Charlie Hedges and Holly Hagan-Blyth on the diverse challenges of parenthood

Like many first-time mums, Geordie Shore star Holly Hagan-Blyth had no idea about the strength of the whirlwind that was about to upend her life when she had her first baby.

The TV personality, who is now a pregnant mother-of-one, as well as a parenting podcaster and fitness coach, admits: “I was quite naive coming into parenting, because I work a lot from home, so I thought it was fine, I’m going to be able to just work around my child.

“I didn’t realise my child was going to need me to be directly staring into his eyeballs for the entire first 16 months of his life, so I couldn’t get anything done.”

It’s the kind of harsh reality that many parents face when they have children for the first time, and a typical issue that Hagan-Blyth and her co-host, Radio 1 DJ Charlie Hedges, discuss on their CBeebies Parenting Helpline podcast.

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The weekly show features celebrity guests including Kelsey Parker, widow of The Wanted’s Tom Parker, and author Anna Whitehouse, plus parenting experts who talk about the many diverse challenges involved with raising kids, with often light-hearted observations from Hagan-Blyth and Hedges.

“It’s just great to be able to share both of our experiences and real-life parenting dilemmas – I feel like we get more help than the guests,” observes Hagan-Blyth, 33.

And Hedges, mum to “three-and-a-half going on 12” Summer-Rose, explains: “We’re just there to give a bit of balance and hopefully make people feel comfortable.

“We’ve talked about parenting with grief, body image, fostering imagination, parenting with neurodiverse children, queer parenting. We’ve covered a lot of amazing topics, and we feel like we’ve become better parents off the back of it.”

Hagan-Blyth, who’s expecting her second child with her husband, footballer Jacob Blyth, in about six weeks, says both she and Hedges, 39, have learned a lot from hosting the podcast: “We’ve learned there’s no right or wrong way to do certain things – your child is always going to be so different to somebody else’s,” she says.

“And just to not be judgmental about certain things – as much as you can get all this amazing advice and tips and tricks, you’re always going to be the person who knows your child best.

“I feel like it’s put our minds at ease, and also given us some great tips.”

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Hagan-Blyth says she started potty training her son, Alpha-Jax, during the podcast’s second series (the fourth series has just started), and recalls: “I took all of the tips and just ran with them, and he was potty trained within a couple of weeks, so it was really beneficial.”

Hedges, who hosts Radio 1’s Dance Anthems on Saturday afternoons, points out that while she’s in the enviable position to have family to give her help and advice, some parents aren’t so fortunate.

“I’ve got a really close family unit who really, really do help out a lot,” she says. “And if it wasn’t for my mum and dad, to be honest, it would be really, really, really tough.

“As a new parent, I was very lucky because I had my close family around to help,” she continues. “But we’ve realised not everybody’s got that support system, not everybody has family members to help out.

“I feel like we bring those people together and help them realise they’re not on their own – it’s just like a little family, which is really lovely.”

As well as garnering support from non-family sources if necessary, another key challenge for new parents, says Hedges, is learning to trust your gut instinct.

“I remember my mum saying, from the start, just trust your gut,” she says. “But as a new parent, that’s easier said than done. You want to make sure you’re doing everything right.

“But over time, I’ve learned that actually trusting my gut is the best thing to do and would seem to be the way forward. But I think selling that to a new parent is quite difficult to hear, because there’s just so much going on.”

And all that’s going on can lead to parents feeling overwhelmed, and swamped with often-conflicting advice from family, friends, the internet, books and so on. But Hagan-Blyth warns: “I’ve learned to take every bit of advice with a pinch of salt, because your child is going to be so different to another child, and one person’s experience is not reflective of yours.”

She explains that her son was “a very, very whingey baby” from the age of about four months to 16 months. “All he did was whinge, and nothing would make him happy,” she recalls, “whereas my friends’ children of the same age were having a great time. I just felt like I was having a completely different experience.”

But now the tables are turned, and while some of her friends’ children are going through the ‘terrible twos’ or behaving like troublesome ‘threenagers’, Hagan-Blyth says that’s not been her experience with Alpha-Jax.

“I went through a different difficult stage,” she points out. “It’s just trying to learn to not compare. And also, when people give you advice, it’s like ‘Yeah, that might work on your child, but it’s not necessarily going to work on mine.’”

Both mums are working again after having their children, and Hagan-Blyth says she won’t be taking any maternity leave when her new baby is born.

“I didn’t take maternity leave when my son was born, and I won’t be again,” she declares. “I’ll be continuing to work throughout, but I’m lucky enough to be able to do that – although at the same time, a bit of time off would be lovely.

“But at the end of the day, this is the life I chose. I’ll be filming the day before the C-section, during the section, the day after, and probably the week later as well,” she reveals. “I love to be able to watch those memories back. .

“I could easily turn around and say, ‘No, I just want to relax with my family’. But this is the life I’ve lived for 16 years, and it would feel strange to not capture those moments and to not share those because I’ve done it for such a long time.”

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She says juggling motherhood and work can be tough, but the key is being “as organised as possible”. And just because you’re a working mum doesn’t mean you should succumb to mum guilt, she warns.

“When I went back to work after having my daughter, I talked about not ever allowing myself to have mum guilt, because I just don’t think it should be a thing,” she says.

“Ultimately we’re all working hard, whatever work looks like to you – you’re working hard to provide for your child. So I just don’t think mum guilt, or parent guilt, should be a thing, and I always try and keep that in the back of my mind.”

The CBeebies Parenting Helpline podcast is available weekly on BBC Sounds and all other platforms now.