Small things you wish you knew before they happened to you.

[Enko]

I mean little things that surprised you when they happened to you and you wish you were pre warned about. Not personality traits 😁

For me I wish I had been prewarned that retainers can discolour and it's not due to you not cleaning them well enough.

That you were more prone to injury in the months following pregnancy as your ligaments etc are more flexible. One dislocated knee that will never fully be healed.

Ouch.

Good one reminds me of the day after dd1 was born and the woman I room shared with came out of the bathroom and asked "I just peed a lot of what looks loke blood is that normal?" That one I had been warned about so could say yes normal.

That:

Pregnancy can change your shoe size permanently.

That peri menopause does not necessarily switch your libido off in fact it can have the complete OPPOSITE effect but it seems like people don’t talk about that as much.

That you bleed during labour, not one person thought this was information I should know.

And I'll add one thing I want people to know that isn't often discussed. Living with a partner who is suffering with a mental health condition is really really hard and if you start to feel differently about that person it doesn't make you an awful person.

That it's normal to grow a sharp poky bit of bone through your gum weeks after having a tooth extracted. Really freaked me out!

I knew about labour but second the part about mental health conditions ☹️

That if you have a baby boy, you need to ensure his penis is pointing down in his nappy. Took us weeks of him wetting through every single nappy (and us trying so many brands) before someone pointed out this very simple fact.

Also, that following pregnancy you will be a sweaty, smelly mess for several days. I knew about the emotional shifts, the possible struggles with starting nursing, but not about the sweats.

That the menopause would cause bone problems

I also came on here to say about the night sweats after a baby although it only happened after one of mine; I genuinely thought I might be dying of an infection. Also the swollen feet after having a baby.

That when your milk comes in, your tits are really lumpy and visible from space. And that there is more than one hole in the nipple. I thought I’d broken my boobs when milk appeared out of holes I didn’t know were there, like a shower head!

And that breastfeeding feels like passing shards of glass through your nipples for at least a week.

That when you get a tax bill from
HMRC they’ll ask you to pay twice as much as is owed, because they are getting you to pay next year’s too:

That it can be very difficult to get pregnant in the first place then 1:3 pregnancies ends in miscarriage.

Wish I had sight on this before I merrily blindly went about my business with the presumption that I want a baby, therefore I will become pregnant and then will have a baby… because this is what I want and it is in my plans.

The arrogance of this staggers me.

I would have been better prepared and probably better accepting when both became my life for 10 years.

Only if you are in self assessment and your tax liability is over £1000 if your liability is under £1000 there is no payments on account to make

Also, wish I had known about those babies and children that actually don’t sleep… ever.

I knew that lack of sleep was to be expected in the early months, I didn’t know that some children it can go on for years. ( in our case, 5 years)
I so wish that I could have put coping mechanisms in place, a good support structure but I honestly thought that I couldn’t inflict the torture onto any other person. And it was utter utter torture every single night with no respite for 5 years.

Second this about the nipples in the first week.
Also that this completely normal and the pain you feel does not mean that you are doing it wrong or the baby isn’t latched properly.

That not emptying your bowels before you give birth is a bad idea for so many reasons! First you soil yourself during birth which I know is common, but still... Ew... Then due to the mangled state of your undercarriage and post birth constipation, the first poos are total agony. I'd have been on laxatives for weeks beforehand if I'd known!

Thirded.

Also there is a fairly uncommon condition where you feel dysphoric or particularly down/depressed as soon as your milk lets down for a feed. It's a physiological condition, it's called D-MER and is separate from general feeling and nipple pain. I wish I'd known it was a thing much earlier!

When airbags go off there is a massive cloud of smoke and I presume dust.

You cant see at all.
I didnt expect that

That the physio might ask me to strip to my underwear. And touch my toes. Had I known this I would NOT have worn a thong. 😳

@Fusedspur i never knew that!!!

Ditto. My eldest didn’t sleep through the night until he was at school!

That raising children on your own is far far easier than with an abusive man child. But raising children with a proper partner is far, far easier.

My ex was a nightmare but for some reason I thought they would be worse off from a ‘broken’ home and without a Dad or not having him around to ‘help’.
Once he had gone I could breathe, get a routine and as much as he was a shit every now and again when I shut the front door it was lovely.

My current husband and I, I come home and he has done their homework with them, picked them up, cooked dinner and hoovered and I’m like ❤️

That's not normal you need to report him

That if you get paid 4 weekly you will have a month every year where universal credit don't pay you