To want to ban all perfect-postnatal-mum shite that is banded around as 'normal'

[squishinglittlefatcheeks]

Just been on the postnatal forum. There are so many women (everywhere not just on MN) who are suffering from postnatal issues - pnd, injuries, exhaustion not to mention feeling crap about how they look now, and expecting of themselves that they should be feeling totally wonderful despite having a newborn and going through one of the most life-changing events ever.

I wish I could make them all see that they are all doing just fine and they are perfectly normal.

And I wish this constant subliminal messaging we get of how perfect motherhood is and we should all be totally 100% on top of the world (plus have the body of a 19-year old) and we should be gliding through life ever so serenely because having a baby is just so perfect, you know.

I know there are people who do have a great time with it. But there are plenty of people who don't. And I wish that the less-than-perfect bits of motherhood could be talked about more openly in RL and not left a dirty secret that women have to punish themselves for. Because even if you don't feel perfect after having children - it doesn't mean you're a bad mum

OP it was the other way round - I fell pregnant by accident and owing to the nature of everything I'd heard, seen, read about motherhood, I was initially scared shitless. I imagined a baby to be a screaming, demanding ball of stress, while I would surely turn into a zombie that would forget what my friends looked like. I didn't imagine picnics in the park, I envisioned never sleeping again.
While we certainly had our days like that, it turned out to be a lot easier and more enjoyable than I thought it would be.

So I'd have to say yabu - I don't think motherhood is toted as an idyll in any sensible places. Maybe on adverts and narcissistic blogs.

I have 2 women at work who are CONSTANTLY on about how awful/ shit having children is and it really worried me when I was pregnant. I was so convinced I was going to have this screaming, non sleeping, clingy, horrible child and I was terrified! (That's even despite all the lovely women there who were saying it is hard but brilliant.)
As it turned out, I have a mostly good baby and as and when issues have arisen I've found lots of good advice on here which made me realise I'm not alone in it. If everyone was bombarded with the bad bits all the time no-one would ever have children!

I completely sympathise with you OP and the responses on this thread illustrate your point. Everyone has different experiences and also I think look back on those days with a rose tint (otherwise no one ever would have had more than one child!).

and don't get me started on the media "look at so and so 2 days post birth off to yoga in a bikini".

"perhaps you read/view different media to us OP"

that means the Daily Mail...

TBH it all kind of faded into insignificance for me compared to the difficulties of dealing with twins. I remember reading in the baby books about remedies for sore stitches etc before they were born but afterwards all I had time to do was neck painkillers and try my best. GP checkups were a joke, main thing I remember was trying to wrangle two babies up a narrow staircase because the surgery didn't rate a mother with recently born twins as needing a downstairs apt (and the receptionists were too busy to help me). We got there, we learned how to do it, but care of yourself is the first thing that goes out the window.

3 years on I still look and feel a ruin working full time with a long commute and so I find myself choosing between sleeping and washing, sometimes. They're starting kindergarten in the autumn and I'm chucking work. I should get time then to do a bit of exercise and have the occasional lie in even maybe.

I think it's unhealthy when people put pressure on themselves to look like (say) Victoria Beckham by 12 weeks post birth, but on the other hand I am glad that women give it some thought, it's nice to think that there is an expectation that you should be able to care for yourself and get fit and healthy.

alrayyan it meant various media.

If I'd meant just the Daily Mail, my post would have said "Perhaps you read the Daily Mail OP".

I feel like motherhood was a shock I wasnt prepared for. People tried to tell me but I wouldn't listen, so not sure if being warned would have made any difference. I think the only way to truly understand what it's like is to go through it!

I did NCT but they didn't cover newborn behaviour and sleep enough, I still feel like I'm learning on the job with that one.

of course it would...silly me

YANBU, as someone with a PFB 3 week old I had no idea just how bloody hard this was going to be but for everything I'm struggling with at the moment I do know I can talk to a number of people and there is a lot of info on the internet so I do disagree with the dirty little secret aspect.

