To think they have no idea about what it will be like (lighthearted)

[Diorissimo1985]

LIGHTHEARTED!!

Some friends of ours have just announced they are expecting their first baby, which is obviously lovely and we are very pleased for them. However they keep talking about "how it will be when baby gets here..."
E.g.

• beautiful traditional Moses basket with white broderie anglaise covers in their bedroom - definitely no co-sleeping!
• absolutely no plastic toys - no plastic rattles, baby swings or anything like jumperoos
• traditional baby clothes only and will use towelling nappies

Aibu to think these are all LOVELY intentions but they need to get a grip?! DD is 5 months and I want to tell them...

• baby will almost definitely end up in your bed at least once, and the beautiful Moses basket will get covered in posset and probably wee

• you may have to give in a get a baby swing if baby has reflux just to soothe it, or a brightly coloured plastic teething ring when it's drooling everywhere. And people give you mountains of plastic stuff so you end up with it anyway.

• fussing with baby outfits is a nightmare when dealing with explosive poos and nighttime changes are much easier with zippy sleepsuits. And Grobags are amazing ... I know not as pretty as crocheted blankets but at least baby can't kick the buggers off.

And towelling nappies aren't ideal for out and about when you're carrying a shitty parcel in your handbag all day.

I have, of course, said nothing

Anyone else have friends like this? I admit I had no idea what having a baby would be like in practical terms... I think they're in for a shock!

He might easily have written his book though.

I was told that I was an idiot to think I could do a masters degree while on maternity leave with my second child, by every smug git who heard I was doing it, and how stupid I was to imagine such a thing was possible.
I laughed while polishing my framed 1st class parchment, as well as the award I won for my thesis.

My twins have never ended up in my bed... They're 9 months old. Yes I've gone back on a few things I said I wouldn't do, but the fundamental things haven't changed. They may stick to their guns, and really you shouldn't judge them.

I have a fear of anything going into my spine so I was absolutely determined not to have an epidural when giving birth. Everyone I mentioned this to (when they asked about birth plans) rolled their eyes or nodded in amusement as if to say 'wait and see'. Even some of the midwives scoffed at the idea of giving birth without pain relief.

I spent weeks before labour practicing breathing and researching how to cope with the pain and ended up having a straightforward labour and delivery - in the end, I didn't even have gas and air. I'm aware that this was down to luck as much as anything else but I really didn't appreciate people beforehand acting as if I was being a silly little girl to imagine it was possible.

Lighthearted my ass. I can't stand smug gits telling soon to be parents how stupid they are and laughing about how much harder it will be than they think.

I agree.

DougFargo well done, that's a great achievement

I didn't think having a baby would change life much, and because my husband and I were planning on sharing all nights (bottle feeding), I didn't think sleep deprivation would be too bad. We had the looks, the 'you'll see' etc.

We've shared/alternated all nights and there's only been a handful of days I've felt a bit tired and its usually because I've stayed up too late, but because of baby.

I've continued to go places, travel, spend time with friends. Babies are very portable and I just strap her to my back and go!

I appreciate that it would be different if we'd had less chilled out or colicky baby, but as it happened, it worked out exactly in line with my expectations.

People don't tend to go round saying they found it easy, and wasn't a shock, and was exactly how they expected, so all you hear is the bad stuff.

*E.g.

• beautiful traditional Moses basket with white broderie anglaise covers in their bedroom - definitely no co-sleeping!*

I didn’t go-sleep with my first born. He slept in a cradle next to my bed on my sheets I had when I was a baby.
- absolutely no plastic toys - no plastic rattles, baby swings or anything like jumperoos

He had no baby swings or jumperoos

• traditional baby clothes only and will use towelling nappies

I used cloth nappies on both my children. Including my terry nappies from when I was a baby.

Lighthearted my ass. I can't stand smug gits telling soon to be parents how stupid they are and laughing about how much harder it will be than they think.

Agree. Especially when the smug git is the proud owner of a 5 month old! practically expert level.

Oh I was just like that when I was pregnant except I had a mean 'friend' who kept trying to burst my bubble.

It was nice to be naive whilst pregnant as I wasn't stressed about the baby arriving unlike this time... I am now remembering the lack of sleep, the pain, the exhaustion, the PND. It's not much fun this time. 🤷‍♀️
But on the plus side I am more prepared.

You sound a bit jealous op! Just because you haven’t managed to meet your ideals there’s no reason to beleive this couple won’t.

I’m sure parenting won’t be exactly like they expected. No one knows how they will handle it or how it will effect your life. Tbh I found my first baby a doddle. She was a super easy baby and I set my expectations pretty low so I wasn’t disappointed. I did t pressure myself in any way just went with the flow. I knew I didn’t want to exclusively breast feed so I didn’t. I Was pretty relaxed about labour and just decided I’d see how I coped on the day with pain. Afterwards, we just worked out as we went on how we would muddle through. We got the baby in a good routine and it really wasn’t that bad.

