Misery loves company (New mums)

I honestly couldn't be happier.

That’s good but it’s not coming across, you sound very angry. If you’re chilled then
these comments would just wash over you.

Whilst I can't help but roll my eyes a bit at your remarks on sleep, I have been having this very rant in my head recently.

Because I had a couple of really awful periods in the run up to motherhood (a period of acute and horrifying anxiety and Long COVID), and it was actually triggering to be endlessly told how awful and hard my life was going to be.

Waking up and staying up in the night with a baby - yeah, rough but worth it.

Waking up at 4am feeling instantly terrified and spending all day fighting palpitations and obsessive thoughts? Waking up in the night with brain fog so bad I thought I was losing my mind? Aches and pains and weakness? Suddenly feeling the spiraling feeling of numbness out of nowhere in the day? Absolutely hellish.

I got "smacked arse" faces when I said that the baby went to dad/in the bouncer so I could shower etc. A friend negged the fact that I enjoyed "boring" walks in the park (yeah, because exercising in the outdoors is famously bad for your MH...).

Sharing your experiences with sympathy whilst it's happening is helpful. Telling people they're going to have a shit time is the act of a dickhead.

Enjoy it all while you can 🤷🏻‍♀️ Everyone struggles with different parts of parenting and while your friends and colleagues might have struggled with the baby years, maybe they'll enjoy the primary school years more while you might really struggle with that. And that's fine. They shouldn't be judging you for loving life with a baby (how utterly ridiculous) and you shouldn't judge them for not having loved it.

I loved the baby years with my first despite the significant lack of sleep - DC was just a smiley and delightful baby. We struggle a lot more now and I'm not enjoying it as much, but this too shall pass!

I also experienced years of infertility (and surgical interventions) but the first few months of my DS' life did hit me like a ton of bricks.

OP, ask yourself this question: how did you feel when people were happily announcing pregnancies when you were in the pits of the infertility struggles? Were you happy to hear them go on and on about prams and bibs and cute newborn outfits? I know I wasn't. So now this is how these exhausted, mentally bruised new mums are looking at you. You are now the "happy" one. So enjoy it and find someone like you instead of being surprised why others are just not feeling what you're feeling.

OPs situation sounds the same to me:

"When I was pregnant all the women at work my age and in other friendship circles with babies went on and on about how I would never sleep again, I'll never go out again and how I JUST CAN'T POSSIBLY be prepared for how hard it's going to be. I simply have NO IDEA how much my baby take over my entire body and existence. (It can't possibly trump 4 years of IVF on that front but moving on...) It's impossible to even have a shower or get dressed before 2pm according to many mums I know and getting out of the house is an hour long mission. It really felt like they were trying to ruin my excitement and make sure I knew how shit it was going to be."

YANBU OP. Some people love to try and drag others down.

Best to ignore them and give your time to people who aren't like that.

Congratulations on your daughter OP!

Congratulations!! Amazing news you’ve got a healthy baby and your health has improved.

ive had a child who didn’t sleep more than 3 hours in a row for months and then months later sleeps from 9-7 through. My parenting didn’t change, my child just developed. I want you to know that mentally it was extremely hard to have no sleep, function and have no support. With no idea if it would ever get better. I loved my child but I didn’t enjoy every moment because I was so exhausted. I feel like a totally different person with sleep.

i think people are struggling and need reassurance for others in similar positions. They shouldn’t be mean to you but equally your experience is totally different. Imagine the physical toll of IVF but no sleep or time to recover for months after- you might not be the best version of yourself.

to tired insecure new parents perhaps you appear smug? Like their own projections. I’d just avoid those and find your own people who share values and have sleeping kids!

Or people talk about good things 'they are bragging and trying to make me jealous' if they speak of bad things 'they are scaremongering and now I am all anxious'

You went through infertility and IVF, so when you were going through that and someone said “my husband just has to look at me and I’m pregnant”, how did you feel? Were you able to carry on conversations with them? Did you want to lash out? Did you ever actually lash out and tell them how insensitive they were? People wouldn’t blame you if you did. Did you go home and cry because you felt so shit, so incapable of doing something that everyone else found so easy? Could you engage with every pregnancy announcement, every gender reveal? Could you listen to your friends talk about their pregnancies or their babies without feeling a part of you was missing? If you could engage with your friends on their babies could you listen to what they were saying about postpartum, the division of work without thinking to yourself “she’s so ungrateful, doesn’t she know how lucky she is?”

That’s now how everyone who has a baby who won’t sleep feels. That’s how everyone with a baby with CMPA or reflux or colic feels when you say she’s a happy little baby and feeds well. That’s how every mum who has lost her identity and is now just reduced to ‘mummy’ feels.

