Why aren't parents more honest about baby days?

[ZombieVampireHedgehog]

I responded to a thread of a Mum struggling, I wondered why there's this, oh best pretend I'm Super Mum. Wouldn't we help more parents if we were honest that at times it's hard work. Some really struggled through baby days and didn't really enjoy it.

I don't think it makes us bad admitting our most trying parenting moments. Or the fact having a baby latched to your boobs 22/24 hours of the day is tiring. BF is hard work, as I guess cloth nappies must be.

We won't be sent to the guillotine. We could actually help.

I know super Mums exist, I thrived more as a parent when they were older. Where these super Mums on SM are mostly about youngest DC, the older ones pretty much do their own thing.

From tummy time to those daft black and white books, meant to turn your DC into Einstein. So many fads. Ooh organic jars and now it's baby led weaning. I admit I did the Annabelle C recipes which DC hated. It's all about textures

But sometimes babies are easy and we shouldn't have to lie and say life is hell to make others feel better. I don't think anyone finds parenting easy or hard. There are different stages and some are easier than others. I found the new born stage really easy, DS slept loads, I had time to clean, people didnt expect much of me other than looking sfter DS. Now DS is 10 months, refuses to nap, bites me whilst feeding, screams if I try to put him on the floor. My house is a shit tip. I'm not enjoying this stage but others will much prefer this stage and there's nothing wrong with that.

Also it's not a reflection on us as parents, kids have different personalities. At 10 months my nephew was very chilled, the total opposite of my DS.

Dd1 is now nearly 7 and the newborn days with her were bliss. She slept through the night at 6 weeks and still doesn't get out of bed until 9 on the weekends. She loved veg, and was great eater, talked at 10 months and could spell by 2. Potty training? Ha! Easy. Done in 3 days, dry overnight in a week.

Dd2 is nearly 6 months and it has been 5 and a half months of pure living hell. No sleep, eats all the time but vomits it all up and the screaming. Oh god the screaming. Can't travel anywhere, couldn't do housework or set her down for 5 minutes whilst I peed. Would only settle if she sucked on my finger. Awful. Can see a shining glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel in the last 3 weeks but now teething.

Different kids, different personalities, different times. I felt guilty my first was so good when others struggled. Now I'm being made to feel bad when I admit I can't cope.

I think it also depends what you were doing immediately before you had a baby and what you are having to do at the same time as looking after said baby. I went from a ludicrously long hours high pressure deadline driven job to maternity leave. Frankly, looking after a baby was a cinch compared to what I had been doing!

"But sometimes babies are easy and we shouldn't have to lie and say life is hell to make others feel better"

This is absolutely true. But at the same time you (collective you) also shouldn't harp on and on to someone who is struggling about how easy it is and make them feel like shit either.

Some babies are easy, some aren't. It's rarely superior parenting that means you have an easy time at the newborn stage. It's mostly luck!

"But people that have an easier time of it shouldn’t have to feel bad and keep quiet about it."

I agree, but sometimes the parents of "perfect babies" imply that parents who are having a hard time of it aren't doing it correctly.

I had DD late in life and had been used to doing what I wanted when I wanted - and getting a good night's uninterrupted sleep for many years. We had the double whammy of a baby who needed frequent feeding because she was so small, who cluster fed every evening for weeks and weeks, and then went on to develop medical issues that required me to be there for her 24/7 and which meant I had to give up work. Also, DD never, ever slept for 12 hours at a stretch, and she was never tired enough to go to sleep before late evening

I was on my knees for the first year, and was so envious of those parents whose babies slept 7 till 7, and who never woke up for a feed during the night.

But not everyone finds it hard or a struggle! I didn't and I'm certainly no super mum

I have 4 children, the first 3 I had in under 4 years and personally I found the whole pregnancy, labour, baby stage fine.

