There is one thing all moms have always relied on when it comes to parenting: each other. And today, the Internet is helping moms forge relationships through online communities so that they can continue to anonymously express their child-rearing concerns and support each other.

A new study out of Missouri University says that online communities provide an outlet for mothers to share their parenting concerns. Jean Ispa, co-author of this study, professor and co-chair of the MU Department of Human Development and Family Studies says that, “Mothers have feelings that they might be embarrassed to talk about face-to-face with someone. They may feel ashamed if they have feelings like, ‘My child is really stressing me out,’ or ‘My child is annoying me.’ On message boards, with a pseudonym, mothers can say whatever they’re feeling, and they can get emotional support and advice from other moms with similar experiences.”

Both Ispa and Noriko Porter monitored online message boards hosted by two popular parenting magazines, evaluating over 100 posts from mothers with children two years old and younger. They found that the child-rearing concerns moms were most apt to express were those of feeding, eating, sleep, development, discipline, toilet-training and mother-child relationships; basically, moms are talking about what’s happening in their lives right now.

“One of the benefits of message boards is that they are constantly available, so parents can communicate with other parents anytime.” Ispa said of the round the clock posting. “Instead of, or after consulting with medical professionals, some mothers look for quick feedback from their e-cohort. High medical costs and waiting times for appointments may be contributing to mothers turning to the Internet for quick and practical solutions from their peers.” Though it is also worth noting that information moms garner from these boards are usually advice and opinions shared by other moms who’ve found themselves in similar situations.

What else can explain the popularity of online communities and message boards, though? A more mobile America. Ispa says, “Women aren’t next door to their mothers anymore to ask parenting questions, so they turn to their peers over the Internet.”

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It’s three in the afternoon, and your new baby is asleep. How do you spend the time?

• a.  Tackle a pile of laundry or unload the dishwasher
• b.  Pump to build your freezer stash of breast milk
• c.  Nap
• d.  Shower or go to the bathroom

If you’re like me, you may not do any of these things. In the awesome event that both of my twins are asleep or someone else is home to watch them in the middle of the day, I can never decide how to spend my time. Rather, I wander around in a stupor, fretting about all the possibilities of what I could do and wondering how long my good fortune will last. In the end, nothing gets accomplished — clothes are everywhere, food gets burnt, or I may lie down long enough just to close my eyes before someone needs attention.

If you’re like me, then some of the most common advice for new moms may be the most difficult: “Sleep when the baby sleeps” and “Accept help when you get it.” As far as the sleeping goes, I can never feel at ease sleeping when they sleep. At naptime, the longer they sleep, the more likely it is that they wake up as soon as I drift off, so in the end, I stay awake. At night, I’ve pretty much given up on trying to go to bed, and it’s not because their grunts and coos keep me awake. It just seems easier to wait for the crying to start than to be woken up every twenty minutes — right now my twins are in a relay race of fighting sleep and the interruptions are never-ending. And while I’ve had plenty of help from family, I usually have mixed feelings about accepting it. I need the help so desperately, but if someone volunteers to watch the babies so I can nap, for example, I can’t seem to tear myself away.  I feel guilty for having some  alone time, so I kind of hang around watching someone else hold and play with my kiddos.

So what advice do I have for you if you are, in fact, like me? Unfortunately the suggestions that are hardest for me to take are also what I would highly recommend to new moms. It’s what I would love to do. So to make these things easier, I would do these three things:

1. Drop what you’re doing when the baby falls asleep. You never know if she’ll sleep for 10 minutes or two hours.  Don’t waste precious time!
2. If you feel guilty having someone else play with your baby, then ask them to do the dishes instead! Or laundry, or bring over a meal, or any other chore you can outsource while you hold your little one.
3. Also, you could have them take the baby out of the house. You’ll be amazed how quiet it is and it might be easier for you to take a nap or use the bathroom without waiting to hear someone scream.

What’s the best advice you’ve gotten as a new parent?

Do you have a mentor mom? Mentors are popular for students looking to get through college. They’re great for employees looking to turn a job into a career. They’re a benefit for people looking to lose a few pounds. But they can also be really helpful for moms too.

