Rebecca Lim: ‘I no longer hang out after work to chitchat’ after becoming a mum to Baby M

After welcoming her first child at the start of the year, actress Rebecca Lim has been focusing on motherhood while easing gently back into work. She returns to screens with her first project since going on maternity leave: The second season of her celebrity talk show With Love, Becks.

In Season One, she and other Singapore celebrities chatted about her upcoming marriage, while in Season Two, celebrity mums like Sheila Sim, Yvonne Lim and Fann Wong join her to talk about new motherhood.

One thing she didn’t expect about being a mum was just how much she would enjoy it, Lim shared with us. “I've read and heard so many stories about how stressful it can be, but I'm actually enjoying it so much.”

While at the start, it took a while for the fact that there was now a whole new human being in her life to sink in, “I definitely feel that he is a part of me now. It felt like we were separate entities for the first few months,” said the 38-year-old, who has introduced her son to the public as “Baby M”. “We do have routines I do with him every morning when he gets up or whenever I am playing with him.”

Baby M’s personality is a mix of hers and her husband Matthew’s, she mused. “He's a very smiley baby and many people have commented that he looks like me when he smiles and looks like Matthew when he doesn’t."

As for whether she thinks she’s a tiger mum, she said, “I did think that I'd be a very strict mum but now, I'm the softie and Matthew is the “in the long run this will benefit us and baby" mindset. We succeeded in sleep training initially, but when the crying got so intense during his sleep regression, I gave up. I've fallen asleep many times in his room while carrying him and have had a stiff neck way too often.”

Meanwhile, her husband has been good with interaction, play and helping Baby M understand objects. “He also makes it a point to play his vinyl records for him every time he comes back from work. It's adorable seeing the both of them by the player every evening.”

Now that she’s starting to take on work projects again, which could frequently mean leaving the house very early in the morning and coming home late, does she struggle with mum guilt, or has she transcended that mere mortal emotion?

“I have good days, and I have bad days,” she confessed. But, no matter what, “I don't make any special requests to head home early or to even have a longer meal break so that I can pump and eat properly. Because I feel that everyone is fighting a battle we don't know about and even though I have a baby waiting for me at home and I'm a first-time mum, someone else on set may have a sick child or parent who's waiting for them, too. So, who am I to think that I'm special?

“But, one thing's for sure,” she added: “I no longer hang out after work to chitchat anymore. I just want to go home. And I have all my meals alone on set, too, because I'm still pumping. Being a mum is special. But, it doesn’t make you more special than anyone else. It's really an added responsibility.”

While many have given her helpful advice, there’s been bad advice, too. The worst “would probably be to not care about breastfeeding and just go on a diet to quickly get my figure back.”

On the show, one of the topics discussed is what it’s like to step back into the public eye after the bodily changes that come with growing and birthing a child. For instance, Lim shared with Sim that when she walked the Star Awards red carpet earlier this year in a voluminous green dress just two months after giving birth, she heard someone comment that she looked like a “big green apple”. She had gained 20kg during her pregnancy and felt like her self-confidence was at an all-time low, and the comment was so hurtful, she went off and had a good cry about it.

“I don't like how there's so much emphasis on how we look, and how much pressure there is to look ‘like our old selves’ right after we give birth,” she told us. "It's extremely ridiculous and unnecessarily stressful.”

On the other hand, the best advice has come from her mum. “She shared with my sister and I while we were both pregnant that we should continue to love ourselves and take care of ourselves even after we become mothers.” It hit home because “my mum is the most giving person I've ever met and she cares for everyone but herself.

”It’s important to have community in parenthood, Lim feels. In her case, she’s grateful not only for her mum but also for her younger sister, who became a first-time mother around the same time that she did.
 

“We have each other to rely on, which is extremely fortunate. And I wonder how women do it without support, or how our mothers did it on their own. My sister and I chat about everything every day and text or video call each other whenever we wake up for night feeds. It's wonderful to have her support through it all.”

She’d previously shared with us that in the past, she had always been laser-focused on work, but being a mum has helped her grow to love who she is “as Rebecca Lim the person, as opposed to Rebecca Lim the actress”. Part of that is now learning to be less harsh on herself, while at the same time, setting high standards for what matters most.

“I think I'm doing the best that I can” as a mum, she said. “There are definitely things I wish to improve on. I want to be a great example for him. To hopefully, one day, be a mother he's proud to have. I also hope to be a lot braver so that he can also be brave as he faces challenges in life.”

With Love, Becks is available on demand for free on mewatch and airs on Mondays at 8pm on Channel 8.