But the whole prefect image of motherhood, I agree with. That said, nothing could prepare me for this...I think it's something you just have to do, to experience

You sound like me when I had my dd OP. I struggled a lot and really having a newborn wasn't athe best time for me. I had no one around in real life who could say 'oh yeah that happened to me too' and my ex was not hands on at all. Two things I wish I had had back then are a. Mumsnet .. I didn't know it existed back then and it would have saved me a lot of panicking and b. Mum friends. As my daughter didn't go to nursery my first experience of having other mums around me was when dd went into reception and it changed so much for me. Being able to have a chat and biscuit and to share your worries makes a huge difference! I would suggest trying to get yourself to a baby group or two to try and get some peer support. My girl is 7 now and she has a fabulous personality and parenting comes much more naturally to me so don't beat yourself up!

YANBU! This is one of the most realistic sites I've found. I knew about PND. I didn't know I would not stop crying for seven months, or that my outlook would forever change to be just ever so slightly glass half empty. I didn't forsee the loneliness, or the inability to bond for over a year.

It was very difficult and I will never have another because of it. No one telling me how great it could be second time round will change my mind, because it might not be. And the reality of that is I don't think I'd have the strength to deal with that again

There can't be equal information out there on the good and bad. Because its what people experience. You can't control what information people put out in what point of view.

I knew what to expect, perfect parenting definitely isn't what's talked about in my circles. No one holds back from moaning. But no one can prepare you for exactly how hard it is.

I think the negative sides of giving birth, new borns and parenting and general are very available. I knew about stitches, not caring how many people look at you faj etc. Still horrified that she I went to the toilet the next day, I went to remove what I thought was an extra sanitary towel, but was my swollen bits. That swollen it was like walking with a cricket ball wedged between my legs. Never happen to mum or my friends, so how could they warn me?

And tbh some people don't want to know. I was induced with my first. When sil was booked in for an induction she want to know what it was like. I told her the general bits, it might not work on first attempt, contractions are meant to be more painful (I would disagree my second non induced was more painful but that might have always happened) you need to be monitored more. She got pissy with me. She kept saying hers wouldn't be like that. She was going in at 7 am and the baby would be here by teatime. She couldn't get in until 1pm and baby was born after a very long labour 2 days later. She didn't want to know how hard it is. I realise she wanted to be told it would be easy, because she was nervous. Some people don't want to hear how hard it is and some people simply think it won't happen to them.

YABU. The messages I see are mostly negative. I don't have kids yet and I'm scared shitless of it- how horrible pregnancy will be, the pain of childbirth, tearing, bleeding, piles, breast feeding, depression, straining my relationship with DP who will never understand how hard it is; basically ruining my body and life while I take care of a small helpless thing that will end up hating me in 15 years after which s/he might turn nice again or not. The only thing about motherhood that I hear these days is how bloody difficult it is. And how having a career is impossible after a baby. No one says anything good about it nowadays. So then I wonder why do it? Really, why?
No one has really given me a good reaaon to have kids, all I know is I have a weird hormonal desire to have a baby. I might decide to just ride it out, not have any. But then it appears I'll be lonely and depressed in my 50s. You just can't win.

Using Victoria Beckham as an example is interesting - Harper is roughly the same age as DS so I took an interest in that pregnancy. Post-birth there were lots of stories about how she was out and about in skinny jeans - well so was I (you don't put weight on your legs so much) but, like me, she wore loose tops and her genius touch was to always carry baby, wrapped in a drapey blanket,across her front. So all you saw were thin legs and heels (fine if you're not walking or driving yourself anywhere) and this gave the impression she was stick thin when I would bet anything she was as wobbly as the next woman under her top! We look at things selectively.

I agree that in advance, I didn't want to hear that it wasn't going to be easy. But it was the lonely feeling during motherhood that I was the only person having the most awful time that was the worst. Actually, I felt just like Willow. I wouldn't dare have another either too, it was that difficult.