Jealous of brother and SIL’s very easy baby

It's completely unfair, but try not to dwell over it.

At least your SIL sounds nice, unlike the usual "baby is easy because of my outstanding parenting skills" idiots 😂

Because did you know your baby will be easier and sleep better if you are more chilled and make noise? no he fucking will not, some babies need SILENCE to sleep, some babies do not fucking sleep ever

Concentrate on the routines that work for now, plan around and tag-team with your husband to have at least one afternoon off a week! It will get better, it really does. eventually.

Mine's been feral since day 1. I struggled so much with her,lack of sleep was awful. I had PND and I genuinely wanted to jump off a bridge.
However in the last year she's been easier. Very active, loads of friends, a budding little artist, can chill out occasionally. She's 6 now.

My niece, who is now 4, was a dream baby.

Now they can't get her out of their bed for love nor money, I'm pretty sure she is still breastfed, she regularly kicks her mum and dad in the face and screams the house down. She's barely had 6 hours away from her parents and starts school in September.
These are people who when they were childfree and we had our DD they looked at me (when I was so tired I didn't know what my name was) and said 'When we have a baby it'll slot into our lives and we'll all go on skiing holidays'
I must ask them how that's working out.

It all evens out . You will be fine. I know it sucks. I promise one day you'll have a little knowing smile on your face 😊 x

I know a beautiful, sunny-natured 17-year-old girl who gets on well with everyone and is always smiling. According to her mum, she was a difficult baby who was always miserable!

DS1 was, I think, very bored as a baby. He cried a lot and didn't seem happy for more than a few minutes in a day.

He turned out to be super intelligent.

I used to tell myself, but not the other parents of course (!), that their little ones were so very content as perhaps they were not so bright.

It's something to comfort yourself with, but not to be said out loud.

An easy baby doesn't mean an easy child. My oldest was the easiest baby going. He was like your nephew very chilled out and slept constantly. He then became a Very difficult toddler with significant sleep issues and has stayed quite a difficult child since (nearly a teenager). Dc2 and 3 were much more demanding babies but are way easier kids then DC1. Things can change so try not to worry

I can totally relate, OP. My son was never ever content as a baby, he was a purple crier who needed stimulating constantly. It's a large reason why we're one and done!

Seeing my NCT group have their second babies has made me realise how "short changed" I was when it came to my son's temperament as a baby. I kind of knew it at the time but was in the baby chaos so didn't realise quite how different my experience was. The way they just bring the tiny babies along to all kinds of things, leave them napping in the car seat or just hold them while they quietly look around contentedly. How I can visit their houses and the babies just lies on the playmat cooing to themselves.

Obviously their babies aren't quiet and peaceful angels all the time. And they still do all the exhausting things that are inherent to babies. They have their struggles and their bad moments. But it does make me jealous that they have a lot of peaceful times as well just toting the babies along on their plans, as I never did.

Mine is a toddler now and much easier to handle than he was as a baby. But he’s still noticeably more work than the other babies even now, in terms of having bigger reactions to things or needing to constantly be doing stuff.

Mine was an exhausting baby, I used to feel so tired it was almost as if my blood was too tired to flow around my veins! They never slept longer than a couple of hours at night, dropped the daytime nap at 18 months so managed to be on the go from 6am until at least 7pm However they were a fairly easy toddler, bright, chatty and affectionate, a breeze to get out of nappies, no major tantrums so I think it is swings and roundabouts really. I don't blame you for feeling envious, when I had my baby, a friend of mine had one a few months later and they were like a baby from a book, fed and slept like a dream, easy to soothe and comfort, I can remember feeling really jealous and wondering what I was doing wrong.

Not unreasonable and it's really not anything you're doing wrong. Just depends on the baby.
Try to put it in perspective though, they're just babies, they'll maybe have a harder time at the toddler stage, your baby might sleep better earlier, be a less fussy eater, settle in school better. Lots of stages to get through!
My second DD was a dream baby but a nightmare toddler!
Best not to get into a pattern of comparing them too much or you'll drive yourself crazy as they're growing up

We had the same with our DS and niece. She slept through the night early on and would just go with the flow. Our DS was a nightmare sleeper. However come the toddler years our niece was a right handful who started each day at 5am while our DS was an angel who slept a solid 13 hours a night. And I’m sure it will all change again.

I really hope their second would be a terrible sleeper to be honest as I remember really just wanting them to understand how the sleep deprivation felt. But alas they got another perfect sleeper and we got another dud - funnily enough though when the second time did come around it no longer bothered me.

Parenting isn’t a race and it isn’t a competition.

I had a perfect baby like this who turned into a feral toddler. Hang in there you may find you end up with a well behaved toddler

DS1 nightmare baby,perfect toddler.
DS2 perfect baby,nightmare toddler.

