Do I really want an Instagram baby?

Parenting has barely changed since the first cave-mother popped out a cave-baby, crouched over her Ikea-thal mammoth-skin rug. It’s basically an exhaustion battle: they keep us up all night, we try to tire them out all day. (They always win.) But each generation does things differently.

My previous three pregnancies were in the pre-smartphone era, and I have one photo of any of those bumps. ONE. And I shared it with zero people.

Everything I knew about pregnancy, I got from talking with other mums over a cup of instant coffee and a custard cream, or flicking through a hopelessly out-dated book.

In between, there was a lot of alone-time; but I never felt lonely. I was happy just… being. We knew no other way.

This time, things could hardly be more different. Thanks to the World Wide Mothernet, I can interact with millions of other parents all day and night from the palm of my hand.

And I am curious. Curious to learn about this New Parenting Party.

Consequently, I am spending a lot of time scrolling – through thousands of photos of bumps, breasts and babies. I watch videos posted by parents from Portugal to Peru, France to the Faroe Islands. I’ve almost come to know them; I celebrate pregnancy milestones, recognise their children, and await news of births of babies that I’ll never know, but whose lives I feel bizarrely connected to.

And as my scroll-a-thon continues, I want in. If there’s a massive global motherhood shebang going on, then I want an invitation. So, like every other Thoroughly Modern Pregnant Woman, I set up an Instagram and start documenting my progress in tiny squares. What I’m wearing. What I’m eating. Bump photos. Exercise updates. I learn to hashtag keywords to connect me to even more people. I learn #Transformation tuesday and #tbt (Throwback Thursday – do keep up). As my followers rise and I feel more connected to my new, 4x2-inch friends, I even use #preggo, despite an almost physically violent dislike of the term. But it’s worth it – look at the responses! I am so connected!

Yet, despite all this online connection, I feel a growing sense of offline disconnection.

Though I am barely alone for a moment, with all my cyber-friends, I feel more lonely than I can remember. Loneliness, after all, is worst when one is surrounded by others.

I know there’s a positive aspect to it all, of course. For millions of us, sharing our lives online – the global coffee morning and the “Thank God it’s not just me!” reassurance of the Mother-network – is a source of support, fun, happiness and help. That’s fantastic, everyone should use it as they want to; I’ve enjoyed it, and been helped by it, many times.

But something in the constant distraction, the never-ending snapping, beeping, and pressure to respond and engage, people’s growing absence and relentless connection, makes me uneasy.

I’m not about to walk away from it all, and I still enjoy it. But as I watch families sitting in silence talking to strangers online, babies seeing the back of a phone instead of Mum’s face, toddlers playing up to the camera the minute a phone is out, I start to think that maybe there is something wrong with this – and I was lucky to have had my first three children before it existed.

I want to try and find a way to recreate some of that pre-smartphone world for our new baby. Once I’ve shared an edited photo with news of her birth online, of course.

This week: I’ve joined the mums of Instagram – but have never felt lonelier ‘If there’s a massive global motherhood shebang going on, then I want an invitation’