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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask if anyone else knows a little miss perfect?

103 replies

BadEducation · 03/09/2012 21:35

and is very envious of her?

My friend is lovely, but she is just so "perfect" and I just wonder what the secret is really! Grin

She has two children; a toddler who is just coming up for two, and a baby who is six weeks old. Already she is back in her size 8 clothes. She is breastfeeding exclusively. Her house is immaculate. She bakes and home cooks most days. She does craft activities with her toddler (who also looks immaculate!). She has been on two girls nights out, dressed up to the nines and looking great, does St Tropez tan on herself every week, she looked fantastic in her pregnancy too. Oh, and did I mention her 6 week old, breastfed baby is sleeping for 8 hours through the night now too? I'm assuming too that in a few months time she'll be going back part time to her brilliantly paid job that she absolutely loves and is good at!

At this stage, with a newborn and a toddler, albeit an older toddler than she has, I was barely managing to get dressed each day. I looked a mess for months after the birth of my youngest. The house was a tip for months as he didn't sleep well and wanted to be held constantly. There was certainly no time or energy for baking, home cooking, St Tropez tanning or nights out, much as I wanted there to be Grin

She is great, a lovely person, but I just wonder how she does it! I've asked her and she just laughs and shrugs it off.

What is the secret of this type of woman? I need tips!!

OP posts:
valiumredhead · 03/09/2012 21:39

I imagine because her baby is sleeping through - I can take on the world with a good night's sleep under my belt, very different if you have been up all night and are exhausted the nest day.

valiumredhead · 03/09/2012 21:40

next

JumpingThroughMoreHoops · 03/09/2012 21:41

Some people are organised and realise that having a baby is natural thing and get on with life.

Spray tan is ikky though

SPsFanjoSponsoredByFemFresh · 03/09/2012 21:41

I wish you would stop doing threads about me. I'm not that brilliant you know!

wishes it was true

HumphreyCobbler · 03/09/2012 21:44

some people have babies who sleep
some people have babies who can be put down
some people have babies that feed only every four hours
some people have babies who will happily watch whilst their mother cooks...

honestly Jumping, I believe that having a baby is natural too. But some babies are easier than others. I couldn't put DD down for the first ten months.

WipsGlitter · 03/09/2012 21:54

You could have put them down, they might have screamed blue murder, but you could have put them down had you chose to do so.

Some people are just super organised and everyone prioritises different things. These are the things that are important to her.

Does she get up early? Dies she have any other interests?

Noqontrol · 03/09/2012 21:57

Im perfect. Well, I'm a bit fat, the house is a mess and the kids are unruly. But apart from that I'm as close to perfect as you can get.

Original poster
BadEducation · 03/09/2012 21:59

Humphrey, sounds like we had the same baby!!

Wips, yes she is very organised. I think she gets up fairly early yes. Not sure about other interests; I know she goes to the gym and also is on the toddler group committee.

OP posts:
CleoSmackYa · 03/09/2012 22:01

I did! Her world unravelled about a year ago and it was horrific.

DoMeDon · 03/09/2012 22:03

Life is a struggle for some people based on a lot of factors. Like growing up with loving, supportive parents, giving you healthy self esteem, meaning you have friends/lovers who treat you well and an enjoyable life experience with little tragedy or difficulty. Alternatively growing up with co-dependant, emotionally unavailable or abusive parents, giving you low self esteem, meaning you have destructive/abusive relationships, a difficult life experience, marred with loss and struggle.

Basically I'd have time to fake tan if I felt better about myself.

larks35 · 03/09/2012 22:07

I have been blessed with a second child who has been very easy from the start. Initially she was happy as long as she was bf every 2 hours but she quickly developed a habit of sleeping for long periods in the morning, allowing me to entertain DC1 and help him adapt to siblinghood. She then switched her habits to fit in with our lives and now at 5mo sleeps through the night to allow me to go back to work with a bit more of a brain.

I AM VERY LUCKY! I know it. DC1 wasn't quite as easy but according to my friends, family and CM, he was very easy. DC2 well I know she is a bloody dream of a baby and I know it is luck on my part and nothing else. Thank god I have this luck as I now have to fit in full-time work as well as motherhood.

Noqontrol · 03/09/2012 22:08

Fake tan is just wrong. There was a women in the gym tonight who was so pretty, with a great body. Bitch. Shame the overall effect was ruined by her skin closely resembling a roast chicken though. Pale is beautiful. The roast chicken look is just weird.

notjustamummythankyou · 03/09/2012 22:09

Yes, my sister is perfect.

