Mother whose fake tan rubbed off on breastfeeding baby says: 'If that's the worst thing I've done, then I'm not doing too bad'

Gemma Colley hit back at the trolls who abused her after she posted the picture

Colley's picture of her 'tanned' baby went viral in a matter of hours

Gemma Colley, the woman who accidentally gave her baby a fake tan during breastfeeding, has responded to the online abuse she has receieved.

The now-famous picture showed her son with a distinctive five o'clock shadow after some fake tan rubbed off on his face during a feed.

Posting the picture, she wrote: "From one mum to another, I'd like to let you know about my epic fail of fails. Yesterday I had a spray tan, a few hours later I breastfed my little boy."

"Cue five o'clock shadow and a very guilty mummy."

Gemma Colley's baby (Faceook/Gemma Colley)

The picture got over 100,000 likes and tens of thousands of shares by the end of the day.

However, Colley was attacked by trolls after she posted the picture. Writing in a blog post, she said that a number of people were "telling me I shouldn't be allowed to be a parent, I was selfish for getting a spray tan and should spend my time with my boys, I'd intentionally poisoned my son with chemicals, I'm the worst mum in the world, I was a f******* w****, and I'd given him cancer."

Addressing the trolls in the post, she writes: "Yes I occasionally forget things, lose my s***, give my eldest (two and a half) one too many biscuits, and occasionally let the CBeebies presenters babysit, but I’d hardly say that constitutes as the worst mum in the world."

"If the only thing you get kicks from is writing abusive messages to people you know nothing about, then wow I really think you need to take a long hard look in the mirror."

"I’m really sorry I didn’t react to your messages because you are not worth my time, thought or effort. If this experience has made me realise one thing, it’s that I’m not as soft as I thought I was. Water off a duck's back."

Summing up the experience, she says: "If the worst thing I can do is give my baby an unintentional 5 o'clock shadow, I don't think I've done too bad."

Most of the media attention has passed now, but for her baby boy, the experience isn't over.

At the end of the post, she writes: "I promise you this, the paper clippings will be coming out for his 21st birthday."