It’s all such bloody hard work

It's absolutely insane, my niece is wanting obscenely expensive and unnecessary products because she follows influencers who earn millions. Likewise my preteen and teen skin would have exploded if I'd exposed it to all those products!

Yep. I’m with you on that. As if anyone would actually do that!

I think this is the primary reason for the fall in birth rate. Yes, the cost of living is a factor, but anecdotally the most common reason I hear for not having kids these days is that you’re expected to actually parent 24/7 now, and it’s just not appealing (or sustainable really).

Catch me crying setting my alarm to get up for school for the next 12 years and I'm not even the one bloody attending LOL

Catch me crying setting my alarm to get up for school for the next 12 years and I'm not even the one bloody attending LOL

It's been years since I had to cope with a baby, but, I never had mine in bed with me and I mean never. I was bottle feeding, and found a bottle containing Horlicks just before bedtime helped all of mine sleep better, I 100% know it did as I ran out once when I couldn't get to the shops and after 2 nights of a screaming baby I never ran out again. I wouldn't sleep well with a baby in my bed I'd be too scared of rolling over and hurting it. Maybe I nightlight would help, some babies and children don't like the dark. Just a suggestion. Hope you get a good night's sleep soon.

Your MIL sounds like a psychopath 😔.

Being a mum has never been easy, let’s face it. Every generation faces new challenges that make it feel like it’s never been so hard. My mum complained about the guru Dr Spock who was all the rage in the early 60s and made her feel like shit while she worked her fingers to the bone looking after 3 DC and 3 grandparents with no household appliances to lighten the load. Her mum just had WW2 to struggle with…In the 90s I struggled with working full time, no family help, and judgement from other mums for not being a SAHM. I didn’t fully catch up on my sleep until youngest left for university! Now I see my DC’s friends/my friends’ DC struggle with too much information/misinformation and the impact of digital technology on both them and their DC.

What’s the answer? Short of not having children, it’s: ignoring everyone else and getting stuck in, in such a way that you all get as much enjoyment out of child-rearing as you possibly can. Each family is unique so giving headspace to what other families do is just pointless.

Absolutely

my MIL is the worst for this and doesn’t understand that parenting her way, now in modern times, would get a social services referral. She feels “I’m making a rod for my own back” and she was so successful because she didn’t fuss over her kids and they did as they were told.

examples - leaving newborn babies (less than 1 week) in a pram in the bottom of the garden 50m away from the house, kitchen door shut, to scream until they fell asleep. “The fresh air is good for their lungs”

potty training - “he had a rash right down his thighs so sore he couldn’t walk but he learnt not to wet his trousers when he had to sit in them”

fussy eaters “mine never fussed because if they grumbled they went to bed hungry at 5pm and stayed there, and got served that dinner cold 2 or 3 days in a row for every meal until they ate it.

“I never had any trouble with my boys as soon as one of them did wrong, I’d beat the both of them and say that a because they’d probably done something to deserve it I didn’t know about.

😱 no she is not left alone with my kids.

Cosmetics at 11..sheesh times have changed. I didn’t get any till I was 16 and then I was forced by mother. I wasn’t interested and no one I knew bothered either. 17/ 18 yeah to sneak into clubs / pubs underage , but 11?
There was a ‘don’t encourage perverts ‘ too.

Even now, I won’t pay £23 for lip gloss. That’s a week’s food for one fgs. No wonder people complain they can’t manage on their income.
Never did lunch boxes for mine, though I took a lunch box in my high school, But only because it was forbidden. No one else did. It wasn’t an option. But they couldn’t force school dinner on me as I hadn’t paid, and couldn’t send me home cos I was outwith my catchment area in the next county 2 busses away. The power was mine .

