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...

[Bogeyface]

I didnt know there was a TV series!

[TamerB]

I was going to say the same, Bogeyface! They have read the books, have the theory and their child is going to fit it- they won't want to listen because clearly you are not doing it 'right'!

[Amber76]

Haven't read all the thread but just to say that all babies are so different - my two were fantastic newborns....slept loads and no problems with feeding (almost completely formula fed). I don't have rose coloured spectacles! The younger is still only seven months.

Some babies are easy so I think its not nice to "warn" women that it might be very hard and worry them unnecessarily when they have so many worries about labour, being prepared, etc.

I remember my mother in law going on about how hard things would be for us and then in my hormonal state after the birth thinking she must think I'm an awful fool that I can't even deal with a baby who slept 17/18 hours out of 24!!

[fatlazymummy]

I agree, I've had 3 babies, and none of them were very difficult to look after. They were all fed 3-4 hourly, and slept in their moses baskets/rocking chairs, more or less when I wanted them too.
I did have some bad days of course, I'm sure most parents do, but I don't think telling people that it will be hard all the time is realistic either. It's probably best just to keep an open mind and see how things go.

[claudeekishi]

Yanbu. Dd is 2 and has slept well for a year now but I am still shell shocked somewhere deep down about how completely unprepared I was despite being relatively familiar with new babies.

but pregnant women don't want honesty about the first 6 weeks. Sometimes about labour, yes, but they cannot and will not conceive of what comes after. What should we tell them? I just don't know. Nobody can prepare you for The Fear that comes with a baby who won't be put down ever. The Fear that you have killed your life and have no human right to sleep ever again now that you're a mother.

People with easy sleeping babies who are already planning no. 2 when no.1 is 4 months old do not understand this Fear.

[claudeekishi]

I think the first thing we have to do to is be completely honest about breastfeeding and what it entails. Because really if we knew going into it that all day all night feeds were normal at the start and that yes it can be very painful but with the right support would in most cases get easier...

that would take a hell of a lot of stress out of the first few weeks.

[georgesdino]

I loved breastfeeding, and it never hurt or was painful. Just stuck them in my sling and was out from 9-6 every day in the summer. I liked no faff, and no carrying anything and just used to take a teeny handbag with a couple of nappies, bank card and key and was never in.

[claudeekishi]

I liked that freeing aspect of it too george but it did take a while to get there.

I think as well that a lot of us struggle with the velcro nature of a small baby. It is definitely the path of least resistance to go with the velcro thing and not stress but I am an introverted soul who really likes my own space.

[claudeekishi]

I liked that freeing aspect of it too george but it did take a while to get there.

I think as well that a lot of us struggle with the velcro nature of a small baby. It is definitely the path of least resistance to go with the velcro thing and not stress but I am an introverted soul who really likes my own space.

[polkadotdelight]

I've read this thread with interest as I am 11 weeks pregnant with my first. I think that despite what has been said I have no hope of understsnding until it happens. I've thought I was bone crushingly tired in the past but even though I know it's going to happen it's hard to appreciate it. I think part of it though is that I want this so much that I'm a little blinkered to the reality of it and I'm sure I'm not alone! Having had a previous mc I'm not letting myself get too hopeful until that 12 week scan, to the point where I've put my booking in notes out of sight.

[claudeekishi]

Polka

The good news is that you also have no idea of the insane love you'll feel :)

[claudeekishi]

And big congrats on your pregnancy!

[polkadotdelight]

Thank you!

[HappyAsEyeAm]

I also think that people forget, even if they've had babies of their own.

The example I'm thinking of is in relation to my MIL. SIL (MIL's daughter ie my DH's sister!) has just had her first baby. The baby is 4 weeks old. My ILs are smitten, as you would imagine, and also looking to support their DD, who had a very straightfprward delivery, but is understanably knackered.

DMIL keeps saying things to me like "Poor [her] DD, the baby feeds every three hours and so she isn't getting chance to recover from the birth and rest at all" and "its very difficult for DD" and things like this. Which I completely understand. DH and I have two DSs of our own, and I remember how hard it was, and how long I felt awful for. Incidentally, DMIL did very, very little to help me with either of my DSs when they were small, but that's another story ...

But DMIL had three DC of her own too. I would say that I don't know a single newborn baby who hasn't fed every three hours or so, if not more regularly than that, and that this is not unuaual. I am not saying that its not difficult. I have every empathy for DSIL. But I can't underfstand why DMIL can't seem to rememebr that this is what newborns are like and it is bloody difficult for all new mums at this stage.

My expectations of what it waould be like with a newborn were always very low. A good job really!

[traininthedistance]

I was pretty well prepared for having a newborn (though nothing beforehand can give you the actual experience of true sleep deprivation - the sheer panic at the thought that if you don't sleep soon you'll become unsafe to look after the baby....) I retreated to bed for literally about 3 months, only able to go out to have my stitches looked at (in my defence it was also a very very cold and snowy winter as well so not much chance of pottering in coffee shops).

