AIBU to think that very few people have a realistic expectation of what it is like to have a newborn?

[CrispyCrochet]

My DS1 is only 2.5 months old and while pregnant everyone was dishing out advice and they continue to do so. Yet, even with all the advice I was given I still had no clue what I was in for. Yes, I knew that newborns slept a lot, ate and pooed but what I did not realise was that they would

a) breastfeed near enough constantly for those first couple of weeks
b) only sleep on me
c) how intense on demand BF would be

I posted several posts on MN along the veins of "Help! My 15 do baby won't settle" or "4 week old won't sleep in his moses basket" and "6 week old is BFing for HOURS is this normal?"

So AIBU to think that midwives/friends/family don't actually prepare us for this sort of thing? I see posts on MN literally everyday with someone asking those exact same questions. I know that some people will have newborns who happily go off to sleep in their moses baskets yeah right or what have you but is it fairly safe to say that most newborns only want mummy and no manner of tricks/tips can really get them to change - only time. All this nonsense about "routines" - can we all just agree that it is pretty much pointless until the baby is a wee bit older??

Should it be up to the midwives to actually give us a bit more of a real world perspective on what it is likely to be like with a newborn? I say this as my DS has essentially been in my arms since 11pm last night having slept in his moses basket for all of 3 hours & is currently sleeping on my lap with a boob in his mouth.











Maybe they did tell me it would be like this and I didn't listen...

[Retropear]

I have I had know bfing was such a freakin nightmare I would have read up on it and prepared myself.

As it was I assumed as it was so easy for everybody else I must be doing something wrong which the dramatic weight loss didn't help with at all.I'd have topped up and continued for longer if I'd known that what I was experiencing was normal(bar the weight loss) and 90% of my friends experienced their own bfing hell.

[sleepyhead]

There are nearly as many posts from pg women complaining that people keep telling horror stories as there are postnatal women complaining that noone told them how hard it would be.

I don't think you can know, sorry. I don't think there's any point at all in trying to explain what it'll be like - at least partly because noone knows exactly what it's going to be like for you.

People need support after the birth, not advice before it.

[sleepyhead]

I read up Retropear. I read loads.

I had lots of problems with ds1 so I read even more to prepare for ds2. I even told the midwives that I thought I was going to get on better this time because I knew what not to do .

It didn't really help. Well, it did in that I knew that it was normal, but it didn't help stop me getting mastitis and ending up back in hospital 1 week postnatal.

[Seff]

I agree with what someone up thread said, about the pressure to "get back to normal" and "get your life back".

But, I do think you partly forget about the actual realities of a newborn as they get older. Maybe it's nature's way of making you have more babies! I remember that every day was different, but part of it is a bit blurry.

And people's 'advice' about babies is pointless. Newborn babies are different to babies at 3 months old, who are different to babies at 6/9/12 months old. So you get plenty of well meaning people saying "I did this with my baby" and really, it means nothing.

Antenatal classes don't like to tell you bad stuff, whether that be about labour, breastfeeding or newborn life. Parents like to tell you their horror stories about all of the above. But who would really want to sit through classes that really do tell you everything?

[CrispyCrochet]

I agree with pretty much everyone.

I guess we can't win. I did get fed up while PG of the countless stories or horrific births and screaming babies.

I think ultimately what I wasn't prepared for was a velcro baby but as many of you have said of course not all babies are like this.

[sleepyhead]

One of the bits of advice I remember pre-dcs was to always make sure you get up, showered and dressed. Apparently that would set you up for the day.

That probably works for lots of people, but it would have made me feel like a) a failure and b) far more sleep deprived as luckily I have no trouble sleeping during the day so I made the most of napping when ds1 napped. It didn't bother me that I was in my pjs till past lunchtime when ds1 was tiny.

Ds2 was a totally different baby. Much better sleeper, far less velcro, plus I had the school run to do. So I was up and out every morning for half 8 and feeling ok. That was all about a solid 6 hours kip though, not having my clothes on at 8am .

[girliefriend]

YANBU, I have realised you can't explain to anyone what it is like to have a baby and if you try people just think 'well my baby won't be like that!'

