to feel jealous of friends who breeze through newborn days?

[ShushBaby]

After I had my daughter (now 2), I was lucky enough not to suffer from PND, and to really enjoy her and feel truly happy. Our baby was pretty easy too, all things considered. BUT physically I was a huge mess- anaemic, spaced out, knackered to the point of hallucinating. And mentally/emotionally I found it all a massive headfuck. Amazing but a headfuck. The upshot of this was that I barely did anything but look after the baby for a good few months, went to bed at 8pm most nights, and me and my partner didn't go out for months. I was happy but found it all very... intense.

I was the first of my friends to have a baby, so as far as I was concerned, that was normal. Since then, though, a few friends have had babies, and I've been amazed at a) how good they look b) how calm they are c) how much they manage to do, with a newborn. One friend had a c-section three weeks ago and was out with friends on Friday night looking fantastic (I thought the pics on Facebook must have been taken when they were 19!), enjoying herself etc. Yes she went home at 10.30pm, but still. The next day we visited and she and her partner were the model of serenity. She said that she had a 'rough patch'about 3-4 days in but since then, things have got so much easier. Whereas I felt I'd been hit by a truck for several weeks! They were really touched that we'd brough them lunch and some food for the freezer, but seemed a little bemused, as if they weren't quite sure what we had brought it for. Whereas for us, when people brought food round, we practically snogged them.

Another friend is a freelance arty type and has been managing to do lots of great creative work since her baby was about two months old. She looks slim and fabulous and is always out and about.

I really want to feel happy for them, and of course I'm encouraging and positive out loud. But inside I feel quite jealous and, well, not that happy for them to be perfectly honest. It's like I want them to find it all totally overwhelming too, so I know that I was normal. If one of them texts and says she is finding it all quite hard going, a part of me feels relieved.

Not very warm-spirited, eh? And a bit unreasonable.

trydrawing that's what I thought too! In a way I was lucky as none of my friends had babies so I didn't have anyone to compare myself to ie to feel inferior too. I was carving out my own, slightly deranged, milk-soaked hermit-like path. It's only now I think, hmmm, I didn't do that with much panache!

Reading these posts is really revealing and interesting. And is making me feel less unreasonable, as reading about people's hidden stress/pnd and toddler years hardships is making me realise I definitely wouldn't wish these things on my friends whatsoever.

Tantrums (which can drive me to tears!) aside, I am loving the toddler years and feeling fairly on top of things. So yes it's swings and roundabouts. I anticipate utter carnage when baby no 2 arrives, however. Tho not according to some kind posters here. And then all my friends will have no 2 and be like 'it's so much easier with two! My first adapted so well! Both my children sleep for fifteen hours a night! Baby is six weeks now so we're off on a romantic minibreak! I had to buy the next size down as breastfeeding makes the weight fall off me!' and so on....

Oops typo time
......'that would have been a perfect description.....

Aw Bourbon You haven't failed. Is your baby loved? Is s/he fed? Do you cuddle her? Then you are a GOOD mum.

Oh god don't, had not even thought of that! A lifetime of insecurity!

If it helps dd was officially the world's easiest newborn. She's not bloody easy now (12 months) b

I'm coping so marvellously with my toddler and nb twins. People tell me so. I'm looking much better now and i don't look very tired. Yet I'm exhausted and well in the crying in whatever I happen to be in stage... Don't believe it OP

Bourbon don't say you failed. You didn't fail.

These replies are so interesting. Seems there is so much going on behind the scenes, whether someone is a groomed, smiling vision, or a frazzled mess!

Will never (well almost never) write another mum off as smug again!

I was only just holding on by a thread when my twins were little for the whole first year. They were ebf and I regularly had no sleep at all.

Apparently I looked ok. My lovely MIL always comments on a picture of us all in a park with the pram when they were a few weeks old. She remembers it as a wonderful happy day. I remember that I was in 7 different kinds of pain and that I was so tired I was struggling to put one foot in front of another. But there I am in the picture smiling, dressed nicely with hair brushed.

Meanwhile I thought friends of mine with only one baby were doing great but their DH's would tell my DH a different story in the pub.

One friend who genuinely breezed through pregnancy and the first year has found the toddler stage extremely hard while I have found each six month period successively easier and loved the toddler stage.

I suppose what I'm saying is that you never really know what's going on even with those close to you. You can't live someone elses life. Find joy and contentment in your own. Someone else is probably envious of you.

Some people find it hard to admit to the hard bits. We all have tough times though. I breezed though DS1 but found the next two harder going. I know I looked calmer then I felt though and hardly anyone knew I had PND in fact. I found toddlerhood fun, exciting and interesting, while some others found it an ordeal! It's all swings and roundabouts and the best thing you can do is not compare yourself.

I would appear really smug btw. I can't help it, I'm a coper. I wear make up, I make self deprecating comments, I laugh obligingly when people speculate as to how I manage.

Ds was different to dd, first six months he cried. All the fucking time. I smiled in photos then and I do now. There's a lot of shop front goes on. Because really, people don't want to know, do they?

I started a v similar thread some time ago and it was pointed out to me that IWBU for feeling envy that other people seemed to enjoy their time with a tiny baby, but IWBNU for finding it miserable.

That made me think. For quite a long time.
And, I am afraid, I am still envious of not having had that enjoyment of dealing with a small baby. x4 - so I did give it a good chance.

TBH, I don't really enjoy the first 1-2 years; I have to get through the baby years to be rewarded with a person.

