First time mum: wish I knew what I do now

[daisydee43]

Just wanted to share a few thoughts now my dd is turning 1...

As a first time mum I put myself under so much pressure and its only in the last few months I've relaxed and started to enjoy the role as mum. It's so lonely being a mum when your baby is small and I wish I'd accepted more help and not done it all myself. People were asking me to come visit them but I just thought I had to show a brave front. I hated maternity leave and wish I'd gone back to work earlier as now I feel more human with a working-mothering balance.
Newborns is very hard and stressful especially if you don't really know what your doing and although I didn't have pnd I remember breaking down in a room of people. - 2hr feeds, taking a massive bag out everywhere, working your day around naps and the constant pressure to make friends at these intimidating mother and toddler groups
Can't wait to have my next baby as I feel so in control now and love being a mum although I know driving will help me more.

I wonder if everyone feels like this?

[MerryMingeWhingesAgain]

I certainly felt much more relaxed with my second. Although more tired!

Second time - when baby slept I did not rush round tidying and washing up, I lay down too. You can wash up while they are awake and watching you from a bouncer or in a sling. Don't waste their naps!

There is no point counting how long they took to get to sleep or how long before they wake up, it's all random to start with so just grab what sleep you can. And try not to compete with DP on who is more tired. You will both be tired for ages, try to be nice to each other and let each other have a long bath now and then while the other one cuddles the baby.

If you are feeding the baby often, they get washed occasionally, clean nappies at regular intervals and lots of time just being held, you are doing all the important things right and the rest can wait.

[Notsoyummymummy1]

Yeah I think we all put too much pressure on ourselves to be perfect in the early months. I am a lot kinder to myself nowadays and don't beat myself if the house has got dusty, if I'm ignored by the yummy mummy cliques, if I still have a belly or if I forget something minor and most importantly I've stopped comparing myself to other mums and took the bragging mums out of my Facebook feed! I feel loads better just for being more accepting of myself and proud of what I've learnt and that I have a bright happy one year old now!!! It takes time to get to that point though - when you're a first time mum it's so overwhelming - I wish I had known then what I know now!!! I used to have ridiculous arguments with dp over the temperature of her room and I used to have such a panic when she cried! I look back and laugh!! Am sure there will be still be more learning and more worrying to come though!

[Curtsey]

Oh yes, OP, I could have written everything in your post. My daughter (14mo) has been a pure delight from about 8 months old, but up until then...wow. It is such a lonely thing being a first-time mother of a baby who does not sleep, and will not settle unless she is on with one of her parents. I used to bloody well take her into the loo with me every time when I could have left her in her bouncer for the 25 seconds it took to have a wee! Like you I didn't have PND but I wasn't enjoying it much. Mostly because I got almost no sleep until she was about 6 months old and a lot of that was my fault - rushing around trying to do stuff anytime she napped and saying 'no' anytime family suggested they take her for an hour.

Ohoho will I be accepting all and any offers if there's ever a round 2! :)

[Curtsey]

Also I didn't go to a single group because I thought everyone would be able to single me out as the weird non-maternal earth mother type...and that the proof would have been in my clearly unhappy-with-her-lot baby yelling the place down! Had visions of rows of tranquil babies on knees and mine either fussing or clamped to my boob.

Honestly I just thought that I was the only person in the world who found it grim going - little did I know :)

[butterflyexperience]

Yep!

The immense pressure to make best friends at groups whilst looking and feeling like shite through sleep deprevation still kinda haunts me...

However must say when dc became toddlers making friends was much easier

[TheBookofRuth]

OP, you have just shone some light for me on my SIL's recent behaviour. She's just had her first, and while she seems to be having a tough time (not in the sense that she's not a lovely mum, because she is, but it's a tough time, and her DH didn't take all of his paternity leave so she's on her own a lot), she keeps pushing

[TheBookofRuth]

Hit send too soon.

As I was saying, she keeps pushing me away and refusing visits and offers of help. My own DD is only one, so I remember very well what it's like, and I genuinely want to help, but she won't let me.

TBH I'd been starting to feel a bit hurt, but your post has given me some insight, so thanks - and I'm glad you're feeling better.

[smellsofsick]

Yes it was soooo tough first time round and I had a ton of support. Still barely coped. Number two I'm enjoying so much more, even with the tiredness that comes with the toddler/baby combination.

[amri]

Funny I found this thread, I was just going to start something similar.

I'm a FTM with a 7 month old. I'm finding things really tough, even though in the grand scheme of things, she is a really normal baby! I do however wish I chilled out a bit more in the first few months and tried to enjoy it a bit more - it does go so fast! I had the blues until about 6 or 7 weeks which was awful, and I put myself under so much pressure to be up and dressed and 'normal' (why, ill never know) when I should have really been on the couch snuggling my newborn in my dressing gown.