Parties for my kids were games in the yard followed by food , later ages to a football place or dry skiing or 10 pin bowling. When did kids get so complicated? Did the co-sleeping from birth. By 3 they wanted their own beds. Looks like a lot of parents are making a rod for their own backs..or for other parents’ backs.
Where do kids get the money for expensive, or any , cosmetics? We didn’t get money handed to us. My kids ( wisely) chose to get things as they needed them over a weekly allowance. Which would not have been enough for the things kids nowadays buy. The world has gone mad

I feel exhausted just reading about your life! YOUR style of parenting isn't benefitting either parents or children. You should watch a few episodes of "Super Nanny". I feel sure it would really help you.

You’ll be probably able to manage most of these, but some interruptions will happen and are inevitable with young DC.

They come and ‘disrupt’ your life, that’s the nature of having them!

Don't start parties. Not only physically draining, but who do you invite? With a small class of about 20 you could invite them all. Once you start asking DC who their friends are, you make a rod for your own back. They change friends too often for comfort.

Have a birthday treat or meal somewhere. Your dc probably won't get asked back, but does it matter?

And I say this as someone who was and is anti screens at the table, but has absolutely used them when out very occasionally to have an actual break. Good luck in particular on the no interrupting part, I’d love to hear how you manage it.

Come back in five or six years time and tell us how you get on please, we can’t wait to hear!!

You will barely remember before you were five.

You will have the odd snatched memory of that time but nothing concrete. Just as history favours the winners, so do our own memories and we tend to remember when we behaved beautifully, not when we were whingey, arsey, restless or whatever.

I think that’s what everybody thinks before they have kids 😂

Im due in December and absolutely determined to raise him the way I was raised. I knew how to be bored or entertain myself without needing constant entertainment or stimulation. Also taught to sit quietly at a restaurant rather than needing screens etc. It's all too much.

I can't bare being around friends children who constantly need interaction, interrupting conversations etc. I wouldn't have dreamed of it!!!

It’s quite natural for families to sleep together- it happens all over the world! Why would I sleep with a partner I love but not my own child?

If my DD asks me to sleep with her, I'm happy to do so.
We didn't bond until she was 20 months old due to my mental health issues so I feel blessed that she wants me and we love it.
It's not every night but it had been for a couple of weeks at one point.
Not a problem.

Waking up at 5 is just how it is for some people. She's usually asleep by 8pm so I'm sure she's had enough of it.
I put some guided affirmations on and she was asleep within 5 minutes as was I 🙂

I wonder how many babies who have been subjected to this contrived programme of 'activities' will ever remember them or even benefit from them?
Maybe if your 7 year old wasn't 'co-sleeping' he would sleep longer, I'm sure that this fad is the reason so many parents and children don't sleep well, each disturbing the other.

I love sleeping with my babies, well, I can only sleep with my youngest, 7, as my eldest, 11, has a top bunk but if he had a normal bed I'd absolutely sleep with him too.

But it would be lovely if the 7yr old could sleep past 5am 🥱

OP, your kids are not going to remember how much you spent on parties and they won't think in their 20s or 30s, I remember my 6th birthday party where I didn't have a balloon arch.

I totally get where you're coming from though and I don't think you BU.
Just dance to the beat of your drum mate. Show up, that's all they need and will remember. x

It’s hard if you are in an area where everyone is doing lots.
It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Just aim for more low key days.
I’m in an affluent area and children very scheduled so school, activities every night, expensive parties and foreign holidays. I’m a volunteer girl guiding leader and we did a very low key brownies pack holiday - 7/8 yrs old they loved. They played out together for ages. They loved simple games (just needs dice and paper), pouring own cereal, making own lunch, washing up. There’s obviously an element of fact there’s a group of them but the simple little things were genuinely exciting for them. With older group age 10-13 we find they are often genuinely happy with simple crafts or games, we are massively oversubscribed so doing something right.

We live in a different world now. It’s not the same place I grew up in (I’m 51 years old, Gen X, raised ourselves!). It’s hard to parent like we were parented in this different world. We can try to not conform to allll the things around us, but it’s a challenge being the odd one out.