Went round for lunch today and she apologised for not having time to bake this morning, and for having resorted to shop-bought muffins from Sainsburys.

She then excitedly told me that she had a lovely evening yesterday . . . sorting out her sewing basket. I kid you not. And, yes, there it was - perfect, with all the sewing threads in 'spectrum' order.

Even her Cath Kidston apron is beautifully pressed, hanging next to the matching tea towels in the kitchen.

Sigh. There is no hope for me. I am utterly slovenly in comparison and try desperately not to feel inadequate in comparison

DoMeDon · 03/09/2012 22:11

But is she happy notjust?

DuelingFanjo · 03/09/2012 22:14

Not much of that sounds perfect to
Me.

notjustamummythankyou · 03/09/2012 22:15

I've been grasping that very straw for 40 years, don.

To make it worse, her lovely dh is the king of DIY and renovated their house single handed.

He happened to find some wood recently, and knocked up a picket fence for their garden. Just like that.

I think I'm going to cry.

DoMeDon · 03/09/2012 22:16

CUNTS!

notjustamummythankyou · 03/09/2012 22:18

Grin Grin

Anyway, I like being slovenly. It's fun.

(who's got my straw?)

Haberdashery · 03/09/2012 22:19

I've only got one child. But she was fine. She was no trouble at all. Apart from the fact that I couldn't put her down or let go of her for nearly a year and she fed every two hours in the day time (but, CRUCIALLY, slept at least six hours straight from midnight on every night). But I was a size 8, I baked and did home cooking and stuff because I liked doing the cooking and my metabolism is such that size 8 is relatively fat for me at today's sizes. I hope this doesn't sound smug. It isn't meant to. I just mean that it was PURE LUCK, including the part where I didn't actually mind that much that I couldn't put her down. I remember feeling so delighted that she liked me so much that she wanted to be with me all the time! I think it may have been hormones or temporary madness.

I didn't actually do any tidying up because it is shit and boring but I expect if I'd liked that kind of thing, I'd have done it.

PURE LUCK, all of it. Your friend is just lucky.

But I bet you are lucky in a different way, you might just not have noticed it yet. It will come.

OhDearNigel · 03/09/2012 22:23

Well, apart from the being in a size 8 everyone around me would say I am that woman. Externally I put on an exceptionally good front. I am the perfect homemaker, mother, wife etc, always busy, work hard blah blah. I regularly hear "I don't know how you do it". I look happy on the surface, most of the time I can also convince myself of this.

Internally I often feel completely hollow, I can't put my finger on what it is. I cover it up by trying to be perfect. I can't really put it into words. I never feel as if what I am doing is good enough. So i just overcompensate by trying to do more and more. I nearly had an affair recently simply because I feel so sedated (this was the word I used to the OM describing how I feel). Sometimes I feel like one of the robots in the original Stepford Wives. Emma Bovary, Rebecca de Winter, Bree van de Kamp, these are all characters I identify with. Keeping up appearances while under the surface is a very different story.

Maybe your friend really is happy. Or maybe she is hiding a bottle of vodka under the sink and starting it off at 5am before everyone else gets up because it helps her get through the day

Hassled · 03/09/2012 22:25

The amount of sleep is the key. You can function as a human if you have sleep. All those perfect mothers - they all get some sleep. And that's the only secret.

BoffinMum · 03/09/2012 22:30

Fuck it if I know. I've had four of the buggers, have staggered my way through a range of academic qualifications, struggle to keep my head above water at work some of the time and I am four stone overweight. I do happen to know that a few people are massively envious of my lot, though, which baffles me, it really does. Perhaps you are only seeing the public face of your friend?

McHappyPants2012 · 03/09/2012 22:30

sleep is the key.

My son in the last few months started sleeping all night at the grand age of 6 years, now he has i have caught up with all my housework and i have time to make myself look decent in the morning ( before that extra 10 minutes in bed made a whole loads)

vezzie · 03/09/2012 22:30

OhDearNigel, sorry to hear that. I hope you are ok.

arthurfowlersallotment · 03/09/2012 22:31

I'm still in maternity jeans 19 weeks later, I eat salami straight from the packet, last week I had to cut a roller brush out of my hair as it got stuck, I'm so pale you can see my circulatory system and I have gollum feet. My DD wakes up at 3am and will not nap during the day unless strapped to me.

I'm the direct contrast to your friend OP..

Oh well.

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