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AIBU?

To find friend with newborn a teensy bit smug

122 replies

1500mmania · 16/01/2013 22:37

Ok I know I am being V unreasonable but just wondering if anybody else has experienced the same.

Friend has always bit a bit of a know it all but is lovely otherwise. I was first out of all friends to have a kid and sort of muddled along best way I knew and think I did a pretty good job. Was really looking forward to friend having baby and having someone else in the group to share the sometimes mundane but wonderfully exciting world of babies with.

Anyway friend is completely sorted, done tons of research and v much doing AP - which is great for her but (although I ebf) AP wasn't for me or my DD. anyway I sort of feel like friend is a tad patronising with me, insinuating if I had coslept/used sling my baby would be sleeping through like hers, generally seems super duper confident (and a teensy bit smug) was even giving me advice on my toddler the other day.

I know I'm a total bitch for even thinking this way (obviously being super sensitive) don't know why I'm even thinking like this but its really grating on me. Friends baby is only a few weeks old so she has it all to come but has anyone else felt like this - or am I just a cow.

OP posts:

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Fillybuster · 16/01/2013 23:16

YANBU. I would say 'bite your lip and bide your time' but that would imply you actively want her to experience a comeuppance, and I don't think you do...you just don't like being made to feel as though you've somehow done it all wrong. You haven't. Smile and wave, and if she's making you feel like this (even by accident) maybe limit your exposure to her for a bit, as its not making you feel good about yourself?

countrykitten · 16/01/2013 23:16

Good God there is some vitriol on here isn't there? Your friend (who you are bitching about on an internet forum - so not really your friend then....) has just had a baby,is thrilled and is finding her way with her child. How about being happy for her and minding your own business - you do your thing and let her do hers. Not rocket science is it?

Gumby · 16/01/2013 23:18

Gawd attachment parenting sounds exhausting & back breaking

It's good to have a break

Ie child naps elsewhere so you can clean the loo without a baby on your back

HollyTheHedgehog · 16/01/2013 23:20

BulllllSHIT her baby is sleeping through.
Betcha 4 shiny gold coins it aint.

1500mmania · 16/01/2013 23:21

Maddening - I really don't know, maybe I'm just being super sensitive. It's early days and she obviously isn't thinking about deliberately having a go at me (she has a newborn & is rightly 100% engrossed as she should be) I think just the way she phrases things, advice she gives me, how I don't want to discuss things with her because she tells me what I should have done - it really grates. I'm a bitch - I think I just thought we would have more in common and it would bring us closer together - which was a bit daft really!

OP posts:

zzzzz · 16/01/2013 23:22

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

zzzzz · 16/01/2013 23:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

GregBishopsBottomBitch · 16/01/2013 23:25

My DD was a great sleeper from 3 weeks, still a pain in the arse 5 years later though, your friend wont be so smug forever.

Porkster · 16/01/2013 23:30

I have a friend that did AP. For some reason it irritated pretty much everyone we know. It's all so terribly worthy.

And by the time the baby was a great big 1 year old and she was still wearing him 24/7, I did find myself saying 'fgs, aren't you hot?'

BollyGood · 16/01/2013 23:33

Attachment parenting is where you stick your baby to you with a big piece of Velcro

Grapesoda · 16/01/2013 23:35

Sounds like your friend is just gushing about her baby and talking about her experience. The way we all want to with our friends. She isn't actually saying that you should have used AP! You feel she is insinuating it. It's reasonable that this stirs feelings for you (btw, I am a fan of AP and have a toddler who often still wakes at night!!!) but I think you know it's not reasonable to label her as being smug.
And the posters who are suggesting you might look look forward to when she hits hard times, as though this will bring her down to earth - well, that's just not nice.

BollyGood · 16/01/2013 23:40

I have 3 dc's and each one was a completely different baby from the other. This last little monkey is wonderful and jolly all day naps beautifully but will not let me SLEEP AT NIGHT!!! I too have a friend who said the other day that they didn't really know what all the fuss was about, you can still have your life as it was before once you have kids.

Well yes of course you can.... IF the baby is a sleeper and IF you have an army of people chomping at the bit to cook for you,babysit, do your garden and so forth. Lots of family help them out. We don't have that and our dc's have turned our lives upside down but for the best! And the key thing which has been said is this, our friends have only one and she is 4 months old. Mwahahaha ha.

I know I am horrid.

BollyGood · 16/01/2013 23:41

Sorry

BollyGood · 16/01/2013 23:48

I genuinely am joking grapesoda. My dd is nearly 10 months now and has been glued to me, doesn't sleep very much at night and I am ebfing all purely by chance not intentional and too be honest it's been utterly exhausting although lovely. Sometimes it just goes right for some parents, I had my first baby fairly young and it was a breeze, I never realised how lucky I was!!! And at the time I may well have seemed not smug but definitely having an easy time of it and wondering why it was so difficult for others. Now I know 3 babies later!

WaynettaSlobsLover · 16/01/2013 23:48

Grapesoda. No need to pearl clutch. We are being completely realistic. It's a lesson every mother with one or more child learns.

wiltingfast · 16/01/2013 23:48

Hah, just watch and wait OP! She's either lying and will crack eventually or her nice quiet baby will move on and change, turn into rampant tantrummy toddler ...

BollyGood · 16/01/2013 23:49

Pearl clutch

Grapesoda · 16/01/2013 23:51

No pearl clutching here. I'm just surprised at some of the comments as I said. Maybe they were tongue in cheek and I missed it. Entirely possible.

Hippee · 16/01/2013 23:52

You can be friends with me and have all the smugness to yourself - my three children seem to tag team it on who is going to stop sleeping through, stop eating things and stop being potty-trained. I must have done everything wrongly.

Hobbitation · 16/01/2013 23:53

I wonder if I came across like this as a new mum? I had no idea how to talk to other parents about their kids, and I felt very confident and happy about being a mum. Just another life skill to learn.

Grapesoda · 16/01/2013 23:53

PosteD too soon.
I suppose my point is that the op's friend is probably not trying to be smug about her style of parenting, just talking about her experience which is all new and exciting.

BollyGood · 17/01/2013 00:07

It is easy to come across smug without meaning to at all,hobbitation I think you summed it up well, you felt confident and happy. When things are difficult you can doubt yourself when others seemingly find it easier. That was me first time round too.Third time I am frazzled and looking for places to hide for a kip! And it isn't really even true that it necessarily gets harder and harder its the luck of the draw.

I think OP I would feel a bit put out if my friend with a first newborn tried to give me advice about my toddler too. However well meaning and whatever. You have been through more developmental stages and as I said no two babies or children are the same.

I felt immensely relieved when a Friend admitted she still helps her children wipe their bottoms as everyone else's dc's seem so independent. Dd2 (6!) would happily sit on the loo for hours waiting for me to come and do it than manage herself and its got nothing to do with mollycoddling it's just her thing. Unfortunately

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MummytoMog · 17/01/2013 00:07

My second slept even better than my first. Smug. I try not to be around friends though. Dont really think it was anything I did, and I have tried to emphasise that as well as share some of the things that did and didn't work for us in case they want to try them. Which might have come across as smug...

BollyGood · 17/01/2013 00:08

Do ebf babies REALLY sleep all night.... Mine must have hollow legs or something.

WaynettaSlobsLover · 17/01/2013 00:15

My ebf dd slept all night because she had my tit in her mouth constantly as we co slept. Co sleeping for me personally has equalled no sleep deprivation....so far. Don't know about dc 3 who is due this year. You just never know.

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