To ask what you actually can't do after having children?

[BinkyBaa]

I'd like to have children in the next few years but I'm a serial worrier/over planner. I see lots of vague statements get thrown around on here about things like holidays and hobbies not being possible anymore after children.
Obviously I know life is different forever after having DCs but aibu to ask is there really anything children stop you doing ever again entirely?

I think you get your life back by degrees - after the initial overwhelming experience of giving birth and establishing breastfeeding.

It helps if you have

a) a supportive partner
and
b) if you avoid Mumsnet. I am so, so glad it wasn't around when my daughter was small.

As pp said, spontinuety. And I suppose it depends WHO you have children with. My husband got bored of being a dad after the first 6 weeks despite it being him that pushed and pushed for 4 years for a baby. Hobbies had to stop because he refused to look after DD and if I did go out, he would send me pictures and sound clips of her screaming to come back home. After work drinks are a no go. My colleagues finish work and go out, whereas i have to go pick DD up from nursery. Stbxh finishes work later and wouldn't get to nursery on time so he needs to finish work early. This means socialising has to be planned well in advance for the logistics of childcare to work.

Whereas my colleague had a baby around the same time as me and her husband comes home and does the evenings and bedtime. So she can still go out or partake in hobbies.

If you have a child with special needs your life will significantly change. I know people who have faced huge financial hardship or have never been on a holiday abroad because of their child. Or it causes them mental health problems. Or they have to spend years dealing with legal issues and having to work out life-long care for their child.

There are obvious changes like not being able to just pop out on your own and having to carry so much around with you but you quite quickly adjust and get used to that to be honest. For me the biggest and hardest change is mentally. You think about them all the time and I mean ALL THE TIME. And worry about whether their needs are being met or not. Are they happy? Getting enough stimulation? Too much? Do they feel loved? Are they eating/drinking enough? Have they been sat in the pram too long? Have they been in the car seat too much today? Have I talked to them enough today? Are they developing in the way they should? and on and on, these thoughts never stop! But perhaps that's just me being a chronic over thinker!

Being ill is really difficult as dc play up like mad if you are under the weather.

CalamityJune It’s the “I just pop them in a playpen” as though that’s something none of the people who have followers-into-the-loo have ever thought of

@LauraMJ " I don't understand the problem. You can do whatever you want as long as you arrange proper child care."

Lucky you.

Lack of spontaneity is difficult to comprehend. Even if you are going somewhere you can take dcs and they aren’t due a sleep/feed etc, it just takes ages.
DP and I work opposite hours which was great for childcare when they were small but crap for a social life. I didn’t do anything at all in the evenings for well over a decade. No exercise classes, no book group, no evening classes, no pub with my mates. Big things like weddings I got paid childcare but I’m not forking out for a babysitter to go to a spin class. Very different experience if you have family childcare, a reliable and willing teenage neighbour, can throw money at the problem or have a DP at home but for me the biggest loss has been social/cultural. I’ve felt very isolated. Got teenagers now and I’m getting back into swing of things again.
They are on my mind all the time and sometimes the sense of responsibility is overwhelming.

Haven’t come across anything I couldn’t do yet, I’m breastfeeding and have major anxiety so don’t leave the baby with anyone and she never goes out of my line of sight.

Despite that me and my partner took her on her first fishing trip at 2 weeks old, we have done long hikes again with her in a sling.

I don’t like crowds so we don’t do anything with large groups but that’s no different to before.

She’s 4 months now. We never went out drinking in the first place, but we still invite the odd friend round to sit out in the garden with a BBQ and a few beers (I’ve always been a one drink and done person so nothing changed there)

Still look after the pets the same.

Still do the house work but regular breaks for feeding and it’s all done with the baby strapped to me.

Like others have said the major change is mentally - birth really brought back some horrible things for me and I’m on medication now to get the anxiety under control. I’m a bit messed up now. But there’s this all encompassing love for her and a primal need to protect and be there for the baby. It’s overwhelming but definitely worth it for her.

