To wonder if we were all as naive...

[CloverHeart]

...as my friend?

She is pregnant with her first and I sat with her yesterday through lunch listening to a big lecture about parents who plonk their kids in front of the TV and how wrong it is, how she is going to be the perfectly rested mother getting by on 8hrs sleep a night with a perfect baby that never screams or cries and will be in their own room upon discharge from hospital?

I smile and nod along with her now as any advice I offer is brushed off with "my baby will be different".

BUT... I do remember a time when I would think and say exactly the same things and prattle on about how DS would be wonderful and I'd show everyone how easy it was

Now I'm pregnant with DD and it has crept back again. I keep imagining myself floating around with one in a sling and the other patiently and obediently walking by my side, both playing nicely with each other 24/7 and sitting like little angels while mama has her hair and nails done....

It must be the hormones, right? Me and my mate need the naive slapped out of us, don't we?

(non-alcoholic of course )

well if we knew how bad trying and overwhelming and emotional and exhausting it really was we would never be mad enough to have them in the first place! I was the same when PG with PFB, he is now 4 and I have 2 yo DTs - how I laugh at my first time mummy self now! sometimes I would like to go back and give her a slap, but actually I think it is this blissful bubble that stops us from spending the whole pregnancy thinking 'I cant do this it's going to be a disaster'.

I'm pregnant with my first & quite enjoying the ignorance! I'm reading natal hypnotherapy books & dreaming of a drug free labour, being calm & in control, my baby will be rested & content & although I will be tired I'm going to have so much help from DH it won't matter...I know most of this is unlikely to happen but I can dream, it stops me from freaking out!

I was like that before both DD and DS. Definitely hormones and wishful thinking! DS is 7wks now and some days are floaty and lovely like you describe but other days very much aren't! They were both wailing yesterday evening - I ended up sitting DD in front of Cbeebies to eat her pizza, chips and peas and sticking DS's dummy in - not the parent I naively imagined I'd be!!

I'm sure when I'm on my second I'll say the things you say but for now, I like this bubble! Lol

Just like mother nature has a way of making us forget labour pains when that unyielding need for baby 2 comes along.

It has a way of making us thing "it's not as hard as people make it seem." Just be there for her after the birth, we've all done it

I certainly havent forgotten my awful labour.
Nor lack of sleep with DD. Or the pain of bf.
But i think well at least it cant get much worse.
And i can but hope that in fairness i should have an easier second one that sleeps like others did.

I was the reverse. Knowing I would be a lone parent from birth I anticipated it was going to be hell on wheels, prepared for the worst and was then very lucky to have a baby that was - and this is not rose-coloured hindsight - relatively hassle free.

Just like Cogito I was the opposite.

Fell pg young and very early on in our relationship. Everyone was so shocked that I could possibly become a mother and I was made to feel like I wouldn't be able to cope with either pregnancy, labour or looking after a child. People thought DH would leave and I'd become a struggling single parent. (thanks so much for the support friends and family )

I couldn't believe how easy it was after all the horror stories. Lovely pregnancy, labour wasn't as bad as I thought and DS1 was a dream baby.

Maybe mums would find it easier if they all had everyone telling them how shit they'd be at it.

Or maybe not.

I was the complete opposite and was convinced I'd have a shit time. I was prepared for no sleep, lots of tears (from both me and the baby!) and I'd never have any kind of life again. I got the opposite! Perfect baby and I didn't have the breakdown I thought I would. Pessimism pays!!