What was your experience of early motherhood if you have/had a placid baby?

[HalfStar]

A couple of threads today with poor mother's whose babies won't sleep has me thinking. I've had 3 and they were all really, really hard work as babies. Velcro, clingy, stranger anxiety, cried a lot and all had colic or reflux to some degree.

However, despite being hard work when awake, no.3 has been a much better sleeper. Not amazing, but pretty decent for a BF baby. As a result the daytime fussiness and sensitivity has been much easier to bear.

I found early motherhood to be quite a dark night of the soul with #1 and #2 - but then they turned into relatively 'placid' toddlers and small children. I'm just wondering what it's like if you have a placid baby from the off - did you enjoy it?

My first baby was placid but it was only when number two arrived that I realised the first was placid. I still found it hard work. Second DD put me off having any more. She never slept at all in the day from the moment she was born. Fed all night. She was walking at 9 months and still no sleep in the day and awake till llp.m. at night. She was like a monkey, climbing ladders and up on to the windowsill in her bedroom. We had to put window bars up.

She has turned into the most delightful adult daughter though, and still has a lot of energy.

Sorry you’ve had a rough time with your dc

My dd was easy. I think my expectations were that it was going to be really really hard as I’d seen previously family members struggle with the concept of becoming a parent and the actual baby part (lack of sleep, what to do with them etc)

Dd was amazing. She fed often (90min - 2 hours) so I never had a break as I too BF, but she wasn’t colicky or unhappy. She rarely cried until teething kicked in (which was early). She never “slept through” in the sense that I thought that meant all night but she went down around 8pm and did a 4-5 hour stint from quite early on so I worked around that. It was always every 2 hours from 1-2am. I slept when she slept during the day, managed to keep on top of the house and loved being at home.

I loved the early months of motherhood.
Honestly thought I’d hate it but it was a “text book” magical moment for me, I finally was a mum and I was really happy. I didn’t have dark days or baby blues at all, I just enjoyed it and felt content myself. I also felt I had loads of time on my hands. From a full time 50+ hour a week job, I literally had so many hours to do stuff!

I wouldn’t say this out loud to anyone, if anything I say the opposite so that peoples’ expectations are high and they’re not completely shocked by the upheaval of becoming a parent.

But I do try to refer to enjoying it and not resenting it. The hard bits aren’t forever.

I had a horrendous pregnancy due to hyperemesis. That was my dark night of the soul. People think it’s just nausea but all I could do was lie in a dark room. Movement, lights, smells all made me vomit uncontrollably. It was a horrific experience and then giving birth was even worse. I nearly died.

When I was TTC I read a thread on here about not allowing any visitors for six weeks. I thought that was totally ridiculous.... and ended up doing it myself!

Pregnancy and birth left me physically done. I couldn’t have coped with a Velcro baby on top of that.

I've had two pretty easy ones and one a bit less easy - though by easy I still mean for a baby, they all needed breastfeeding 15+ times day and night, only slept on my chest, needed to be carried all the time, two were awful pukers - but so long as they were held and breastfed they were happy!
I absolutely love the newborn bit, but it is nice when they finally slept through

DC1 was very placid and easy going but it took me a good few weeks to find my feet. I always say I felt competent after a few days but it was about the 6 week mark when I felt confident.

He was a delightful baby, was sleeping 11-5 at 10 weeks and I really enjoyed his babyhood.

DC2 was a nightmare, constantly fed and cried all the time. Didn't sleep longer than a few hours at a time. Was very sicky. HV and GP dismissed my concerns. When we started weaning she had a reaction and just before her first birthday she was officially diagnosed with CMPA. We had already cut out dairy from 6 months and she did improve..... seemed happier etc but was a classic velcro baby still. And didn't sleep through until she was almost 3 . She did grow out of the CMPA.

DC3 was a neonate, is registered disabled and is globally delayed. She was very placid and easy going. Sadly it wasn't her personality but the nature of her disability. She didn't do much for the first few months, bless her. She's older now, still delayed developmentally but she has her own little character now and she's somewhere between DC1 and DC2

Mine was easy peasy tbh, i loved the time. We co slept, i just flopped a boob out for her and barely woke up, so no sleep deprivation at all. She had a great latch and appetite, i had plenty of milk, i didnt mind carrying her everywhere.

Thank you so much for all the replies so far. Love hearing people's experiences. Want to respond to everyone's posts later when I get a chance!

I had a truly awful pregnancy - lots of time in hospital, lots of illness, tricky birth. A few near death experiences for both me and the baby.