Lie in! Even when my husband has them, I'm still basically awake with my eyes closed.

I found trampolining no different before and after each of my two, and it was a great help with the baby weight.

Before children (BC), it's all about you, who you are, what you want, what you need, how you feel etc etc

After children (AC), it's all about DC, what they want, what they need, what will make them happy etc etc

It's not a choice you consciously make, it simply happens usually. If it doesn't happen naturally (think of the threads where DH/DP refuses to grow up) then you'll have issues adjusting.

You are relegated and so is your partner, to last place, for the next 20 odd years (and maybe for life if you're going to help with grandchildren etc).

Yet everyone I've ever known still says they've never regretted it ! :) (Unless you ask them on a particularly bad day when it's school holidays, partner is away and washing machine is spewing water and bubbles all over the kitchen floor....:( )

But the good days far outweigh the bad ones, and the things you thought were SO important BC, often end up on the scrap heap. Not because you can no longer do them, just because you have totally different priorities AC, and no longer want to. (unless talking about getting to use the toilet alone and undisturbed......... I'm STILL waiting for that one to be accomplished and my DC are late teens and early 20's ! LOL)

Babies are the easy part of having a child. They are portable. It’s the years after that when your life changes significantly.

Anything selfish, certainly without guilt anyway.

Agreed. When they’re babies you can still do most things - they’re portable and a boob or bottle or a walk in a buggy usually pacifies them and people are far more tolerant of a crying baby than a tantrumming toddler.

I used to go out with a group of twin mums when they were babies - we’d go to cafes, walk round the park etc. They’re all almost 3 now - just met up for the first time in over a year at a small soft play and most of us only lasted an hour. I miss the baby stage!

Your first baby is easy. DS1 was a dream baby, placid and happy to go along with whatever we wanted. Would go in along and we could go about our day as normal. It’s when they get mobile it starts to get much harder and things like ‘fishing trips’ will be more complicated - stopping a wandering toddler from falling in the lake, make sure they don’t eat the bait, or get a hook in their hand!! They won’t be entertained by sitting for hours waiting for a fish to bite. If you don’t catch one in the first 5 min they won’t be happy!!!

Relax.

Brie
"Your first baby is easy."
Your first baby was easy.
No need to tell everyone that their experience was or will be identical to yours!

Your first baby is easy

@BrieAndChilli, no your first baby was easy. Mine wasn’t. My second was.

Ds was easy. I’m seriously hoping dc2 will be. Knowing our luck she won’t be. Ds slept through from 9 weeks, eats everything, lovely placid temperament....

Can we really get lucky twice?!

Neither my first nor second were easy, plus they were born 45 seconds apart which didn’t help.

Never ever being able to eat a treat item to yourself without having to surrender it to your kids. Like sweets, biscuits, icecream, naughty cream doughnuts etc etc. Then you cant even hide in the toilet to eat it cos they'll bust down the door or just scream mummy mummy mummy until you relent....

A lot of this is subjective.

I have four DC and I can 100% jump on trampolines, my pelvic floor is fine and I’ve never wet myself. My biggest baby was 10 lbs 3 as well!

I also never had to take my children to the toilet with me and I’ve always managed to drink hot coffees.

I did my degree when my eldest three were very young, having children hasn’t really held me back at all.

I have spent all weekend packing for a 4 night trip with the kids. Once upon a time we booked a last minute week away whilst still at work came home threw stuff in a bag and left within an hour.

Leave the house on time or without a million things stuffed into a bag.

Go to shops if you're home alone after a certain point and little one is over.

Your free time appears to be when they sleep and in that time you attend to household chores and by time you've sat down with a cuppa, they've awakened again 😂

Having to lift everything in sight and put everything out of harms way.

It depends on your children. My daughter won’t let me out of her sight and she’s nearly 3 so I feel very trapped.

It also depends what your life was like pre-children. I still really miss the freedom (and money) that I had before having children.

Make sure you make the most of being child free before you have them.