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.

I look like I'm on top of it all. Clean house, good at cooking, good job etc. in fact, I just make an effort when seeing friends. The rest of the time, the house is a dump, I look like shite and I am horribly shouts and putative with the children and I virtually never cook evening meals unless batch cooking for Dc.

I was really together with a newborn, I honestly loved it but only because no amount of sleep deprivation or hormones could equal how utterly awful I felt for the nine months of pregnancy. And dd was NOT an easy baby, it just felt so good to not be pregnant and exhausted and in pain that I could happily take anything the baby threw at me. I was also the mum who lost all her baby weight right away, but only because I felt so awful when pregnant I didn't eat enough so there was no weight to lose. My NCT group were really nasty about it too, as if I was slim and coping well just to spite them.

I hit the overwhelming stage at 8 months when teething+growth spurt+separation anxiety hit all at once, and by that point everyone else had babies who napped beautifully, slept through the night and were eating proper meals. I had one who woke every 2 hours, screamed when I left the room/put her down/looked at her funny and only wanted to breastfeed.

LaQueen are you LeQueen with a new name?

I put it down to expectation vs reality and whether you have a calm baby or not.
There are way to many commercialised ideals of babies and mothers and it's total bollocks. The less you have with babies the better/easier it is.

Hmm, laqueen I know how you feel about losing that new born time. I have pnd & literally can hardly remember anything about that time, weird.

I'm completely with you OP. I found the newborn stage incredibly tough and at times I thought maybe I hated my baby . (I know now I didn't, I just hated how hard it was. I love her more than I can express).

I gravitated towards new mum friends who were having a similiarly hard time, which was some comfort. I still find the "I'm so lucky, my baby is so good" brigade hard to be around.

When I see friends with their tiny babies and they are taking to it all in their stride, I feel sadness for me and almost like I missed out on something.

I had a similar experience to ZebraLeg - when I tell friends now about my PND and how I used to cry everyday when DD was tiny, they all comment on how they had no idea, and how I seemed to be the perfect mum. I put on such a front all the time. I'd always have make-up on, clean house, had people round for dinner etc. I wish I could turn the clock back, admit to myself that I needed to let standards slip a bit, and just relax a bit.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't believe everything you see!

I was the first of all my friends to have a baby. My son had bloody awful colic and would scream for hours on end every single day. I was a mess. With every passing day and sleepless night I felt my reserves of patience and resilience dwindling - I had the headfuck without the good bits to balance it out.

I spent 6 months actually warning all my friends that having a baby was hell on earth and anybody who tells you otherwise is fucking lying.

So when they started having kids and they coped beautifully, I felt envious and like an idiot for laying down all my failures down in front of them. (And of course, their children were easier because of their superior parenting skills).

On the up side, I learnt a lot those first 6 months. I learnt how exercise patience when I had none, I learnt to ask for help, I learnt that parenting wasn't going to be a craft to be mastered.

The thing is, I don't think I was very nice pre-kids. I was very judgey-pants. And, had I had an easy child, I imagine I'd be one of those smug bastards who believed that the key to an easy baby is a good parent. So, it did me a lots of good and saved me from myself. I'm still envious of their easy babies though (and was again, when ds2 came along as equally unimpressed and ds1).

Sorry, I'm waffling.

littlemslazybones- yes, a bit of an idiot, is what I feel like!

In hindsight I think I was quite smug- I did talk about how easy and laid back my baby was (though I'm not sure who I thought would care, given that my friends didn't have babies of their own!). But I was also quite upfront about the headfuck of it all, assuming that, however easy a baby is, it's always hard work and always overwhelming. Whilst I didn't tell my friends it was hell, I (and my partner) did sort of go steaming in with offers of help and food and supportive texts saying 'hang in there' when the first of our friends started to pop. Only to find that they didn't really need all the help! Or if they did, after 2-3 weeks they were back to normal (or so it seemed- this thread has opened my eyes somewhat!).

I think perhaps being the first to have a baby amongst a social group is quite isolating. We got totally forgotten about socially (one of my friends now is quite ashamed, as she though she was being very present and supportive, but now she has had a baby herself, realises she was fairly absent!), and- new NCT friends aside- did not have anyone to share it with. We were in a happy bubble, but a bubble nonetheless. And yes I do feel a bit daft now for apparently making such heavy weather of something that others seem to find such a doddle!

dd was quite laid back, dd2 was not. In public I was well dressed, made up and always smiling. I had PND, but didn't talk about it. Appearances can be very deceptive.
dd3 is the easiest baby of the three by far and life is easier this time around because I've realised, having done it twice before, that worrying is pointless and what other people think matters not a jot. I'm much more relaxed.

i found the newborn bit really easy but i think that was only because i hated being pregnant. i had a really easy pregnancy but it had stopped me doing what i loved (i play a very physical contact sport) and i was itching to return. i drove myself (i was insistent on getting straight back into everything) around to the inlaws the day after he was born and remember sitting on their sofa feeling pure relief at not being pregant. i played my first competitive match a week later - i couldn't wait any longer. i also lucky and immediately returned to pre preg weight. i suppose all this was compensating for the bit i truely hated, the pregnacy bit. that often made me cry and a mess because i hated it so, so much.
it was just utter relief. his crying, the sleep deprivation, everything else was insignificant compared to just not having a baby inside my stomach. also, because everyone tells you it's the worse thing in the world and expect the awfulness of a new baby, i'd obviously imagined it to be far worse than it was and so that was a relief too (perhaps he was easy? i don't know). i found it far more difficult when he started to move around, i like that newborns stay where you put them.
so for me, i felt good and happy because i was genuinely so overjoyed that he wasn't inside that i didn't really think about the getting up every couple of hours, continual feeding, nappies, crying, winding and sleep stuff. also, i hate my job, so not being at work made me very happy too.

One of the mums at baby group said she admired me for getting out to the baby groups most days when ds2 was tiny. In reality I went because at the childrens centre there was always someone to play with DS1 while I fed DS2 and if I was really lucky he would be worn out and might have a nap. At home my living room was knee deep in the toys that ds1 had got out and he used to leap on top of me from the sofa whenever I tried to feed DS2. I think most people look a lot more together and organised than they really are. I have a photo of me and DS2 on my profile when he was first born. I'm sat in a pool of blood and my hair looks like I've been out in a thunderstorm. I've still got the umbelical cord hanging out of me and DS2 has just been resuscitated. In the photo none of that shows and I think that's what happens in real life too.

I haven't been able to carry my daughter or even walk since she was born ten months ago. Can you imagine how I feel watching new mums just walking down the street, making friends, caring for their babies, wearing clothes they have chosen and bought for themselves, going back to work, pain free?

I'm not trying to diminish your post at all because it's all relative and it's completely valid. Just hoping to bring a different perspective!

darksecret I can only try to imagine that. Poor you, that is terrible. I hope you are on the road to recovery?

To be clear, I wasn't saying I had an awful time or was hard done by... I had a nice if bedraggled/deranged time. I just feel that my friends cope with the newborn stage much more gracefully than I did, and I feel a bit inadequate by comparison!