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

That no one was massively that bothered. PIL were an hour away and we saw them once a month or less. My DM lived fifteen minutes away but only called by once a week for a quick cuppa. No offers to take the baby out in the pram, no overnight stays, no practical help in any way, shape or form at all.I read on here of GPs fighting to have baby on their own and it's alien to me. I would have killed for it.
I was mentally drained, bored and frustrated by four months so babies went to nursery pt each time and I went back to work for a break.

Apart from anything physical the one thing that I'd say surprised me more than shocked was being able to recognise my baby from his cry.
ExH and I were out shopping, baby in pram with Ex as I was looking at stuff further down the shop. My son started crying and I recognised it was my son by his cry not just a random baby but mine.
I know it sounds stupid but he was only a few weeks old.

@ImaginaryFriends

Apart from anything physical the one thing that I'd say surprised me more than shocked was being able to recognise my baby from his cry. ExH and I were out shopping, baby in pram with Ex as I was looking at stuff further down the shop. My son started crying and I recognised it was my son by his cry not just a random baby but mine. I know it sounds stupid but he was only a few weeks old.

DD were in hospital for a week after she was born, and whenever they took her to have a treatment, I could always tell when she was coming back because I could recognise her cry from the other babies' on the ward

• DD and I.

Sleep … those 2/3am wake ups hard

Sick …having a baby with colic, first baby we struggled for so many months with a constantly sick baby who cried - only when we where given the right medicine did it improve. Only with my second who didn’t suffer from it very rarely sick and cried when hungry or wert/dirty nappy! Completely different experience!

People warn you how tired you’ll be but it’s impossible to understand just how tired until you’re actually in the thick of it. Breastfeeding isn’t straightforward either. It’s also normal not to feel a crazy rush of love immediately after they’re born, especially if it was a traumatic birth.

how giving birth was so so painful and changes your body forever
how no matter how sore battered and bruised you are after birth you still have to cope with the little scrap you have just brought into the world
how hard getting a baby to bring up wind is even though they are yelling with colic pain
times when you are damn tired you could sit and cry

That i was allowed home from the hospital with my newborn baby when i didn't really have a clue what i was doing.

I knew about sleep deprivation and things like that, but nobody ever told me about overwhelming fear that happens when you have them. The constant fear that something is going to happen to them. Sometimes it drives me crazy.
If I could go back, that is the only reason I wouldn’t have them.
The craziest thing is it didn’t start right away, but once it came, it seems like it is growing each day.

The amount of blood involved in labour and birth

The agony of breastfeeding. It still hurt after two years. It wasn't my technique - it just hurts!!

The grinding, relentless fatigue of the first few months

The amount of washing a baby can generate

Yes the fear of something happening to them breaks something within you. And the fear of them being in pain. It will never be straightforward to have peace of mind again.

Loneliness and the sudden hatred for my MIL

@Linguini

How lonely the experience is.

I agree

@rhowton

How shit men can be

Oh yes was a major shock when the d v I experienced in pregnancy escalated out of control when the newborn arrived

Hope the bastard dies in jail for what he did to the two of us

@neverornow I had that too, not hatred but didn’t want in laws around, obviously they have been but I keep it to myself, it’s almost like I only want Dd as my part of the family, realise that’s awful and messed up! I’d never act on those feelings though. Wonder what that’s all about

Change in body shape - can't seem to find my stomach muscles. Feel like a massive blob, even though I'm a size 12!

That your body is never the same again, or your life.

How painful afterpains can be, I cried every time I breastfed. They were excruciating!

Going for a wee and the stinging making my eyes water, going for a poo and being petrified my stitches would be burst. The pain of breastfeeding, fanny feeling 10 times it's normal size.

That 9 months of me and DH reading up about looking after a baby went straight out of the window when we left the hospital. We drove home at about 20 MPH and put DS, asleep, in his car seat in the middle of the sitting room floor and sat on the sofa and looked at him. DH said 'What should we do now with him?' and I had no idea.

That something so small who didn't do much somehow took over our entire lives .We were obsessed with everything about him- fascinated, adoring, entertained and scared by him.

Baby farts and poonamis- I had no idea.

How your in laws can find it a difficult concept that as the mother, you're closer to baby than they are to baby. I experienced jealous from them.

First was more of a shock because I couldn’t breastfeed as planned and couldn’t really sit down without pain for two weeks. Also with both of mine, his weak my core was afterwards and how limiting that could be.

The thing that I wasn’t prepared for was how stubborn babies are when they’re overtired and the fact they’ll just scream and scream and not go to sleep. I was lucky that both of mine slept well and generally slept through from 10-12 weeks but my second was a nightmare if she was overtired and needed to be in a darkened room by 7 or all hell would break loose.

Great thread. Had to resurrect .

How no-one tells you of the immense shock going from 0-1 child is. No one ever told me! Why?!
That you bleed heavily afterwards for weeks. The first poo (for both mum and baby!) is terrifying.
The sleep deprivation that floors you and makes you forget what your name is.
How you expect your partner to be a lot better than they actually are.
How much your own parents did and sacrificed.
That no matter how hard you found it you may be thinking wistfully few years on about doing it again 🙈

The challenges of breast feeding!

The fact that no one asks to see your qualifications before you leave the hospital.

How terrifying the drive home with your first child actually is.

The extent of the hormonal weepiness.

The sleep deprivation of having a poor sleeper.

That you end up wanting to do it all again