What was the biggest shock after having a baby?

[Thefaceofboe]

Mine was that babies don’t necessarily go to bed around 7pm. I always presumed bath and bed would be done at 7pm and baby would wake up for the day at 7am. My 3mo does 11pm - 11am

The post cesarean shit. I was not expecting to feel that much pain onto of all of the other pain!

The way everyone stops treating you with care and concern and so much interest once you have given birth and that stupid phrase 'it's all about the baby'. İt's like, you've done your job, we don't need to be sweet to you any more, we just care about the baby.

That and the fact that some babies won't let you put them down. Ever. No-one told me that part. I'm sure İ grew up seeing cousins and siblings sleeping away in a moses basket.

That there is quite literally NEVER a day off from it, once you're a mum that's it that's you for life. I mean ok I can sit in a spa for an hour but your mind is either utterly sleep deprived or you're thinking about your kids anyway. There's no off switch, there's always part of your brain in mum mode. I could tell you the last time I genuinely relaxed and didn't have 100 things to think about that needed doing.

Mine are so depressing:
Didn’t know they could die in utero (stupidity on my behalf to think that a perfect pregnancy could end up with baby dying and me almost dying)
Second full term pregnancy- that they would be severely disabled (but I adore her!)
The early baby stages (when she got home from various hospitals at 12 weeks) we’re heavenly
But the fact she hardly ever sleeps - 4 years on…. Ouch! No one told me THAT
Or indeed- how much you bleed after a c-section

That sometimes things don’t go smoothly after a text book first pregnancy I went in to multi organ failure postpartum and spent a few weeks in ICU. I had considered the possibility of issues with the baby but never that my life would be at risk.

The time it took to get out

First time taking ds out in his pram I was so exhausted with all the faffing I wanted to come home after 10 minutes

Being incontinent afterwards for a bit.
I’d had a catheter in and when I got home I remember feeling something running down my leg - it was urine. I hadn’t even felt the urge to go.
I was so upset that this was going to be my life, but after a couple of weeks (and a few more mishaps) it had sorted itself (more or less)...

The tiredness, had never known real tiredness before then.
The lack of time and freedom for myself

Shocks:

1. Childbirth can be brutal. You can loose your dignity. I had 6 different men’s fingers rummaging in my insides. I was high on medication for hours and almost died from blood loss.
2. you are actually magic and can create life
3. you are now responsible for everything
4. men have no idea
5. the baby is not helpless and you are under its power! (e.g. leaking boobs when baby cries)
6. lack of sleep and the many issues which stem from that

Top of my list has to be sleep deprivation, my 2nd is a week old and I think ive had about 10 hours sleep in the last week.

That you will hallucinate from being so tired.

How painful breastfeeding can be

How frustrating it can be to have a baby that falls asleep on you at the end of a night feed and then the second you move them to the bassinet they wake up demanding more milk.

That December is a crappy time of year to try to revert the night and day confusion. My first was born in April and cracked it pretty quickly. Baby 2 literally sleeps all day and then is awake most of the night...

The guilt of not being able to play with existing children. Baby 2 was delivered by c-section and I've not been able to do anything with my eldest makes me feel so guilty.

I think I’ve been put off….

I know this sounds weird but... how this is truly a female only thing.

I sort of thought dh and I would be in it 50/50 but from the second I got pregnant I realised he may have been in the conception 50/50 but all the weight fell on me. Carrying the baby, making decisions about birth, being the only one who could breast feed.

Looking back of course I would be the only one who could bf but... the sheer power and responsibility and role of a woman just hit me full force.

From receiving care & attention & concern from all, especially medical professionals - once the baby was here, howling at all hours and sleeping very little so that I was completely exhausted - no interest at all in me, but plenty of criticism or just disregard because of course I was doing it wrong and/or making too much fuss.

How much my vagina hurt after! I have 3 DC and each time I forgot how swollen I felt. The discomfort when having a wee.

The rest of it I expected because I was a teenager when my mum had my younger sisters so I knew. There isn't even 3 years between my eldest and her youngest.

My eldest is 9 and I don't know who I am outside of being a mum. I find that quite hard. I was only 18 when I had him so I was thrust into parenthood before I even really knew who I was.

Housework

The biggest shock was how I felt his life was more important than mine and how much breast milk I had. I'd wake up to soaked bed sheets from leaking milk in the night. Even my top was stiff with dried milk. Also I was shocked about how the milk didn't come out of one hole in my nipple but lots of holes and before he even latched on milk was squirting all in his face. I was 21 and very naive.

The biggest surprise for me was that I would genuinely find staring at my new baby entertaining and could fill my day doing that and that I would ever find a baby reaching for a toy worthy of clapping.

It still blows my mind that I could change from running a business with 200 employees to that and love it quite so much.

I think the biggest initial shock was that after feeling very tied down with being huge I felt more tied down once the baby was born. Almost a total rebuilding of who I was as a person followed. And how powerfully I was compelled to take care of her and not leave her.

So many of these are so very true. The impossibility of things being 50/50 between me and DH was a shock to me too @RabbitsOnPyjamas. DH is taking shared parental leave this time around for the last few months of the year but even then I know I will have to take responsibility for expressing breastmilk etc. and will not just be able to disappear to work and switch off.

@Geneva1994

Mine was how tired you get. People tell you but NOTHING prepares you for it

Actually my biggest surprise is the opposite of this. I expected to be barely functioning due to tiredness, but imo it’s not bad at all, especially compared to being pregnant. And as someone who was always unsure whether I’d decide to have kids, it’s also more fun than expected. I didn’t expect this and thought that while it would be rewarding it would be extremely difficult. It seems that a lot of parents want to compete on who has it harder, it’s all woe is me. But that doesn’t give people who are deciding to have children a fair picture.

The constipation. I had a C-section and cried every time I did a poo for the next 8 weeks.

Something that should have been obvious but wasn't: that I'd be exhausted at the very beginning of being a mum from having given birth. I somehow never caught on to this until I was holding DD having not slept for 36 hours.

Sounds silly but first night home I realised we were on our own so to speak and shit just got real. I had a lot of care during pg due to complications then it was suddenly like no one is coming now and you’re home alone and have to do this.

Didn’t sleep at all first night home. Things were fine after 🙂

@Mossstitch

That the expression 'sleeping like a baby' was a lie, mine didn't hardly sleep at all!!!

Mine too. He didn't sleep through until he was 5. With a full time job and being a (unexpected)single parent I was exhausted.

How much I loved them and how much joy I felt.

A couple of more positive things for balance!

How little post C-section pain I had. I was expecting to need to demand higher doses of painkillers. In the end, I had paracetamol in the dose given me in hospital, started cutting down as soon as I was home and I think I'd stopped taking them completely by the end of the week, certainly within 2 weeks.

That I could in fact still have a hot cup of tea. I don't know at what stage I'm not meant to be able to have one, but she's 12 months now and I've always been able to sit down with a hot drink. Either feeding her (to start with), or watching her while she plays (now).

In fact, until she was five or six months, I was amazed what I could get done while feeding her. I worked (at my second job which pays per task done, so I didn't feel I was cheating them!) and also amassed about £150 via Prolific - and I didn't find out about Prolific till she was three or four months.