Then a relaxed, placid baby who slept and a really brilliant year with lovely nct friends. I look back on it with similar fondness to uni years.

Obviously there were some tough days, but such a small number it didn’t marr the overall experience.
The nct group were a large part of it, and the group being good fun was nothing but pure luck! I’m very grateful for it all, especially as with the dreadful pregnancy it seemed very unlikely we’d even make it to the birth.

I'm 6 months in with a very placid DD. Her calm nature and DP being a very doting dad who works from home have made it very easy and an enjoyable time for me. She doesn't cry unless she's bumped herself (currently sitting up and learning to crawl but not completely steady yet) or is very very tired.

Somehow I still ended up with PND, but medication has sorted that.

@Makegoodchoices how could I forget my baby group friends 🙊 they made the early months so much easier too. I went along a bf group when dd was 3 weeks with no intention of “making friends” and 8 years on 4 of my closest friends are from that group.

It could have gone either way but I just seemed to find people who shared my love of food and dark sense of humour

DS was, despite puking my guts all through pregnancy and then the stress of him arriving at 32 weeks, a very easy baby.
He never woke more than once a night, slept til 9 most mornings and was a happy, easy going soul. Early motherhood was pretty easy and smooth going.

He does however have ADHD so he hasn't slept through the night for the past 7 years and doesnt stop moving and talking so I'm now utterly exhausted

mine are teens now.

dc1 was amazing sleeper, slept from 10 pm to 6 am at 5 weeks. He also fed on the dot of 3 hours when he was awake. In that sense early motherhood was easy. BF went really easily, and I loved the freedom to just feed when and where.
He was a very lively toddler and then a very hard work all through primary school, requiring firm and consistent boundaries and frequently driving me to the end of my tether. He is very bright and could argue black is white, and has a stubborn streak a mile wide.
He has mellowed a lot as a teen, and despite normal teen stuff I think we have had an easy ride. Definitely the hardest to parent of the whole, despite an easy ride as a baby.

dc2 was a terrible sleeper for 6 months, then I did sleep training and she became a great sleeper. She fed for an hour and a half, but having had a easy ride with BF with dc1, I felt quite confident and let her get on with it. She was a laid back and mellow toddler, child and now teen. She has been easy all through really. But we went through a phase last year when I though she was going to tell me she was trans, and the emotional worry was horrendous, worse than anything else I've dealt with as a parent.

dc3 basically had to fit in with the rest of the family! She was a pretty OK baby, a reasonable sleeper, a lively toddler (she did stuff that none of the others had ever done, we had to put locks on the bathroom, and get new stairgates to stop her being able to get anywhere near the kitchen.) She can still, even as a teen, throw the most unbelievable tantrums, and while she hasn't had a diagnosis, we suspect she has a lot of ASD tendencies. We had to change lots of our parenting techniques for her, and that has caused probelms with our older 2 who don't get it.
So, while she is a delight and makes her mark everywhere she goes, it has been hard work.

On the whole, babyhood was easy for me, it was the later ages that have been hard!

My daughter is 1. I wouldn’t call her placid as she’s an absolute bundle of energy, but she was quite an easy baby- slept reasonably well, didn’t cry unless she needed something, happy to spend time kicking around on her play mat, doesn’t struggle with transitions (I found it harder when she started nursery than she did!)
I’m very lucky and have thoroughly enjoyed motherhood, aside from the first couple of weeks when we tried and failed at breastfeeding

I'm only eight weeks in so I'm waiting for this to change every day, but so far DD has been a very easy baby. She generally sleeps from 10ish for anywhere from 4-7 hours and then has a feed and back down for another two or three. She's also very laid back at baby classes and happy just to lie around and take stuff in. She's very smiley and never really cries for no reason - only ever cos she is hungry! Oh and if the dog barks and gives her a fright....

I know we've been very lucky as the other ladies in my antenatal group are struggling with hourly wake ups and very unsettled babies who just cry through classes. These first two months have honestly been brilliant as I've not had any sleep deprivation bar the odd 'bad' night where she's been up every couple of hours, and I'm really enjoying her. But I'm fully aware that we are so early and this could change every day so I'm trying not to take it for granted and sleep every night like it's my last night of proper sleep ever! Wait for my post in a couple of months when it's all gone wrong...