We had no plastic crap in our house. I had one baby chair that was pretty disgusting looking but we just chucked s blanket over it. I loved being off work with my baby and sge did nothing but improve my life. I did most of the things I did before- just with the added plus of having her there too.

Second baby was more difficult. He was a bad sleeper and had really bad collic. Plus it’s much harder with a two year old in tow. It was then I started to realise that the I pad was indeed a good toy for my two year and some other short cuts I didn’t need to take first time round. But even then I wouldn’t poo poo anyone else’s ambitions for parenthood. There nothing worse than being told “you think this is bad wait till you have two”... obviously it’s more work!

Gosh people are getting their hackles up!
I'm not jealous ilovecsleep and I wouldn't say "I haven't met my ideals" - I didn't have any!

And as I said previously, I'm not saying anything to them - I'm just bemused! Lighthearted thread, not meant nastily....

Hmm. My XMIL thought it was hilarious that i had a nice mosses basket, nicely decorated nursery with basket for toiletries, shelf for baby grows, hanging bag for nappies ect.

Then she spent next 15 years with a cats arse face on because i managed to raise 3 beautiful happy daughters without the chaos, tiredness, regret and misery she herself presumably suffered gleefully predicted at the start. And all with pretty much zero helpful input from either her or her son i'll add.

I’m pretty sure that the Professionally Offended gravitate towards threads labelled “lighthearted” just so they can get their kicks.

whilst others gravitate there to goad them.

Bollocks.

Whereas the professionally goady hide (badly) under the “lighthearted” umbrella. It’s been going on for years on MN and is totally transparent. Lighthearted rarely means lighthearted on MN.

Lighthearted my ass. I can't stand smug gits telling soon to be parents how stupid they are and laughing about how much harder it will be than they think.

Agreed.
It is harder than you think in a way, because nothing can prepare you for it.

That said, after baby number 4 here:
-moses basket well used, white cover still white. How dirty do you think a newborn is?! If they get a bit sick, you just put in the wash.

-No co-sleeping here either, babies in their cot in their own bedroom at 3 months old. In this house, they only start co-sleeping when they are around 2 and moved to a toddler bed and figure out they can easily sneak in at night.

Plastic toys or not: it's a personal choice

Clothes: each to their own, I loved baby clothes and only put my kids in outfits I liked, even when they were going to nursery. Garish gifted outfits were kept for gardening and "DIY"

I cooked everything from scratch easily when on maternity leave, and we still eat home-made food at least 5 days a week. So what?

Never used a sling, hated them and my kids even more.

You can't prepare because every baby is different, but you sound unpleasant when you are mocking your "friends".

I just wanted to add that I think one of the saddest varieties of this is the (few) people who have scoffed when we say that we're doing shared parental leave, saying that I'll regret it when the baby's here. It's really sad that some people want to discourage people from even aiming/trying for a more equal way of parenting.

LisaSimpsonsbff. I did SPL. No regrets here. It does help create a more equal family. It was difficult going back and having to trudge off to work whilst he was snoozing in with baby and going for lunches with friends, but who wouldn't be a bit jealous, and that's a terrible reason not to do it.

Thanks sleep - we actually don't have a choice - I have to go back at 6 months whatever, so it's SPL or childcare, me staying home longer isn't on the cards - so people haven't put me off (and to be fair lots of people have also said they think it's great), it's more just depressing that a few people have seemed to want to put us off trying to do things in anything other than 'mum does everything' mode, and say it's silly to think we can.

It’s good to have ideas and aims. We did - things like cloth nappies were great and I’d recommend. We only bought wooden toys and they’ve been great. Others gave us plastic and those are good too.

Haha my friend was desperate to start a family with new bf. Lucky to conceive quickly enough and along came a beautiful dd. Every. Single. Thing. To do with dd shocks them that it happens and i get blow by blow accounts of how i wouldnt believe babys do this or that or need this or that. Makes me laugh tbh and feel slightly sorry for them being so naieve.

To be fair, one of my friends literally did write a book when she was on her maternity leave. She had an easy baby. It's possible.

her baby is now a toddler and a complete fucking nightmare though

Cooking from 'scratch' is achievable though. I remember getting back from the hospital after spending 6 nights there due to birth complications. I made a huge Spag Bol.

I think people who don't cook have an extreme mental idea of what cooking from scratch looks like! I would consider shoving a microwave spag bol in to be 'not from scratch', whereas cooking some mince in a jar of dolmio, adding some fried mushrooms and onions and banging it on top of spaghetti is from scratch, yet it's not difficult or time consuming.

Making vegetable soup from scratch is the easiest thing ever. Veg and water in a pan with seasoning, leave it, hand blend it. With a big pan that's ten portions of homemade healthy filling veg soup for the equivalent of about a minute's prep time per bowl!

People who don't cook probably imagine cooking from scratch to be an hours long process with tens of ingredients and lots of supervision.