To find some parents are very patronising to expectant parents?

[pinkladyapple]

I am currently 31 weeks pregnant. And myself and my OH have decided that it's probably best if we don't speak. If myself or my OH dare to say one of us feels tired, we get told "Oh if you feel tired now, wait until baby comes!"

If one of us says we've had a busy week/no time for something - "Oh if you think you're busy now, wait until baby comes!"

If one of us says we fancy going out for meal/shopping/cinema/frolic outside we get "Oh I hope you know you won't be able to do anything when baby comes!"

Or even if we don't say anything at all, actually "You're going to have a big shock when baby comes. You won't be able to carry on the same as you are now!" Accompanied by knowing looks and a laugh.

I just needed to rant. Please tell me there are others who have felt like this! I know they mean well and I know that nothing prepares you for your first child, but give me and my OH some credit. I don't mind people saying things in context, for example some good advice we had early on is to spend at much time as possible doing the things we love now (and not to feel guilty about the expense), and that I should take my maternity leave a week or two before due date so I can have some time to relax.

AIBU to find it patronising? Especially coming from the same people again and again? How am I meant to react?

I remember feeling like this when I was pregnant. Now that DS is 10 weeks I do have to fight an urge to run up to every pregnant woman I see and say "sleep! Sleep! For the love of god why aren't you spending all your time asleep!"

I don't actually say it though.

You may be pleasantly surprised. I had terrible insomnia in the last month of pregnancy and was very uncomfortable. I actually slept better with a newborn - wake ups but in between nice deep sleep. It all went to pot at 4 months but that's another story. Life doesn't need to stop (depending on the baby). In the early days we went out to eat (mainly for lunch) a few times and she just snoozed through the hubbub.

I think people are usually well meaning even if they are deeply annoying. I think it's a badly expressed 'welcome to the club' thing.

I'm 34 weeks and people are shocked when I say I'm not particularly worried about the birth or all of the horrible, tiring stuff that comes after (paraphrasing their words), just that I can't wait to hold a healthy baby in my arms. I've been desperate for kids for over a decade so it'd be nice if some people would let me be excited before they start pissing on my strawberries with their stupid comments.

I had lots of advice but it wasn't smug or twattish, more 'i feel your pain and want to reassure' type comments i.e. 'it gets a bit easier when they are sleeping through, honestly it whizzes by' (when feeling a bit restricted and totally knackered) 'we've all been there, don't worry' (tantrum in supermarket) .
Not had many 'wait til...stories', maybe its where I live and most folks are quite supportive.
Never understood the birth horror story sharier, just what do they hope to achieve? or the smug 'we know how hard it is you don't'. Must be a reflection on how unprepared they were or slight bitterness because they are finding it harder than expected?

I hate this! But I also hate the pregnancy comments - the faux sympathetic "have you been terribly sick?" "How are you sleeping?" Etc. I do enjoy telling people that I've not felt sick once, still sleep well a good way into my third trimester, have a normal amount of energy and am still finding exercising enjoyable.

YADNBU! I'm only 21 weeks and I get it 'in the ear' from various parents I know every day.

I don't want to hear about the lack of sleep, the lack of freedom, how important it is that I breastfeed and the eternal worries of having kids. I'll deal with that when it happens and by then I'll have a child, which I'll love and will make up for all of it.

For friends when they say something resoundingly negative I force them to say something positive, to even the balance.

For strangers I tritely inform them that 'oh no, I'm going to have one of those calm one that sleeps 12 hours a night' and laugh to myself.

Adults suck, but babies are great.

It's just something people say. I think you're being oversensitive.

Argh the prenatal advice! Patronising, negative and if you are having a rough pregnancy pretty unkind actually.

FWIW I slept SO much better once DD arrived! I genuinely was more tired when I was pregnant than I am now (and I have an active breastfed not quite 8mo who doesn't sleep through, I work full time with long hours which I need to fit expressing into and have quite a long commute). I am a bit tired but it isn't crippling - for me pregnancy tiredness wiped me out completely.

I may be a bad person but I have very much enjoyed bouncing up to people who said "just wait until the baby is here..." and telling them how much better I feel now than when I was pregnant and how glad I am that so many people were wrong about that...

Totally enjoyed reading this thread both my SIL have had kids younger than myself. I'm now expecting and all I get is knowledge by both of them every time. They insinuate both me and DH will be out of our depth. Calmly breathe and as we drive away in the car remind ourselves they have more experience being young mums and we are the selfish ones for waiting to plan our family!!

It never stops, mine are 14 and 10 and I get "wait till he's doing his GCSEs", "wait till he gets a girlfriend", or "she'll get a handful when she's a teenager". I just smile and say "yeeeees".

passing I'm exactly the same! It does make me quite happy that I've had a relatively easy pregnancy. Until someone mentions an easy pregnancy means a difficult birth!
My bosses were the worst (both men) who seemed insistent on giving me horror stories about birth and babies.
My IL's are definitely the worst for it. All I hear is how I'll be so tired and I won't have time for anything yet expect us to drive 2 hours to see them every 3 weeks.