Chances are that you aren’t the first person to face whatever parenting issue that you’re facing. As special as our children are, they aren’t as unique as we’d like to think. You might be the first mom to have a six-year-old son in Mrs. A’s 2012 Kindergarten class who also lives on Main Street and who has a little sister named Betsy, but you aren’t the first person to:

• Worry that your 2-year-old doesn’t know enough words or
• Wonder how to help your 4-year-old stay dry through the night or
• Need to prepare your 6-year-old for all day school or
• Determine when to help your 8-year-old with homework and when to let her struggle by herself or
• Set a bedtime for a 10-year-old or
• Talk about body changes with a 12-year-old or
• Help your 14-year-old pick out a dress for Homecoming or
• Take your 16-year-old to get a driver’s license or
• Assist their 18-year-old in filling out financial aid forms for college or
• Struggle with their 20-year-old who’s home for Christmas break.

Many other moms have been through this. So having a mom that you can talk to can be a great tool in your mommy toolbelt. Here’s some advice on having a mentor mom:

It doesn’t have to be official.
Many times in the corporate world, a mentor relationship is a formal thing. But it doesn’t have to be. You don’t need to go to her and say “Will you be my mentor?” You can if you want to, but you don’t have to. Instead, you can just consider her as someone you respect and as long as she’s willing to give you advice when you seek it out, then you’re in a great spot. There’s no need to give her a fancy title or set up a scheduled time every week that you talk. You can have a scheduled time, but you don’t have to. It should be someone who you have a relationship with. If you call her up to get her opinion on temper tantrums, her response shouldn’t be “Who are you again?”

It doesn’t have to be for a lifetime.
There will always be people coming into and going out of our lives. You don’t have to identify a mentor mom who you will go to for advice for the rest of your life. It could just be while you have a toddler. Or while your daughter is battling through second grade. Or while your son is figuring out the potty training thing. Don’t feel like you need to pick the one woman who will be able to navigate you through the rest of your life. You aren’t marrying her!

You don’t have to be her Mini Me.
While you want a woman whose opinion you respect, whose parenting you generally like and whose mindset is similar to yours, you don’t have to do things just because she says so. You’re still the mom in your family. It’s okay to get advice from her and not take it. It’s even okay not to ask her opinion on certain things because your mindset is different in those areas. If you already know that you have different philosophies on vaccinations, then don’t dwell on that. And just because you have differing opinions on potty training, it shouldn’t stop you from asking her advice on discipline and bedtimes and curfews.

She should be ahead of you.
There’s tremendous value in having mommy friends that are going through the same thing you are, around the same time. You can exchange ideas and, if nothing else, you can cry on each other’s shoulders. That’s a great blessing! But if you want advice on how something worked out, find a mentor mom who’s a few years ahead of you. She’ll not only be able to tell you what she did, but she can also tell you the consequences (good or bad) that it had later on. She’ll be able to say “Here’s how we potty trained, but if I were to do it all over again, this is what I’d do differently.” or “Here’s how we handled bedtime when he was 8 years old and it worked great because when he was 10, we were able to …” kind of advice. That’s very valuable!

Do you have a mentor mom? Would you be a mentor mom for someone else?

Um, yeah. He did.

In an interview with Cleveland’s z107.9, (which started off politically focused but somehow veered off course), when asked, “What does the POTUS talk to Jay-Z and Beyonce about?” the President answered:

“We talk about the same things I talk about with all my friends. We talk about kids. They just had a new baby and they’ve got a new daughter, and I made sure that Jay-Z was helping Beyonce out and not leaving everything to mom and the mother-in-law.”

What do you think of the President’s dad-to-dad advice?

Plus, more from The Bump:

10 Things Every New Dad Should Know

Presidential Election 2012 — A Mom’s Guide

Top 5 Weird Rumors About Beyonce and Jay-Z’s Baby’s Name

Celebs love to tweet about their pregnancies and experiences as new moms (just like us!). Here’s a roundup of this week’s funniest, cutest and most memorable tweets from celeb moms and moms-to-be.

Tell us, do you share your new mom experiences on Twitter?

Plus, more from The Bump:

Celeb Bump & Baby Announcements

The Best Celebrity Baby Names of All Time

Crazy Celeb Birth Stories