AIBU to not want to hear constant negative comments about having a baby

[Freudianslap]

My first is due in Sept and I am getting increasingly tired of hearing comments about how having a baby will basically ruin my life.

If I am to believe what I have been told by colleagues, friends, family this week alone then after sept I will never be able to wash, sleep, eat a meal, go to the toilet alone, go out, have any time alone, enjoy any hobbies, continue eith a career EVER again....

Now don't get me wrong, I am aware my life will change massively but surely having children isn't as ruinous as people are making out? And if it is that way - maybe people should just keep their bloody traps shut because I am scared enough as it is!

Please MNers .... Tell me that having children is actually quite nice sometimes!!

I also wish I had known more of the bad stuff so I would know I wasn't abnormal. Seeing nct friends post "best year of my life" etc on Facebook had me in tears and wonder what was wrong with me. I felt cheated for not having a lovely first year of my baby's life, and then everyone started announcing second pregnancies whilst I was still struggling massively with one small person! However, from one year on life became miles better for me and now I see the slog was worth it (although I would never have believed when pregnant that 2 year olds can still not sleep through the night!) Good luck, it will be the hardest but also the best thing you've ever done.

I was about a million percent more tired begore childre. Didnt any of the mums that say this ever party? I have never recreated those pre baby levels of tiredness of going out every night, and having 2 hours sleep a night.

petey anyone that ive ever suggested that to have told me its in no way comparable to baby tiredness, although i suspect that at least some of them just never knew how to party

Party tiredness is considerably worse because you are also hungover etc. Having a baby doesnt come close tonthe exhaustation you feel from going out a lot. I still go out but you get more sensible once you have children, so personally I havent got anywhere near as tired.

I agree that it's annoying, and it's sometimes tempting to say 'Oh good point, I'll not bother after all' when people get all 'woe is me' about parenthood. I also agree that people who say you're never as tired as you are when you have a baby obviously didn't party hard enough beforehand (and I went for nearly six months without my son sleeping for more than an hour or so at a time). I spent a lot of my pregnancy reading the posts on www.stfuparents.com which made me feel better about all the patronising, doom laden and downright depressing comments made to me when pregnant, and I can honestly say that my son is the most incredible thing ever to happen to me. (Also, don't tell anyone, but I have experienced pain worse than labour as well, and mine was back to back, so no easy birth by any means!).

Emsmaman I hear you.

OP, I sincerely hope that you do have an easy baby. But if, by chance, you have one with colic - one who screams for months - one who doesn't sleep...or if you feel miserable and wish you could go back to your old life...or if you are depressed...or even if you don't instantly love your baby...

You will not be the only one. And it will get better.

I tried to ignore the people who only had negative things to say. It was patronising and it genuinely upset me that they were basically saying "oh you'll never cope, you'll be useless". I developed ante-natal depression and I think these comments played a part in it.

It's the whole 'your life is ruined' thing. Why does anyone ever have more than one child then?! I felt that I was being told I was not mature enough to understand the gravity of the decision to keep our baby, ffs I'm 26 and his father is 30, we're hardly young parents!

Of course I have had moments where I have looked at him in sheer desperation and thought "why, WHY are you still crying" but isn't that just part of it?

One of the nicest things I actually read on here, paraphrasing a bit but someone said "it's a bit like being hit by a truck, but it's a nice truck that you want to be hit by". He's almost six weeks old now and I am inclined to agree with the sentiment but his lovely little face makes it so worth it. I have definitely become one of 'those' mothers, I have just about stopped watching him blink. I would not go back to how things were for anything :)

People who think that party tiredness is worse clearly didn't have bad sleepers!

Dd1 woke every 2 hours, and I only could have ten days maternity leave. It still didnt come anywhere close to the kind of lack of sleep from partying me and dh used to get.

OP, don't read this post!

DS woke every 45 minutes. I couldn't even fall asleep before he woke again. I nearly went mad. I really don't believe sleep deprivation can get any worse than that.

I partied a lot - two/three day benders at my peak.

In no way is going out with your friends enjoying yourself every night comparable to the tiredness of caring for a new baby. It's on your terms for a start. You can catch a couple of hours kip when you want, you can call in sick if you have too, you can drink more wine to get over the exhaustion.

It is a hard slog with a non-sleeper.

Yeah but you dont feel bad. Your eating normally, your healthy, you arent surviving on a cocktail of drink and drugs and a daily burger. The worse dh and I ever did together was 72 hours no sleep, but the most I have ever clocked up on my own I had 7 hours sleep in 6 days and still went to work every day when I was 18. I found once dh and I settled down and had babies I felt healthier.