Janecc my mother is like that even before I was pregnant. I would tell her I had a stressful and busy day at work so I hadn't had time to look at a website she wanted me to look at. Then she would say "yes I've been too busy to go on Facebook at all this week I've been run ragged" - my mother is a SAHM. And my sister is 18. My dad lives there too. And they are hoarders so don't exactly clean... same for if I complain about backache. She'll never comment on my pregnancy or ask how I'm doing - just if I mention it she'll start telling me about one of her births. Like I'll say "oh had a braxton hicks today while out shopping" she'll say "I had them terrible. Once..."

And nope not having her at the birth either. No way. I think the police would end up being called at some point and midwives don't like that. [Grin]

OP, they're often right but it's annoying alright.
I look back and think "why didn't we go out for more meals when I was pregnant" "why didn't we go on more foreign holidays".....well, because I was pregnant, knackered and working full time.
Like someone else I actually slept better once the baby was born as I had awful awful gastric reflux for second half of both pregnancies. It was quite pleasant not to wake up with vomit in my mouth.
Sleeping now is a whole different thing now co-sleeping no longer works but there you go, everything is a phase!

Oh yes! likeaboss sums it up perfectly. It's very annoying and patronizing and serves no purpose but to annoy you.

I hated that too. My daughter is a year now and I'd never do that to another mother. It's actually pretty stupid - how do you compare how tired another person is in pregnancy versus how tired they'll be after? How stupid is that? Speak for yourself and understand that your experience is not everyone else's.

In any event, pregnancy was the bad bit for me, baby was terrific. Honestly, we gathered that a baby was imminent and weren't all that surprised that much of our lives is now centred around caring for her. That's what we wanted to do and why we had her. We love her company and she's a constant delight. The sleep thing wasn't that bad - we just let the house and all that drift and made her and each other our priority.

With my first baby ... I loved the knowledge ! I'd never had a baby before and the advise was great ! Some was terrible ... I chose to ignore it!

Pinklady unfortunately expect a lot more shit from your mother then. I am now low contact with mine. Luckily she is a better grandma than mother but she did at one stage start on my DD - I nipped that one in the bud!

When DD was maybe a couple of months old, she smiled at my stepfather and mother professed that she was just like me at that age - only interested in men. A year or so later, dd became frightened of all men bar dh and her friends daddies (don't ask me why) and I established that she was ok if they were "daddies" so I spent the next few years telling her that any man I talked to was a daddy and she was then ok with them. Mother also called DD "little Miss DH" for a while and thought this was hilariously funny because according to her, DD looks nothing like me but the spit of him. Suffice to say I was about that one. I now realise that my mother really really dislikes me and I believe she fits the category of NPD (narcissistic personality disorder).

I was in the street heavily pregnant and walking on crutches and some chav young woman came up to me and shouted in my face that this was the easy bit. I ignored her, but really, for whom? I was is absolute agonising pain for the last few months of pregnancy, like a beached whale, couldn't touch the floor through pain and couldn't walk without crutches (back problems).

I'm 37 weeks this week and sick of it - I've not been at work the last four weeks so I've managed to leave it all behind. My family are great - my mother is really good at giving subtle advice.

In the end I just didn't respond to any unwanted comments. Probably came across as rude but I'd had enough. I have a friend from work who never mentions the baby to me at all - she's wonderful!

And it's not just the baby that they comment on.

We (me, DH and DS who is 2.6) spent the weekend with a childless couple. DS woke at 6am every day, bed at 7.30 pm, we all didn't sleep that well, strange bed, hot room, etc etc. Days were busily spent sightseeing, parks, activites etc.

On the third day he decided to nap after lunch, he didn't nap the other two days. So I had a nap too.

When I came back down stairs after the nap friend said to me 'God, did you actually sleep? I don't know how you can sleep during the day!'

As if I'm super slovenly..

DH made a big mistake, he didn't nap and they had him help to fell a tree in the garden!

Congratulations OP and all the other pregnant people on this thread. I used to enjoy being really breezy with the doom predictors and say airily,"oh i'm really looking forward to mat leave, it'll be lovely to have a six month holiday" with a big grin. Fuck em.

This is a good time to think about what "boundaries" you want with family and friends and start working on them.

It is really annoying. And I'm afraid it carries on. The parent of a 15 year old was doing this to me the other day (my DCs are still at primary). I pointed out we have already done the teenaged years with my DSD, then did what I always try not to do and trumped it with a 'wait until they start University'. That shut her up. Of course it's all absolute rubbish because every child/young person/family is different, that's the great thing about it

Once you've had it, you'll be getting 'they'll be wanting a little brother or sister' within about a week. It gets worse. Smile like a synchronised swimmer & try to ignore them

toffeeboffin

Toffeeboffin
Adj - synonyms: slovenly, lazy, neglectful, disorganised....

The best advice ever was sleep when the baby sleeps. The housework will still be there when you get up.

Be prepared to get I'll advised and sometimes dangerous advice throughout the rest of your pregnancy and when your baby arrives. I had everything from how to stimulate labour as: noone wants a big baby to someone telling me I was depriving my baby by wanting to feed her solely breastmilk until 6months