I find it harder now they are 14,12,10 and 3, all the constant running about, dropping here, picking up there, teacher/parent meetings on different days etc, it's bloody hard work.... I wish I could go back to having them all under 4 at home

I am honest about it - for me it is never so easy (nor so lovely!) as when they are newborns! And I have a newborn right now, so I'm not looking back at it through rose tinted specs. And I have three older children including a teen, tween and toddler - so I've done the spread of ages.

We all have different perspectives and experiences. I do also think people moan quite a lot these days though, there's definitely less just getting on with it. I hear people talking about "sleep deprivation" when they were woken up for 2 quick feeds between midnight and seven!

But I know I'm lucky - they've all been healthy. And so far they've got their own back as toddlers or teens (or both!)

I think they are honest.

I don't have kids through choice and from everything I've seen and heard it's pretty thankless.

from everything I've seen and heard it's pretty thankless

That’s not necessarily true, from my own perspective (and I haven’t had a full nights sleep in 5 yrs!), my boys are incredibly rewarding in lots of different ways and they give the best hugs. You could dwell on the shit that comes with parenting but what’s the point? It’s like anything, you’ve got to look for the good!

I don’t find the actual newborn baby that hard. Mine have both been fairly easy. It’s everything that goes along with it.

The feeling like I’ve lost a layer of skin because everything gets to me so much more than it did. Giving up (temporarily) work and hobbies. The loneliness because every single one of my friends works during the day. For my first the flashbacks and the long lasting pain from a difficult birth and the overwhelming guilt for failing at breastfeeding. Still much better than pregnancy mind you which was awful. But I appreciate everyone’s circumstances are different.

I feel like everywhere you look there's people talking about the difficulties of parenthood. Literally blog after blog of never having time to wash hair/drink a cup of tea/having to go out the door in clothes covered in baby sick.

For some people that is their reality. For some people, it's easy because they have easier babies. Neither are wrong and neither should feel like they can't talk about it. But at the end of the day it's just other people's experiences.

The first four or five months felt like a black hole I couldn't get out of. I honestly thought this is it forever, so depressing. Thank God things improved after that.

I think it also depends what you were doing immediately before you had a baby and what you are having to do at the same time as looking after said baby. I went from a ludicrously long hours high pressure deadline driven job to maternity leave. Frankly, looking after a baby was a cinch compared to what I had been doing!

Well sure. But I went from a career in City law, running transactions worth hundreds of millions of pounds, pulling multiple all-nighters on a regular basis, being discriminated against by male colleagues... and I was soooooooooooo relieved to go back to work after 12 months because it was such a relief after the total hell of maternity leave.

I am a ‘super mum’ because I had to go above and beyond with DS1. Not because I chose to do it but because I HAD to do it. No choice. Still no choice although he is nearly 17. This is the life of the mother of a child/young person with additional/special needs.

If a baby is ‘easy’ you don’t have to go above and beyond. I also have experience of this with DS2.

I don’t tell DS1 he was hard work or DS2 that he was easy in comparison or rate myself as a mother because that would be just mean.

But to my mind you can only consider yourself to be a ‘super mum’ (in private) if you have had to be more and do more than is ‘normally’ expected.

There should be no shame in admitting you were fortunate. You can do this without dismissing the experience of the less fortunate or trying to blame them.

Well said Keep. I have walked in your shoes. People kept telling me how good a mum I was to deal with DD's medical issues, but I had no choice. I couldn't exactly abandon her could I.

I know some Mums/Parents/Carers love love love it and really thrive. I remember with PFB with my collection of manuals & magazines, tearing my hair out whilst still in pyjamas at 2pm it wasn't at all how I anticipated. I don't really know what I anticipated.

I'd signed myself up to all sorts and barely made any of them. I was going to do so much in the baby days that didn't happen. PFB was a really good baby so I can't moan, but I hated the competitiveness which I think I was aware would happen. I'd planned to BF a lot longer then got a heavy cold and being zombified it wasn't possible. You can't really tell I went to the dark side, opening the ready made Aptamil. (Then moving to C&G as apparently they're both made by the same people!)