Even with the benefit of hindsight (DS1 is now 9) I do not think I was depressed, but I cried every day and really did not like it at all. Admittedly, he was a screamer (has not quite stopped yet...), but DS2 was v calm and a good sleeper and I did not like it much more.

I'll stop babbling now.
In conclusion, IMVHO YANBU.

I breezed through the newborn stage. No PND, BF easily with youngest two (and had no angst about FF oldest ones), coped with lack of sleep etc etc.

But there's always Karma - the toddler days were somewhat challenging :o. I'm pretty crap at mothering toddlers, it turns out.

So don't overthink this - the newborn period is such a tiny tiny part of parenting. You have so many challenges ahead - you'll cope better or worse than your mates at the various stages, but the cumulative impact will be the same, or better.

I'm pretty crap at mothering toddlers, it turns out.

Me too! Give me a newborn-9month old any day of the week. After that I am counting down the days till they start school.

Bourbon, I 'failed' to BF DSs1 and 2, then BF DS3 and 4 - they are all equal delights and horrors. DS4 was fed/weaned the same way as the others and has yet to touch anything of a vegetable/fruit nature of his own volition . He is 2.3.

You have succeeded in being the Centre of the Universe to you LO

I had a friend like that whom I met at a postnatal group when DD1 was a few weeks old. Whilst the rest of the mums and I were sleep-deprived with colicky babies, dressed in the first thing that came to hand each day, and had forgotten the meaning of the word 'make-up', uber-mum had a baby that was sleeping through at 3 weeks old. Uber-mum would also be wearing full make up each time we all met up, along with a great outfit. Her baby weight had fallen off her, her DD was on a strict napping and feeding schedule, her house was absolutely immaculate, and she was holding dinner parties and going on nights out when the rest of us were barely changing out of our pyjamas each day. Then just when the rest of us were finally coming out of our post-birth hazes, she was back at work full time in a senior nursing role.

At the time, I was pretty envious about how together she was, but looking back I do think in some way it was just an image, and beneath the surface she was struggling like us all. I imagine she was probably getting up at a crazy hour each day to keep on top of things too. Also she was blessed with an incredibly easy baby, which really is just down to luck at the end of the day. And I know her husband has also always been very hands-on.

She had a second baby two and a half years later, who was very much harder than her DD, and I think then she stopped being quite as together and organised, and she now has a third too which I think she found harder still, although she does still work full time and keeps an immaculate house!

I hate the newborn bit with a passion but love it once they can walk and talk. I would happily take my 2 year olds tantrums any day over feeding babies and trying to get the damn things to nap.

You might find things better second time round anyway. First time round we were grateful for any food donations but the day we got home from hospital after DD2 was born DH popped to M and S and we cooked a steak dinner. First time round at that point we were just sitting around completely dazed!

It doesn't actually take that long to straighten my hair and put on makeup, but I feel human so I do it with far more regularity than I ever did when I was at work!

Yes I don't say I'm afailed bfer irl, I say I'm a proud bottlefeeder and tell people off if they start excusing their own bottle-feeding with oh I didn't have enough milk etc etc

I loved having a newborn, and I was back to prepregnancy figure by the time they were 6 weeks old, pre-pregnancy weight by the time of leaving hospital...
That was because pregnancy was so rough, I had no appetite, and was sick throughout.

They may have it easy at this point, doesn't mean that you don't have it easier at other points.

I'd happily have another newborn if I didn't have to go through pregnancy first.

I wonder, is there anybody out there who genuinely IS 100% smug, from the moment their kids are born until adulthood? Does anyone do it ALL 'right', and straighten their hair to boot? And feel serene inside at all times?

Shush No. That person does not exist. We all find different things hard and have different challenges.

No. There are no parents who are smug all the way up to adulthood. there just can't be.

You cannot conceive, until you're there, how different parenting a stroppy hormonal 14 year old is to parenting a newborn - no-one breezes through all of those stages. And if they appear to, they're lying liars from Lie-land.

YANBU- i'm totally with you. But experience has shown me that I am just not a newborny person, I come into my own at 12 months plus and as for a three year old plus? Just gets better and better IME. A friend who sailed through 3 newborns(in spite of background depression) has very challenging small kids, behaviourally, and doesn't seem to even like them all that much and the other friend who is currently achieving Martha Stewart type domesticity:hostessing etc simply has to be enjoying it as her OH does nothing, seems barely interested. What am I trying to say? Newborn feelings or levels of "coping" have NO bearing on the future, so even if it is that hellish again, your first child will keep you sane ti you get to a more enjoyable place, if you're like me! and just avoid those who don't tell it like it is till you're in a stronger place!

Thanks for the thought provoking chat, ladies. Am off to sleep now as lovely dd will wake at 6am. Will look forward to hopefully read more illuminating thoughts in the morning!

Good grief shush, change your friends at once, I dislike them and I don't know them.

All children are challenging at some point, I had the perfect easy newborns for my DDs. Only really ate and slept. Didn't really cry much, but the preteen years are hellish with DD1 and DD2 has a rather dramatic personality now that causes me no end of embarrassment.

But DS was the worlds worst newborn, didn't eat or sleep and cried an awful lot for the first 8 months but he's such an easy child now.Apart from my DN was the most miserable baby I've ever seen. At 5 he has a sunny, sociable, disposition and I've never seen a child eat so much and will eat anything.

Chin up, child rearing is not a competition, its not about how good you look and do not compare your child to others. You are doing a fantastic job and when the other have hellish toddler/ teen/ adults years you may find your child is the easiest.