Having children- what would you do differently?

[putthetellyon]

Aibu to wonder what you would do differently if you had your time with your children again? Another thread got me wondering...

I can’t wish I’d had DD younger or chosen a different father for her, because then I wouldn’t have had DD at all, I’d have had somebody else!

DD is one, and after months of sleeping nicely in her cot, she’s now insisting that I lie next to her every night until she nods off. Maybe I’ll stop worrying about this.

If I had my time over again, I’d:

Not buy the Baby Shark CD. DD is obsessed with it, it overstimulates her in the evenings and she throws a tantrum when I tell her that Baby Shark has gone to bed.

Not buy a term of (very expensive) Water Babies swimming lessons. They focus on dunking the babies underwater and DD hated this.

Not worry that DD seemed to crawl much later than other babies her age. She walked slightly ahead of average, and neither fact matters a jot now.

@Confusedandworried321 yes similar to what Badwifey said. I saw and reacted to his behaviour as if it were an adult acting that way rather than a tiny underdeveloped human. I wish I'd approached his defiance and boisterous behaviour as needing my help and guidance rather than just losing my temper with him all the time. I think it convinced him that he was "bad". I turned things around about 6 months ago and life is improving which shows it's never too late. If I'd have treated him gentler then I think things would have been different.

Also very much agree with what @youwantshoesinashoeshop said. I was so obsessed with trying to make him the perfect human that I ended up fucking him up. Hopefully temporarily. Goodness this is a bit like therapy. I've said this out loud to a few people and they just say that it wasn't my fault. Why are people not comfortable with admitting when they're wrong? I regret how I behaved and am trying to take responsibility to put it right....

I think i lacked any examples/ experience of just being with a baby. I was confused by the fact they didn't do anything and i didn't know how to simply be with her and respond to her.

So i would have done all the really early stuff differently. I'd have had a doula, joined NCT and spent time just gazing and cooing with her.

First off I would have been more kind to myself after DC1. I wouldn’t have worried so much about weight gain, feeding, hitting milestones etc, new to it all and allowed the health visitor to completely turn me into a paranoid mess. Second of all, stood up for myself more as my child’s mum to family members who thought I was nothing more than a womb and that once baby was here it was their rules/baby to bring up and stuff what his mum wants. Wish I had told them where to go earlier as the above combined ruined my first year with my first born. We have an amazing bond now though and all above is in the past.

I would have had a smaller age gap if I could do it all again, unfortunately a loss at 16 weeks made me too anxious to try for a while again so my kids have a bigger gap than I originally would have liked, but they do still play together and love the bones of each other so it did work out.

I wish I’d had more faith in myself and trusted my instincts. We’re blessed with a wealth of information at our fingertips (and not so blessed with unsolicited advice) that we forget we’re essentially still animals with inherent knowledge about how to look after our young. We know when they’re sick, hungry, tired, upset better than any person or book can tell us.

Not worried or felt guilty about the fact that we couldn’t many toys, a state of the art pram, loads of baby classes/ groups, new clothes etc. Babies are very marketable and there can be a lot of pressure to buy and do so much stuff, 90% of which is probably entirely unnecessary. We had 3 children close in age and childcare costs took up all my salary for a while so money was very tight for a time. I don’t regret that- keeping my career going was one of the best things I did - but I wish I’d had more confidence to know that going to baby classes 5 times a week and having all the latest baby gadgets wasn’t going to make an iota or difference in how the children turn out.

My kids are now grown up, and when I returned to work after dd she was only 12 weeks old. I wish maternity leave had been a little longer, so I suppose in a way I regret that (though of course that wasn’t my decision, it was what’s legislation was then.) I had 6 months off with the next two which I felt was about right. I watch younger colleagues now trying to settle their children in childcare after a whole year off and I think that’s much harder.

In retrospect I wish I hadn’t wasted any energy in some of the worries about ‘is this the best school’, ‘will they make friends’, ‘will they pass their exams’ etc ... you can’t help it as a parent but actually children who are loved and supported and exposed to a reasonable amount of enriching experiences are very likely to be fine.

I’m curious to hear more from @withinacceptabletolerances and how you think you’ve fucked your kid up? I honestly think most of us are paranoid about fucking our kids up, but we do our best and are only human so surely you can be more gentle on yourself?

I would not have had them so young and not given into my abusive ex to have three. I now know it was a control technique. I'm not saying I dont love my children and wouldn't change them for the world but see his actions for what they were. I know I sound pathetic giving in but I was in a very bad place back then and he controlled every part of my life.

On a lighter note I would not have eaten for 50 and maybe had made sure I had money behind me so we could not be scraping by month to month.

Not listen to midwives and insist on seeking further advice from a doctor.

Not stress over breasfeeding - ruined the first few months - nothing that hurts so much and makes you ill is worth it for either party.

My dc are 21 and 24 now and my biggest regret is not having a third - had many losses and felt I couldn't face another.

Not moving dd immediately from a school where she was unhappy.

Thinking dd was quirky and just a bjt of an independent island. She wasn't depression and anxiety manifested because she staryed not to cope at 15 having masked adhd. Diagnosed when she was 17 and absolutely everything fell i to place but I honestly never realised.