As a general rule if something is going well, you just say “it’s going OK” you don’t mention that they’re sleeping through the night unless it’s to a health visitor. Because you never know when something will change, it’s almost like jinxing it because there is a sleep regression looming at every milestone, and you don’t know where someone else is at.

lives life pretty much the same as before just with baby in tow.

Let us know how this goes when they're a toddler, when you return to work etc.

The thing is people can’t win. For every post like yours - and you seem really angry, if you’re so happy why are you so angry? - there are more asking ‘why did nobody tell me how hard it is?’

People do seem to love making others miserable. It's really weird. Of some I know with kids they seem to argue whether boys or girls are worse. It's odd how many people aren't supportive but competitive with each other.

It depends on the group I suppose, lots of mums actively seek out baby groups because they're struggling and want support, so naturally people offload or the people who arent struggling read the room and dont harp on about it being easy. You say you don't talk much about it, but if they're reacting like this then surely you must be or how would they know? DS was a decent sleeper but best believe I didn't mention that at baby groups and instead offered a hug and some coffee. Many people don't feel comfortable offloading to friends and family so these groups are an outlet, they're not all the same though maybe try some others.

I agree with this. A lot of these women are suffering, their mental health is in the gutter - I know because I have been there.

If you are happy then enjoy it!

People talk about their situation it is not all about you, if you are so happy then why on earth would others worry you

You sound way to intense

yes I was the same. I found Mummy groups tedious because people just complained.

Those women are going through something incredibly hard, if you are so blissfully happy then why give a second thought to those people who are clearly struggling? You sound angry, too.

I totally disagree. There’s absolutely a time for confiding in people in the same boat and share the challenges but I have found it to be totally overwhelming how negative people are. It’s almost competitive misery.
and if someone is in front of you, on the verge of tears because they’re finding it so hard, how is laughing about how much worse it gets meant to be helpful.

I was in the TRENCHES at that stage, so I'd have probably burst in to tears if I'd heard your baby is sleeping through! Mine didn't till 1 and it's still not a guarantee at 2. I do agree with you about the "just you wait" though, I hate that. I think it's unkind for those enjoying things and those struggling equally- I remember being so low and being told "oh it gets way worse just you wait" when he was about 5 months, waking hourly and only napping if I walked him in the sling (exhausted didn't cover it). I also haven't found it to be true, things don't necessarily get easy but for me things have certainly got better as I can now sleep, have dinner with my husband, I'm back at work, etc. I feel human again!

Ignore them, enjoy your bubble, you sound like you have an angel baby and you should certainly enjoy every bit of that!

I have 5 and 1 grandson all of them were sleeping through the night before or defiantly by 6 weeks old! Never tell anyone that has a baby that! They will hate you just say they sleep ok mostly and change steer the conversation to something else. 🤣 people struggle with no sleep and it makes them unreasonable.

Absolutely this.

If you were surviving on 4 hours sleep a night for months on end with a reflux baby, and had PND bought on by exhaustion you’d be feeling hateful thoughts too (been there, done that). I’m not proud of how angry and jealous I was of mums who weren’t going through the awful time I was. Particularly with their smug, judgmental remarks. Just be grateful you don’t need the support to get through it. Give it a few months and babies will be sleeping better, falling into routines and other mums probably sleeping better. They’ll hopefully be better company for you by then.

Just ignore them.

Do bear in mind that no one knows what’s around the corner with a baby - your sleep-through-the-night baby can still go through a sleep regression and take months/years to come out the other side.

Unfortunately having babies can bring out an ugly side in some women - snide comments, competitive, unsupportive with each other etc. Pick your friends wisely and learn to ignore the others.

Oh no they carried on long after she was born. They very much expected me to be suffering and were perplexed I wasn't. Constantly telling me the worst is yet to come, "wait until X phase then you'll get a reality check!" OR being snide with me because for whatever reason I'm not having the same struggles as them. You even see it on here any time anyone dares mention they have an easy baby: "wait until the terrible twos" "come back when you've had teenagers!" etc etc.

A vast majority of other mums are lovely and supportive, but there are a select few who are filled with doom and want everyone else to be right there along with them.

I pretty much agree!

The fact is that early motherhood is so hard for some people that seeing someone appear to find it all very easy brings out their insecurities. They don't hate you or want you to fail, but their subconscious is screaming at them "look at her, she looks so healthy and happy and put-together, how come she can manage it and you can't? You're bad at this, you're failing, you're weak, you're a crap mum..."

Feel sorry for them, be glad you're not them, and ignore them.

Congratulations on your beautiful baby 😘