I was totally unprepared and I thought I would be o.kay, the biggest thing for me was how emotional I would feel about everything. I also wasn't prepared for how overwhelmed I would be. Someone said to me when I was pregnant that having a baby is the hardest but best thing you will ever do and that just about sums it up for me!!

[Koothrapanties]

Hmm I understand where you are coming from as I think it will always be a shock no matter what advice you have been given. However, I actually expected it to be frigging awful for the first couple of years and was pleasantly surprised. Dd was very poorly and barely slept, but I didn't realise how much I would love her and how that would make it all ok.

[Onsera3]

YANBU. Was just thinking about this last night. Esp re the bf. The midwives at our classes made it sound easy peasy and wouldn't discuss any of the potential probs. I knew my sisters had struggled. The thing was none of them taking that session had ever bf! They'd not had babies. In the months that followed out births they became pregnant and I often wonder how they got on. They made the latching sound so straightforward. I don't know anyone who hasn't found the first weeks of bf really hard. There was only one woman in our class who'd even had a baby.

Sleep depravation makes everything seem harder too.

I'd had loads of experience with babies and even newborns but it's not the same as having your own and you haven't just gone through the exhaustion of late pregnancy and the delivery.

I don't think anything could prepare you fully but I think they could do more than they currently do!

People may not agree but I think maybe you should have had a child to be a midwife. Not saying that the childless ones aren't great at many aspects of their jobs but how can they fully prepare you for labour and bf if they don't know what it's like themselves?

I remember everyone loved that episode of One Born Every Minute when the midwife was in labour.

[Pixielady83]

YANBU concerning midwives, antenatal classes and my mother (who describes childbirth, bf, early baby days etc as 'beautiful' with a glossy look in her eyes but upon closer questioning turns out she had had a nightmare labour with me, massive bf problems and felt terrible about it all). However I did have some very pragmatic friends who shared their bf and labour experiences frankly with me and were very clear about how hard it all was! I still thought I'd breeze it

In retrospect, I was particularly cross about the NHS antenatal classes and breastfeeding information. Our session involved doing a class acrostic poem about the benefits of breastfeeding. That was it. There was no information on frequency of feeding, importance of getting it established after delivery (subsequently I was left for 12 hours between DD's first feeds, they kept saying they'd come back later to try her when she was awake..), latch...

I have been quite blunt with my friends about how hard I found the first weeks. DC2 due next weekend and I'm quite frankly dreading the first bit and in particular am feeling really stressed about trying to breast feed again. However I do know (from my experience) that once you get past that first 12 weeks things get so so much easier and they get better and better after that.

[sleepyhead]

For me part of the issue is that postnatal time is not like normal time. An hour is much, much longer there .

So, people say things like "bf is hard, but after 6 weeks it gets much better", and before the baby's born you think, hmm 6 weeks is nothing. How hard can it be?

Then 3 days in, your nipples are shredded, your milk's only just started to come in, the baby blues have descended and you think "6 weeks? I can't even think as far in the future as 6 days!"

Things picked up with ds2 on the feeding front at 3 weeks and it was plain sailing from then onwards, but a week previous when I was just out of hospital and in a lot of pain I really couldn't see how I could go on like this. It was only because he was my 2nd baby so I knew it wasn't forever that I continued.

So, the only solution I can see is:
a) have "this too shall pass" tattooed on your eyeballs
b) better postnatal support

[stopgap]

What I didn't realise (perhaps idiotically) is that babies vary so much.

DS1 has colic and silent reflux from three weeks, and was a wailing banshee until he turned one. He had to be held ALL THE TIME, and rocked vigorously to get him to relax or fall asleep.

DS2 is four weeks, a really chilled baby, and has already started sleeping five and six hour stretches at night.

[girliefriend]

yy sleepyhead to postnatal time being much longer 6 weeks seemed and felt like an eternity!!! A week felt like a month, a day felt like a week.....