Oh I would also have made more of a fuss to get ds assessed for asd he is finally going through it now but all the signs were there from very early on I just buried my head in the sand saying "hell grow out of it"

I would protect my marriage its a mess now we only have one as the aex life qent pnce ahe was conceived

Not pushed the DC into preschool at 2/3 when they didn't enjoy it and just let them go at their own time. My youngest just wanted to stay home really. But I worried they needed it to be 'ready' for school, and had no support from family so wanted the time as well. In hindsight it didn't really matter, and caused a lot of stress.

We co- slept for years which made things much easier in a way. But it would have been good if they could have taken a bottle from someone else sometimes and think I missed the right time for trying this.

I always felt guilty for not weaning 'properly' and doing lots of those ice cube things, not being organised and 'perfect' like other mothers and just muddling along. I wished i had just let go of that and felt more confident in knowing they were doing OK.

@withinacceptabletolerances

To be brutally honest; I would be nicer, gentler and more understanding with DS1. It's not until we had DS2 that I realised we'd been too harsh and expected too much if him.

I feel the same about my dd1 who is also 6. I've been much kinder, gentler and patient with my younger 2 dc than I was with her when she was little. I still catch myself expecting too much from her but I'm aware and trying hard to boost her up and encourage her to be more confident. she's an anxious little thing sometimes

I’d have pushed my DS1 more with reading and homework in primary school. His older sister is naturally a hard worker and got brilliant SATs results, and we let DS1 coast - spend too much time on his XBox etc. His SATs results were terrible. He scraped 2 and failed a third, and his report was very mediocre. I’m not saying I wanted him to spend hours working every night, but 15 minutes after school 3 or 4 times a week would have made a big difference. It has affected his confidence so hopefully it’s the kick up the back side he needs to get a bit of work done.

Haven’t read all the messages but it’s really hit me in the heart to read so many parents wishing they’d been gentler. I feel like if I don’t turn things around with my DC1 (3 year old) then I’ll be lamenting over the same thing in 20 years. I feel like I’ve had a reality check. Childhood is too precious to allow it to pass with regret...

Hope everyone can make peace with their feelings! I have no doubt you are all fantastic, caring parents - the fact that all of you are analysing how you could have been “better” says enough about how much you love your DC

I wouldn’t have eaten so much whilst pregnant, that weight gain was hard to shift...

I wish I’d had the confidence to go to more baby groups and such when my eldest three were young. I had them all in the space of 2.5 years and just never had the confidence to venture into a baby group. I have a fourth child now and enjoy taking him to groups.

I’d have left a slightly bigger gap between my eldest three as well.

Don’t bother sending them to swimming lessons until they’re about 7, then get 1-1 lessons. They’re not coordinated enough to do any great swimming until about then, and although the 1-1s are more expensive your kid learns to swim in about a tenth of the time of a group class and goes through the grades far quicker. I could cry when I think of the (literally) years of dragging ourselves over to another town at 8am on a Saturday morning, at a cost of £56 a month, to take them to swimming lessons. They both swim fine, but they’re no Duncan Goodhews. I firmly believe that had they had 1-1 lessons they’d have been done in about 6 months maximum.

I would not have smacked DD1. I was smacked as a child and did it without any real thought and really she was such a good child. She is now 24 and has come through the ordeal (and doesn't really remember it) but I remember smacking her once quite hard because I was in a bad mood and she'd done something. Then I realised how horrible it was and never did it again and never smacked DD2 and DS3. I still don't like to think about me smacking her and can still remember where I was when I smacked her for that last time.

Start sooner.

Waited until I was older and in a stable relationship with someone I thought would be a good father, not one I thought was borderline unhealthy (it was extremely controlling) with someone who was "not that bad" ()

Not obsessively got drawn into the idea of "us and them" parenting - so much parenting advice/philosophy is framed as "Why all other methods are wrong" which left me thinking that there is a "right way" and a "wrong way" and I must fit rigidly into the one I had pre decided was "right" even if it didn't suit me any more. Also that if anyone had advice relating even slightly to the "other side" that it automatically invalidated everything the person thought or said

Sought help with DS1's behaviour when I started struggling with it aged 3 instead of leaving it because I was afraid people would try to force me to deal with it in the way I didn't agree with. I think it completely damaged our relationship and we are only just getting it back.

Other than that everything is fine. I don't regret co-sleeping, those are some of my best memories :)

I used to think DS1 would have benefited from a closer in age sibling, maybe he would, but actually I think it has worked out just as it should.

zzzz it doesn't always work like that - always gave DS1 what we were eating, he told me yesterday he doesn't like chicken, what meats do you like then? Bacon, sausage, ham, salami and chicken nuggets apparently.

I always felt guilty for not weaning 'properly' and doing lots of those ice cube things
I did the ice cube thing. My kid refused to eat them. The only thing he’d eat was pouches! The dog, however, loved them!

That was to the first zzzzz with numbers :o I see many sleep deprived people on here today.

I'll have to get back to this in some time, only 16 months in. Most of our bumps have been short-lived and when things haven't worked we've changed direction within a week or so, so I can't really regret trying things.

I wish I'd eaten less cheesecake when I was pregnant, but we joke that's what made him so sweet natured. I do wish we'd gone to NCT instead of the hospital course because most of them can't be bothered to keep in touch and the only two couples we really gelled with moved! I also regret trying to walk too much in the initial weeks post c-section because I suspect that caused adhesions in my abdomen, I should have had more patience. Oh, also I should really have pressed harder on DH to get more of the house done up before DS was born, it takes 5 times longer to do anything now he's here. I wish I'd worried less at several points, but that's not controllable.