Oh, the only 'bad' thing has been that we struggled to get breastfeeding established and so I had to pump a lot for six weeks to keep my supply up while she grew enough to latch on properly. She can latch OK now but selfishly I still pump most of her feeds as she just drinks her bottle and goes to sleep with no fuss, and we haven't had to deal with hours of cluster feeding, which I think is another reason why things feel so easy. I know people say pumping is harder work than breastfeeding but it doesn't feel that way for me at the moment as I have handsfree cordless pumps and can pump enough for a feed in 10 mins, and then DP can feed her too, so a mix of boob and bottle with expressed milk works well for us and I think that helps mentally knowing that DP can take her for 3+ hours at a time.

My first, was very highly strung. She’s nearly 4 now and is still the same way - very high maintenance, needs constant attention/validation etc. I honestly didn’t enjoy the first 6 months of her life - I think it took me that long to just accept she was the way she was, and there was nothing I could do to “fix” it, I just had to go with it. That’s when life got easier. I stopped trying to fix her.
For the first few weeks of his life, my second baby screamed and screamed and screamed - this horrendous high-pitched, pain-filled scream Turns out he has several medical issues that weren’t diagnosed until he was a few weeks old. As soon as we got a diagnosis and proper treatment/care plans in place he morphed into this absolute dream baby. We coslept, so I would just sleep with a boob out and would help himself throughout the night. He never made a sound unless he wanted something. He would feed, fall asleep in the sling and I could pretty much forget he was there until he next wanted feeding, and focus on the high-maintenance toddler. Even now, he is 2.5, and he’s definitely the more placid of the two.
I also think having some parenting experience from the first baby, generally speaking makes parenting subsequent babies a bit easier - you know what you’re doing a bit more than you did first time around.
I remember DC1 being about 2 days old and it hit me: “Shit. This thing doesn’t come with instructions, and I’ve got to keep it alive and not fuck it up for the next 18 years”
Second time around, I didn’t have that moment of terror as I was more confident in my parenting skills!

My two were easy babies. Slept through from 3 months. Early motherhood with dc1 was absolutely lovely, but dc2 needed surgery at birth (11 years ago todayactually!) and at the same time I got massively high blood pressure - all resulting in about a year of bad post-natal anxiety and panic attacks for me, even though ds himself was fine after surgery and placid in spite of his traumatic start in life. Lucky he was so placid - a difficult baby would have really tipped me over the edge. Mine have been easy babies, toddlers and children (so far!). They are 11 and 13 now.

I had the easiest pregnancy in the world. Zero nausea, no tiredness, not even a slightly swollen ankle. I worked up until 5 days before my induction (simply because I was induced 5 days later than originally planned!) and was in the gym the morning of my induction. It honestly couldn't have been easier.

Birth was just as uneventful. Epidural (because of induction), I read books and watched TV until 5 minutes before baby arrived, three pushes and out he came.

He's been an absolute delight so far. He's as good as gold, easy to entertain, sleeps well, happy with other people and absolutely gorgeous (I thought I was biased but we can't go anywhere without people commenting)

So I'm just bracing myself for the teenager from hell....

My first dc was a very easy going, placid, happy baby.

I genuinely didn't understand why other mothers moaned so much and found it hard...sorry if that sounds terrible but it's true!

Both of mine were easy, I was very lucky.

I remember being so bored after DD1 was born as all she did was eat and then sleep for 2 hours - I've never watched so many films or read so many books in all my life.

She is early teens now and still easy. DD2 was good too and i managed easily with the older one as I had a 3.5 year gap. Both slept through the night from about 6 weeks and have always loved their sleep. No 5am wakings for me ever.

I realise I sound smug but that truly has been my experience and I do appreciate how hard it must be for others.

My second was the most placid baby I've ever known. He also grew up to be the most difficult toddler I've ever known. He's now a pretty average preschooler as far as his temprement is concerned.

Ds was a very placid content baby, i did carry him around in a sling all the time, co slept he may not have been so content if i didn’t but it felt right. I was on my own too so doing everything (and moving when he was six weeks) but him being so content made it all so much easier

I found it easy and had to pretend I was struggling to some as I know it sounds smug, of course was/is tiring. The hardest times were when I was exhausted I judged myself more and felt less confident I think lack of sleep is so over looked and can have such an impact on how you feel about everything

He has always been an easy going content little boy. Having a few issues now but that’s down to circumstances and its very challenging hopefully it shall pass

DS was an extremely placid baby (not a boast), he fed and slept like a dream. He slept through the night from roughly 9 weeks old, never had trouble with teething, colic or anything.

I saw how my DSis struggled with my DN and it was hideous, she just screamed for about 18 months solid (silent reflux amongst other things).

I only have the one DC as I have health issues.

So interesting to hear the different experiences. Thank you all.