Parenthood not as I pictured

[Daffodilsinfebruary]

What are the things you didn’t picture before having children.

E.g. ‘my living room resembling a nursery’, ‘my children refusing to sleep in their own cots/beds and sleeping in ours instead’ ‘breastfeeding beyond a year’

Nope....I pretty much expected that (although I didn't breast feed). That's life with babies/children.

I expected sleep problems with a baby...however my son slept amazing as a baby but now as a 5 year old still sometimes wakes in the night so that's been unexpected. Also tantrums at age 5, thought they'd be done by now.

I thought I would be a bit more immersed. Don't know if that makes sense - I thought the small things that eat away at me everyday would go away as I would be completely consumed by my baby. But it's not like that.

For me it’s the lack of time to do anything anymore.

I was picturing this crying potato for a year or so, but no. DD learned to crawl at 4.5 months and was walking by 8 months. She is non stop, into everything. I’m constantly exhausted. I was hoping for a cup of tea and to tidy up during nap times. No…she has contact naps so I’m trapped on the sofa not making a sound for 3 hours a day.

it was also so much easier when she was a newborn. Everyone said it’s the hardest time, but the money I’d give to swap her at nearly one for her 1 month old self is a lot!

plus I had never anticipated or even considered how hard it is to be sick when a parent too.

I expected the newborn phase to be the most difficult bit and for it to get easier after that. My son was actually the easiest newborn ever. He’d easily go down for naps in his crib and rarely cried unless he was hungry. It actually used to hurt my feelings a bit that he didn’t seem to care if I was there or not because I was worried we weren’t bonding properly. He’s been getting progressively more difficult to look after as he gets older. He’s now six months old and a Velcro baby. He won’t let me put him down for a second or get anything done, and will only nap in my arms. It’s lovely that he’s so attached to me but I miss the freedom I had when he was really tiny.

Both me and husband looking for a rogue poo during potty training . Wandering round with one of my boobs hanging out of bra 🤣. Such a long time ago now (thirty years ). I'm sure my husband and I bonded further with these incidents 😁.

The newborn phase hit me like a tonne of bricks. All the preparation we had done was basically useless! Now have a preschooler and it's much more enjoyable, and more what I had expected!

All the fucking illnesses. And how much they disrupt sleep/work/the entire house. I anticipated a couple of snotty noses and a sick bug a year. Nothing like the level we and many others have experienced.

@Naptrappedmummy our Gp told us when I went in with my little ones 90000th cold to expect 8-10 colds or cold like illnesses a year, with each lasting between 1-3 weeks on average - like that most of the year!

Nothing could have prepared me for how awful it was 😂 I had a non-sleeping reflux baby who would only contact nap, and even then only with a huge amount of effort and for 40 minutes if I was lucky. I was beyond sleep deprived and utterly miserable.

She’s 5 now and if anything, parenting is better than I could ever have dreamed of. She’s a total pet, beautifully behaved, sleeps 12 hours a night, smart, funny, loving and my best pal. I’d go through the newborn phase again for her but would never do it again otherwise, not if I couldn’t guarantee getting one this special!

I imagined lovely picnics in the park, my daughter wearing a beautiful dress I’d made and we would do sedate activities like daisy chains and me reading to her.

Reader none of that happened!

For starters she never stopped running around to sit for anything. Absolute muck magnet. Could get drenched from just playing in a puddle. Clothes were leggings and t shirt from George at Asda. I used a ruck sack , always left the house with at least one change of clothes. Extremely fussy eater.

Fast forward a few years, she played football for her school and a local team. More mud.
Now she has a dog. Endless mud.

I thought babies slept. DD1 did not sleep more than 45 min until she was 7 months. It was silent reflux and, we now know, autism.

That needing time by myself means without my child, as well as everyone else. I assumed I'd want to spend every minute with him 😬 But in reality, having a break is vital for me to be a pleasant person to be around and a nice mum.

My ds being an escape artist. His ingenuity in getting out when he wanted to was a nightmare. He was a little sod.

I expected to be the mum whose toddler was brought back by the police at 6am.

How crap holidays would be with little dc (and how much more expensive too). I suppose if I sat down and objectively thought about it, I would have realised..but its not top of the list when you are thinking about having a baby.

The cruelty of other peoples 13 year old girls

I love holidays with our toddler. Have taken them away from 3m to now 2yrs. I just find things so much easier when we are in a new place, lots to explore, lots of food to try, etc. it’s more expensive now they’ve turned 2 in terms of flights, but we’ve always rented apartments/villas so not much different in cost.

Newborn stage was the worst for me. I was so bored. We have been lucky with sleep, and they tend to go down at 2000 and wake up at 0730. Never really napped though. Starting to get a few tantrums now and silly behaviour, so that’s been fun!!

How little control you have over what they do, think, or want. Especially my eldest who has never given a fuck what anyone else thinks he should do. Like literally from starting feeding as a new born right up to his 8 year old self, he just didn't read the manual. I just hope he develops some common sense at some point as dreading the teen years.

Most of it, probably. I didn’t expect breastfeeding to be easy but I didn’t expect it to be so hard or that I would persevere a second time with something so difficult. I knew babies didn’t sleep, but I didn’t expect DC2 who after a year would still only sleep for 2hrs at a time. I didn’t realise you could not realise DC were neurodiverse until they were in secondary school and be thrown in the deep end of SEN parenting and how hard that is. And I definitely didn’t expect DH to die and leave me to parent by myself.