The later stages have gone to plan in a way, I quickly discovered to avoid the Mothers who have children in all the tops sets, playing the violin and piano simultaneously

I dismissed all the hype for Motherland then binge watched it, after catching half of this weeks episode. You have to love Liz. If you haven't seen it, it's on iPlayer. If you don't yet have school age DC watch it. You'll see what I mean about Liz.

The best advice for the school age is be happy with what they achieve as long as they're doing their best.

Puts fast asleep, fully fed and winded, 10 week old DS2 back into his crib... Lies awake waiting for him to stop grunting and re-settle

OP, I've found most people are honest about how hard/easy they have found things but I also think it depends on how honest you are with them. With DS1 my close friends who knew I was struggling said to the outside world I looked like I was coping brilliantly, in reality I had a velcro baby and even with a great support network, the shock of becoming a mum,other external factors and hideous PND and anxiety left me in a mess. I just hid it very well, it was all part of it. I was nieave, DS1 was just hard bloody work - he hated the indignity of being a baby and he got easier as he got older and could entertain himself more. He's bloody brilliant now at three and continues to get better and better. This doesn't mean we don't have tantrums etc, just that he is easier than he was as a baby.

So, I was dreading the baby stage with DS2 - who despite being more of a sleep theif is an entirely different baby and very enjoyable, he's fitted in brilliantly. That said, there are still hard bits and I don't pretend to anyone that there aren't. I think the current culture I see is a more honest one but that is a culture of the friends I have really helped with and choosing to be on MN instead of other forums where people seem to be less honest/very different to me. If you can surround yourself with like-minded people and be honest I don't think what you describe OP is true.

"But sometimes babies are easy and we shouldn't have to lie and say life is hell to make others feel better"

This is absolutely true. But at the same time you (collective you) also shouldn't harp on and on to someone who is struggling about how easy it is and make them feel like shit either

But I don't notice people on mumsnet at least harping on about it to people who are struggling. I absolutely loved the newborn stage but I have never dared say that to the people on here complaining, of course it's not cool to "harp on about it".

I'm sorry but the baby stuff pales into insignificance as they grow older. The worry I have over my much bigger boys makes me look back at the baby fug longingly.

I agree Mairead We had a tough time with DD when she was a baby due to medical issues, but DD is facing other challenges as a teenager.

My baby is 4 months old and barely sleeps he just has 10 minute cat naps mostly I’m lucky if he sleeps more then an hour, the look I get from some people when they ask me “ohh how is he sleeping?” and I give them an honest answer somewhere along the lines of “pretty awful”,”not at all”, “barely and I haven’t had more than two hours unbroken sleep since before he was born” is hilarious they expect you to say everything is perfect etc and they just look gobsmacked.

Someone asked me the other day how I was enjoying being home with the baby (my second). I said 'Oh it's a bit boring' and they looked at me like I'd shat in their shoe. I think they were expecting me to say how wonderful it was. I don't find it hard at all as I have a very easy-going baby (and my first child was the same) but I do find it rather tedious.

My toddler is much much more of a challenge but at the same time I find her company much more interesting, so it balances out I suppose.

Some people do talk about it. They ask for help with their tongue tied, lip tied, CMPI baby issues that nobody will admit to being present because your're a first time Mam so obviously you don't know anything, and fuss over nothing, they admit they're finding it a struggle, and that they're suffering with PND. They ask for help with communicating their struggles with their partner, who just doesn't get it.

When the response to this, is to say to that mother, at her absolute rock bottom, 'take anti-depressants or we're reporting you to social services for putting your child at risk' followed by putting through that referral when the mother cites several legitimate reasons for not wanting to take anti-depressants it can make some people reluctant to talk about their struggles.

Our whole online and social media culture is about selling the best part of us.