A mum was branded a 'bad parent' for leaving her five-week-old daughter with her grandparent overnight.
Zoe Wallace was even accused of neglect after her daughter Parker got viral illness RSV (respiratory syncytial virus).
The mum, from Wigan, became victim to the abuse when posting 'relatable' videos about her life as a busy mum raising two children on TikTok.
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One of Zoe's videos 'blew up' and received more than 7,000,000 views, resulting in Zoe being trolled, the MEN reports.
In the video, the mum-of-two, talks about her daughter Parker falling ill with the virus that causes symptoms such as breathing problems and can lead to more severe bronchiolitis and pneumonia in young babies.
To her thousands of followers, she described how Parker, who is now four months old, had to be moved from A&E to a high dependency unit where she was put on a machine to do the breathing for her.
On the video which was captioned 'When my daughter was five weeks old we decided to let her have her first sleepover', the 25-year-old said: "I hadn't held my baby for a week but doctors finally let me hold her.
"After a week in hospital, they said I could finally bring my baby home. I feel very lucky that she is still here."
Instead of sympathising with her, many TikTok users slammed the mum for letting Parker have her first sleepover at her grandmothers, who lives just a 10-minute car journey away, the night before she fell ill.
One said: "Jesus, five weeks and you are done with it already?"
Another added: "Poor child isn't gonna grow up the best."
While a third commented: "This is neglect, how could you do that to your newborn."
Zoe has since posted a video hitting back at the 'hurtful comments' and told the M.E.N's Manchester Family : "I posted the video originally to share my daughter’s story with RSV.
"It made her very poorly and I was unaware how serious it could be in newborns. I hadn’t even heard about it until she was poorly and I wanted to make other mums aware of the signs.
"I had mentioned that she stayed with my mum the night before falling ill to show how quickly she declined but it wasn’t taken that way. People in the comments have branded me a bad mum because of my decision to allow my mum to have my child over night.
"To me, personally, it’s pretty normal for new mums to get support in anyway from family members but I didn’t know it would be so controversial online. I do regret mentioning her staying at my mum's because of the hate I have received, but I don’t regret sharing my daughter's story, because it could help save another child’s life."
Zoe, who also has a three-year-old son Dominic with partner David Hunt, 38, described some of the worst abuse she received.
She said: "The most hurtful are that I’m neglecting my children, I’m a bad parent, that my daughter deserved to die, because she wouldn’t have bad parents.
"That I don’t deserve children or I shouldn’t have children if I’m too lazy to look after them.
"The main hate I received was along the lines of 'how could you leave your baby'? It just shocked me how it is encouraged as a new mum to accept help from people you trust, because it can be overwhelming, but as soon as you do it’s seen as neglectful.
"I think the video going viral has proven the double standards for mums, there’s a lot of mum shaming and I don’t think it’s fair."
Zoe, who is on maternity leave from her job at McDonald's, said she's been more willing to accept help from her mum with Parker as she was reluctant with Dominic despite suffering from postnatal depression.
She added: "Dave works in a warehouse and does 12-hour shifts so I'm on my own a lot of the time.
"My mum has always been very hands-on and involved. With Dominic I struggled lots and even though I had postnatal depression, I couldn't see it, and I wouldn't accept the offers of help.
"This time I just thought if people are willing to help, then I'll accept it."
Zoe first started posting videos to TikTok when lockdown started last year and has now amassed 36k plus followers and 1.4m likes under her TikTok name ZoeWallaceYT.
She says she won't let what's happened stop her from doing what she enjoys.
Zoe said: "It was about April 2020 when I properly started posting things on there all the time.
"The main reason I started was to just be positive and to share relatable videos for other mums.
"Even though I did get some supportive comments on the video, the majority were hate. A lot of them came for my appearance too, but I just blocked them so I couldn't see it.
"I think maybe it's the way I worded it by starting off about her staying with my mum and people haven't bothered listening to the rest, but I just said it the way I would if I was having a conversation with someone.
"Anything you put online is going to get criticised, but people don't have to be nasty about it when they give their opinion."
She added: "I will carry on with it because at the end of the day it's my choice ultimately - my kids are fine and my kids are happy. They love spending time with my mum and what other people think is not going to change that, or change what I'm posting either.
"I have people who follow me and they chat to me daily and say they like seeing the content so I won't let this stop me."
