Brooke Pipe and her partner Brandon Booby are quite young to have started a family, at 21 and 23 respectively.

But she says that thanks to a mix of genes, luck and responsive parenting, nine-month-old Harlow is “the perfect baby”.

“She’s the best: hardly ever cries and she’s really easy-going … I was a happy baby and her dad was a happy baby.

“It’s really easy … I thought it would be a lot harder, the late nights and early mornings, but it’s quite cruisy.”

Brooke says she hasn’t had any negativity for being a younger mother, and in fact there are some distinct advantages: more time in her child’s life, and still being quite young as her children grow more independent.

“You get to spend longer with them [and] when I’m 30, I’m not going to be waking up to a toddler.”

Having lots of support has helped her adjust to being a mum to Harlow, who is the first grandchild on both sides.

“My family’s very supportive and Mum is really great,” Brooke says.

“My best friend has a one-year-old … we were pregnant at the same time and went through everything together, so it was really handy.”

Brooke admits she was hoping for a boy, who she would have named after her late dad killed in a truck crash, but “now I have a girl, I think, what would I do with a boy?”.

“It’s the best feeling waking up to her face every morning and her just being so happy – you have a little one that you created.”

Nicole Sullivan has four children: Jacob (13), Charlotte (10), Sarah (7) and Halle (10 months). She says she was “really blessed” in her upbringing and it was never any question that she’d want her own family. She felt an uncanny connection to her first child when he come along when she was 21.

“I remember from a very young age, if I ever looked forward into the future, I’d always see myself as a mum; it was just a given,” she says.

“It’s funny … I remember looking at Jacob after I had him and thinking, ‘You’re exactly what I thought you’d look like’.”

She says that if all she does is follow the example of her parents, Peter and Roslyn Sullivan, she’ll be right.

“My parents are just the epitome of amazing. They’ve been together since they were teenagers. They grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney in very working-class families, and moved to Tamworth sight unseen into a two-bedroom place with three kids when I was 9.

“They managed to keep all us kids so entwined in the family … we do everything together: Christmas, birthdays, Easter, we holiday together and we love each other. I had nothing but a positive childhood and couldn't wait to give that to my kids. I saw how much joy we brought to our parents and couldn't wait to reciprocate that.”

Nicole says the toughest part of being a mum has been balancing her happiness with her kids’.

After what she calls an unstable relationship with the dad of the oldest three, about four-and-a-half years ago she re-partnered with Lauren, who gave birth to the baby of the family and her first biological child, Halle.

“It’s tough exposing them to a not-favourable situation, because the relationship’s not ‘traditional’,” Nicole says.

“Jake has to put up with a lot of different snickers from kids at at school …

“My biggest hurdle in parenting is making those selfish decisions. It was a very selfish decision to choose the path that I chose, because it was just for me. I do feel it has benefited them and made me a better person. I’ve definitely come out a more holistic, rounded person.

“Jake will see eventually that his friends don’t care that he has two mums, but it’s easy to be blindsided by that one kid who gives him grief.”

Nicole says she has “loved every moment of being a mum”.

“That little person, they love you unconditionally and it just makes you feel whole, I guess … I definitely have my moments, but I just give them unconditional love. I let my kids know that you can make me mad and cranky, but I’ll never love you any less.”

Nicole says her mum and dad always “prioritised us … but also let us know we weren’t the be-all and end-all”.

“They made us feel significant. We really meant something to them. They always knew what we were doing and took a healthy interest in it, and were very supportive.”

Nicole says their approach was intuitive: “They didn’t read books [on parenting], they didn’t have internet, they just did it from the heart.”

She says she’ll spend Mother’s Day with the other mums in her family, including her sister, who is like a second mum to her children.

And with a family tradition of the kids being given a little money to choose their gift, she’s looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

“My dad got a remote-controlled spider one year for Father’s Day.”

Elyce Taylor is surrounded by babies and toddlers almost every minute of the day. At home she has four-year-old Sienna and eight-month-old Max; at work she’s a daycare nursery room leader for sometimes 12 kids aged up to two.

And some days home comes to work, when her kids attend Billabong Kids Central, where she’s worked since 2009. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I’ve always wanted to work with kids. I love shaping who they become, just watching them grow and learn, and the little things they do and pick up,” she says.

“It’s really rewarding watching them grow into the little people they grow into.”

Elyce “didn’t really have a picture in [her] head” about how motherhood would be.

“I have ‘godtwins’, so I’ve helped with them and always been a part of their life, and then I had my own, and you just grow into the little family that you become.

“It’s a learning curve, though – what works for one doesn’t work with the other.”

She says her kids are “both very cheeky, both easygoing, bubbly, happy to go to any of the girls here”.

She says she has great support in friends who have children around the same age, as well as family.

When she thinks about how her parenting is similar to her own mum’s, she says it’s “pretty much everything”.

“I’m a big person for manners and so is Mum, if Sienna doesn't say thank you and Mum catches her before me, she’ll remind her.”

She says that although it takes a lot of energy to be with small children all the time, her motivation is simple.

“The love that they give you makes you want to strive to be better at what you do and get up and do it all the next day…

“The best part of being a mum is watching them grow and learn all the little things they learn; the most difficult part of being a mum is seeing them sick and not being able to take their pain away.”