I sat on the floor and let Evie draw all over me – face and all – for an hour, much to her squealy delight. ”

She’s not about to become a free-range, no-rules, whatever-the-kids-want-goes parent. (“I need my sleep too much for that.”) But, the same way she decided to raise Ollie on a very stringent, very rigid program. She’s now decided to allow more spontaneity into her life and the life of her kids.

It’s a lesson we might all remember. The endless cycles of living (and laundry!) are more fun when you break the “rules” a little.