Famous for her roles as Cutting It’s vain gold-digger Darcey, Fiona in Coronation Street and teacher Kim Campbell in Waterloo Road, Angela Griffin is as spirited and full of fun as you’d expect. Now also a devoted mum to daughters Tallulah (above, with Angela) and Melissa, the actress is full of the joys of motherhood and completely open about how she is coping with its challenges.

“I felt a mixture of a lot of things when Tallulah was born,” she says. “I was unbelievably excited, and she was a happy, contented baby so I felt really blessed, she says. “But I remember the day I came back from hospital. I got into the house and showed her around, and then cried for 20 minutes — that must have been my baby blues!”

Adjusting to motherhood

Despite reading loads of childcare books, Angela found motherhood a shock: “People said to me, ‘You’ll get really tired, they wake up all the time and you never get a minute to yourself,’ but I secretly thought I’d find the time. But it’s all true! Babies take up your whole, entire day!

“You just have to completely accept it. I bowed down to the fact that they needed feeding every two hours. And if you’ve been through the checklist of feeding and changing and they’re still crying, you just have to sit there and cuddle them. There’s nothing else you can do! I think it’s easier to go to work! I have such admiration for stay-at-home mums.”

In 2007, Angela and her husband Jason had another daughter, Melissa, and you can tell from the huge smile on her face that the couple have taken to parenthood like ducks to water: “We absolutely love it. We really, sickeningly, annoyingly love it! Of course it’s changed our relationship, but I think for the better. Jason is brilliant — he’s so unbelievably hands-on. If anything happened to me, I would know 100 per cent that he knows everything about them.”

Working mum

But it hasn’t all been plain sailing for the couple. Jason is a writer and voice-over artist, and juggling two unpredictable careers with two children hasn’t been easy, especially when, some days, the couple have to be on set at 6.30am and don’t leave until after 10.30pm.

Getting childcare, Angela found, was one of the most difficult things: “Having
to find someone you trust can be so hard, and to find a stranger and leave your baby with them goes against all your instincts as a mother. And then there’s the guilt of enjoying going back to work when you think that you should be at home...”

Angela stresses that the worst bit of motherhood is guilt. “You have to keep it in perspective as it’s never-ending. You think everyone else is doing it better than you and that somehow you are failing your child. You have to realise that nobody’s perfect.
“You just get used to one stage, then the next one comes and, as exciting as it is, it brings new problems. Just when you think you’ve cracked it, something else happens. Motherhood is crap if you’re a control freak!”

Staying happy

Angela’s easy-going nature makes her a calm mum. “The key is to remember there are no rules — every baby is different. You have to do what you think is best and be relaxed. A happy mum means a happy baby. If that means Mum goes out to work and sees baby on the weekends, then that’s better than a mum who’s in the house all day and depressed because she can’t cope.”

New mums shouldn’t underestimate the importance of spending time with each other, she adds: “Nobody understands what stage you’re at except mums with babies the same age. They keep you sane! I have friends that I wasn’t close with, but now we’ve had babies, we meet once a month and talk for hours.”