[SueDoku]

Nanny Ogg hit the nail on the head - You wouldn't have believed us... When I visited my DD in hospital the day her DD was born, she looked at me and said, 'Why didn't you tell me how much it would hurt?' and my answer was exactly that (along with the fact that I saw no point in frightening her and it might not have been too bad in her case...)
Every baby is different - in fact, only the other day we were talking about how 'easy' her DD has been, and I did say to her, 'Don't be lulled into thinking that they're all like this will you?' - just in case DC2 shocks them both.....

[anniroc]

Yanbu, but it's only cause I think they forget really easily what it's like. My youngest is nearly 2 and i'm sure I've forgotten a lot already.

Also, I totally remember that not-being-able-to-put-down-the -baby thing, although it gets better with further children -.you suddenly realize they aren't going to die if you put them down on a mat and go off to make a.cup of tea!

It really does get better I promise x

[girlwhowearsglasses]

No YANBU - but... I think that the only sensible option is to be aware that you are not aware - anyone who thinks that they know in any way what they're in for is wrong. So its pointless to try, and if you said that to a pregnant woman it would be a real downer. After all every baby really is different, if you have another you may be surprised how easy/difficult it is compared to the first

[mrsminiverscharlady]

I was kind of the opposite - I had heard so many awful scare stories about babies feeding constantly/20 times a day, babies that didn't sleep for more than an hour, babies that didn't sleep until they were 5 etc etc. that I was petrified of my newborn baby. He wasn't that bad with hindsight but it spoilt his newborn phase because I was so scared of him wanting to feed all the time and not sleep.

[Sneezecakesmum]

What most women don't seem to realise is that labour is usually exhausting physically and mentally, like running a marathon. And then when you think, thank god that marathon is over I need a rest, some shoves a baby at you and says you have to run another marathon

[Preferthedogtothekids]

I agree with the 'you wouldn't have believed us' line. It's like trying to explain to a 4yr old what 'burny fire' feels like - you can describe the pain all you like but until you have touched hot metal or poured boiling water on your finger you really don't know how nippy it is.

I do wonder though about the trend towards baby-wearing and co-sleeping. I love the idea of it, and for breast-feeding it's important to be responsive, but maybe just a wee bit too responsive is a problem too? There are millions of babies born all around the world who don't have the luxury of a 24 hour cuddling/feeding person. Their mothers have to get on with their lives of work and child-rearing and the babes get put down to sleep, or left with others. I'm not sure these babies go on to have the same amount of issues with behaviour and food-related fussiness. Maybe a slightly more matter-of-fact approach is the middle ground, not 4 hourly rigid schedules, but certainly an expectation made that babies will learn to sleep alone at points in the day, and amuse themselves at times.

Maybe I'm just a bit old-fashioned.

[georgesdino]

I pretty much knew what it would be like as I am always around children. Some people arent so it comes as a shock to them.

[BertieBottsJustGotMarried]

Because, honestly, and I appreciate this is not what you want to hear, the newborn phase is really easy compared to the rest of it. And that's bad enough! But IME, each stage gets more challenging, if you were handed a 2 year old with no warning or preparation then it would be terrifying and difficult, but because you've done the newborn bit, and the crawling bit, and the young toddler bit it doesn't seem so bad, it comes gradually.

I just think that in the main it's a shock how much they take over your life and how much they rely on you and how constantly you need to be aware of them. That becomes second nature, but it really is a huge shock to begin with.

[ahlahktuhflomp]

YANBU.

I'm glad nobody told me how difficult it would be.

[BeeInYourBonnet]

Totally agree with Bertie
I look back on the newborn stage with fondness. Yes I was tired, I didn't really know what I was doing, and the feeding was constant, but it was lovely.

The traumatic threes, however, still give me the fear. And nothing pushes my buttons like a cheeky 7yo.

Babies are just so simple. And they smell delicious

[Sparklingbrook]

The thing is for me is that I couldn't see what I was doing was ridiculous with PFB.
I wanted everything to be in order, I wanted the house tidy, PFB fed, clean and asleep.

The MW suggested I retreated to bed for 2 weeks with him. 'What for?' I thought-I will never get anything done lolling about in bed.

Of course when DS2 arrived there was no chance of that.