No rhyme or reason 🤷‍♀️

YANBU,OP. I still remember these days, it was hellish. Keep going 💐 your baby loves you 🙂

How old are they because it is very much swings and roundabouts and it very often comes back to bite you on the arse (my are 15 and 11 and it is very much up and down)

DD was an awful baby sounds a lot like yours but is a fairly easy going teenager now and far easier than a lot of others

Try and be thankful you have a happy and healthy baby and let them get on with it. Lots of people would give their right arm to have what you have. Comparison is the thief of joy.

Also, be thankful you had the nightmare baby first (as I did). My best friend had an absolute angel baby that I was very jealous of, followed by a screaming demon (now a lovely teen, it must be said). It's no joke when you've been up all night and can't even nap when the baby does as you have a toddler running around.

Honestly OP, every baby is different, no matter what you do. My first DS was an absolute dream, so easy, could take him anywhere. Then we had DS2, 21mths later, OMG what a shock, he screamed morning til night, for the first 7mths of his life, didn’t matter what we tried or how many times we took him to the GP. It was really, really tough. My two are 23 & 21 now. But I will never forget how hard it was when DS2 arrived, he was the reason a 3rd, was totally and utterly out of the question!

Well thems the breaks. It tends to even put eventually though.

My son was an "easy" baby and delightful j til his third birthday then I had a year of absolute HELL. It all evens out.

I had a baby like yours op, not difficult at all, as long as everything was timed to the second 🤣 I swear people.uawd to think I was being difficult when I said no, sorry - that's nap time!

I was rewarded with the dreamiest 2yo you could ever imagine, and by this point everyone else's babies had started to hit their difficult ages. Hang on in there OP, it will get easier I promise.

Oh my gosh - my second one was called the unicorn newborn as he slept easily and pretty much for 12 weeks only waking to feed.

As a toddler it was challenging! And still is.

Oh god, your description is giving me PTSD! So familiar....😬

He will end up being an arsehole toddler or teenager - not many people have it easy all the way through!!!

I could have written this post myself, neither of my kids slept and everything was hard. I couldn't understand why friends with kids the same age made it look so easy.
It's hard, but it does get better. I found the easy babies became hard to handle toddlers - my nightmare babies were lovely at that age. Looking back now, I'm glad it was that way round!

I had a fussy DD when she was a baby and was very jealous of my sister's extra chill one. By 15 months DD was a joy - perfectly content when she could walk and talk a bit and has been a breeze ever since (she's 11!). My niece, however, became a terrible 2 and gave my sister a hard time for years. They're both lovely now - all kids are difficult at different times/stages

I always joke that if I'd had DS2 first we wouldn't have had any more children. After the initial hell of colic had passed he wasn't too bad a sleeper actually. But god, when he was awake he was never happy. Whingey face nearly all the time before he'd start crying. And soooo clingy, it was like having another limb. And he wouldn't eat anything. I swear he aged me an additional 5 years in his first 3 years. During that time DH actually said to me "I feel so guilty saying this but he's hard to love". 😢 It was a stroke of luck that his older brother was quite laid back so he just put up with a lot including things like days out on holiday being disrupted and made unenjoyable by DS2's whingeing and crying about everything.

He got much better at around 3/4, and by the time he started school he was quite delightful and full of joy and lit up the room. I love looking back at videos of him between, say, 4 and 11, because he was just so un-self conscious and very funny. I just don't think he liked being a baby very much!

When he went through the teen years he wasn't a bad teen at all, just a bit grumpy sometimes like all teens. Still a good boy all round. Respectful, hard working at school, just generally a well-behaved young person with lots of friends. He's 18 now and really, I can't equate with the fabulous person he is now with that whingeing red-faced misery guts that he was as a baby and toddler. He actually adds to our family holidays now. We'll miss him like mad when he goes off to uni.

I too remember feeling so very jealous at the time of contented babies that just sat there peacefully taking everything in, and who never cried much. I wonder how they turned out as teens and if they gave their mums the grief at that stage of parenting instead!

In fact I am still amazed now seeing recent photos of a relative's baby on holiday having a whale of a time, smiling in every photo, loving new experiences, and whenever we've met up in person the baby is exactly the same. Just happy and contented. I have to remind myself that I didn't actually do anything wrong and that it's just different temperaments.

Children go through different stages and their personality and character is not completely fixed. It won't be like that forever.

I totally understand and had a similar thing with a good friend. It was awful. I didn’t even want to spend time with them because I was so jealous and it made me feel totally shit about myself. It’s just not fair, is it?! Are they smug and superior about it though? If so then they deserve a really terrible toddler/tween/ teen….