Dd1 was lovely and easy, ds is just calming down now at 20 months getting battle plans ready for the terrible 2s and dd2 whilst not here yet has given me the most miserable 36 weeks of growing another human I've ever had.

I have never batch cooked meals, napped when the baby naps to save exhaustion - if I sleep it is because I'm tired not because I should', needed someone to do my house work for me and most of the other utter crap we're told/read about.

I haven't enjoyed every single day, I have cried with frustration, I wish dd1 wasn't such a chatty attention seeker and ds would buggering listen to me like he does his dad but in all honesty - the brats are bloody amazing and for every exasperating moment there are so many more fantastic ones.

I did the same at 18 but still you know that tomorrow you can lie in if you want. Its a choice snd you're having fun ultimately.

The day never ends with a non-sleep and you are usually not having fun. Sleep deprivation can send you over the edge.

I suppose we all find it different, but for me the post children days are much easier to handle both sleep wise and mental state wise.

Yes it is exhausting, far more so than I ever thought possible. However, the 8 months since I had DS have been the most incredible 8 months of my life. It took some time to settle into a routine and the first few weeks it was an achievement to get dressed before midday or even to get us both ready to leave the house but I got there eventually. It has been hard at times but it's the best thing I have ever done.

I think the worst thing about these sort of comments are that they usually come from those whose babies don't seem too bad. One woman i know told me someone with no children had no right to ever say they were tired, and then said her ds still woke up once in the night and it was living hell (he was only 6 months) I thought my sister was going to swing for her as she has a 15 month old who still wakes every couple of hours, but never complains. We all have different thresholds for different things. I know that tiredness is going to be worse for me and MUCH different to anything i have experienced before, but it doesn't make me think ive made a mistake by getting pregnant when someone reminds me im going to get less sleep. It just makes me think they are a patronizing twat.

If you havent got the option of wearing your pyjamas or lying round the house until midday then you will manage to get ready. Its not that people cant physically do it, they just choose not to.

Petey, I'd take 72 hours with no sleep and a burger (presumably followed by a big sleep at some point) over weeks of 45 minute wake ups followed by months of 2 hour wake ups any day. Trying to tell me that I didn't feel bad! I was falling apart.

In contrast, my DD has had a brief period of 2 hour wake ups and it was a relative piece of piss because I'd had some decent sleep beforehand, and with a quick feed she'd go back to sleep. No pacing the floor for hours.

Right there with you OP. So many people have been utterly negative. But the thing I hate is the smugness the comments are said with. It's like they are saying "your life is going to be shit, haha!" One of my so called friends was very much like this. There is being honest and then there is just being a total bitch. My SIL is honest about what having a baby is like but she gives me tips at the same time. Like tells me what was hard for her but how she got over it, things that worked for her. And I didn't feel she was being negative, just honest. There's a way to do it with tact. I didn't feel like shit after speaking with her.

At the start of my pregnancy people kept telling me how hard just being pregnant would be. I've had an unbelievably easy pregnancy and people aren't happy about it. I've come to the conclusion people just want to see me fail and can't wait to see me find having a baby so hard. (Im not a smug person either so I dont rub in that pregnancy has been easy). I'm having a section for a medical reason and someone actually said to me how unfair it is that she had to go through all the pain of a normal labour and I won't have to go through it.

I wish people had told me it was going to be tough. It would have made me feel like less of a failure. I don't think it has ruined my life (in fact I like it much more than my job) but it is significantly harder work.
Now expecting number 2 and scared about how I will cope but I'm also more aware now of how resilient I can be when necessary and so I know I will somehow cope.
plus I've ordered a sleeper this time

Im not saying you didnt feel bad, Im saying I found it easier than pre baby. Dd1 didnt sleep through until 3, and dd2 is 15 months and isnt close to sleeping through yet. I am not saying at some points I didnt feel tired, just that it is significantly easier for me than pre baby.

The first few months are like has been described but it's lovely, especially of you're on mat leave & can enjoy all the precious time with your lo. They will fly by & in no time at all your'll be into a routine and finding time for yourself again :)

I never got the chance to lay around the house all day with DS. Thought i'd have plenty of opportunity as i was off for a year. i even had box sets ready for lounging.

instead i paced/staggered about a thousand miles trying to get him to sleep! It took over my life completely for a year.

Wouldn't change him though. He's adorable but I wasn't prepared for it.

It's all true but you won't care! Congratulations!