What I wasn't prepared for at all was a labour (with emergency forceps delivery without pain relief) that was so bad it left me with birth injuries that meant I couldn't walk or sit properly for at least two months afterwards. I was totally unprepared for the sheer bodily shock of labour and just how ill I would feel afterwards for such a long time - pooing, constipation, stitches that partially broke down, I also got a chest infection from the (nasty) postnatal ward as well - I remember at least two months in still crying with the pain from the episiotomy and thinking that I could have coped fine with all the rest of the bf, sleep deprivation etc. but the continued pain and worry about the stitches was just too hard. I still think that most women would cope fine with the newborn stuff if it weren't for the ordeal and shock of labour, and not just labour but the awfulness of the hospital environment, the generally very poor labour, birth and postnatal support given to first time mothers. We still have a very long way to go in this country to make birth the experience it ought to be rather than, as it often currently is, frightening, alien and poorly understood and supported by overstretched and often frankly ill-informed or actively unsupportive HCPs.

[claudeekishi]

Yes the older generation absolutely forgets.

But, also, these days, everything in women's lives pre-DC urge them to a successful, independent, enjoyable, even selfish existence. Do well at school and/or uni, get a job, have earning power, work in happy harmony alongside your male colleagues. Go on lovely holidays with your other half. Be taken seriously. (And does anybody remember the fashion blogger who wanted to wear a cream silk going-home dress after the birth of her baby? That to me is the perfect example of the disconnect between the idea of a baby and the reality of one.)

When you have a new baby, your needs are almost irrelevant. That's hard to get your head around. Did you have a 40 hour long labour or a crash C-section? Never mind, here's a baby to look after. Never mind that your nipples are in shreds from a tongue tie that nobody ever told you about. You just have to keep going. And it's like your former self is standing on the sidelines all the time, looking on at this chaos, utterly appalled!

(N.B. to all the pregnant women reading this in horror - IT GETS BETTER. Really.)

[traininthedistance]

claudeekishi y y to the former self looking on. And in these days of late capitalism all of one's existence pre-children is premised on doing stuff - getting things done, achieving things, moving forward, getting better at stuff, getting on with a career, earning more - and then suddenly it all stops, there's no way you can achieve something with a newborn, you just live and survive as best you can and respond to the baby's needs; newborn time isn't like "normal" time. I think this is why some people get so focused on getting out and doing baby groups and keeping the house clean and competing for how to subjugate the baby's needs to a routine or obsessing about reaching milestones - it's a way to impose order on something that essentially isn't like modern capitalist life, it's much more of a primal state than that.

[claudeekishi]

Yep.
Exactly.

[Wishihadabs]

I guess I was lucky. Before ds came along I had done night shifts on a SCBU so had lots of first hand experience of newborns and sleep deprivation. I was terrified I wasn't going to be able to cope and kept waiting for it to get really difficult-it didn't. It helped that I had loads of milk, it was summer and I find it easy to sleep in the day.

So I was expecting it to be much,much worse than it was and ended up really enjoying it.

[umpity]

A lady broadcaster told me that mum said giving birth was "just like going to the toilet" A 6 hour labour followed. (Its a difficult subject)

[purplebaubles]

Agree with train above (v similar experience)

Expecting no 2 and now thinking mums with just one newborn don't know they're born!!! eyes up 15month old currently causing chaos

I don't think anyone or anything can prepare you. Everyone's labour is different. Everyone's baby is different. You just have to have zero expectations. Only when you've had your first do you realise that actually having a newborn, and only a newborn, is actually quite easy (nappy changes are easy, feeding is easy, going out is easy etc etc). For me, it was everything else that was hard (and still suffering from birth injuries now, 15 months old)

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. OK - NOW imagine doing that AND having a 16month old toddler!!!!! And still only having one pair of hands...

[OhGood]

YANBU YANBU. How you just spend hours holding a baby. And how hard it is to do almost anything else when you are holding a baby.

How actually some days you don't have time to eat or shower properly.

DS2 now 7mo and it already seems unreal to me - what do you mean, you didn't have time to eat? But it's true.

[BrianTheMole]

I think people do tell you how it is. They certainly told me. I just didn't listen or truly believe them. I don't think you can begin to understand how tough it is until you're actually doing it.

[Pigsmummy]

I know that it's hard, I didn't feel like I needed to be "warned or educated" though, what can you do with that anyway?you can't decide to give birth to a different baby, a good sleeper for example.

Try to enjoy the baby, time flies and before you know you will be looking back at his time. Is there anyone who can look after baby for an hour?

[snowphi]

I not sure about new borns but Pregnancy now that is a totally different thing. Wish someone had mentioned that being THE CLAW for months was a regular symptom