To ask for your lightbulb moments in the early years of parenthood?

[HennyPennyHorror]

Mine was when my older sister told me "Put that baby in her room now...stop leaving her in her moses basket in the sitting room all night"

I, like many others I'm sure, had been keeping her in the sitting room with DH and I all evening. Fine when she was just tiny but by this point she was coming up for 3 months.

It was like a breath of fresh air to realise I could put her to bed with her monitor in our room. We could be alone.

My sister's was when she was weaning her twins and would prepare a bowl of food for them each...and two spoons. Then she'd go back and to between the bowls and the twins.

Another twin Mum called round and said "Just put two servings in one bowl...and have one spoon"

And she did...obviously when they were feeding themselves they had a bowl or plate each but those frantic mealtimes calmed down a bit for her!

Baby Lead Weaning! DS hated being spoon fed, hated purees. Face hi. Finger food and he was away.

Of course when I say ‘not tired’, I mean really tired. Catching them at the first or second eye rub sort of tired.

That you can tidy up and leave the bathroom immaculate while your child is in the bath.

That breaking a routine is not the end of the world, just wake up the kids at the usual hour next day and they are back in track

My stress halved overnight when I stopped trying to follow routines that somebody else said was a "brilliant idea" and started allowing my baby to set his own routines.

I... on the other hand, saw the light when I realised that my child needed... a routine.

But then, I was never the kind of person who would stop doing something because baby has to have a nap at 3. I just let him have his nap in the stroller while I carried on with the day.

Babies will have their own ideas and haven't read a book.

When weaning I wanted to do BLW and tried so hard but DD didn't get it so did one puree which she wolfed down. Now she is 8 months then she eats everything but still likes her spoon.

Going outside to cool down helped my kid settle at night but I felt harassed and exposed doing it. He still sleeps better now with the window open. Also, slings are great but they do not eradicate all sadness and make babies angels. Sometimes they don't want to be carried and that's perfectly fine. (I was way deep in some babywearing circles.)

I had a HUGE moment when I realised my baby didn’t want cuddles to sleep and was fighting sleep when I was holding him. If I put him down he would grissle for literally ninety seconds to two minutes then all asleep.

I hadn’t tried that cause I had read about attachment and the Hunan norm of cosleeping etc. I’d been cuddling and rocking a crying baby for an hour when just leaving him alone was the key.

When I mentioned to my mum that I kept falling asleep holding my newborn at night when feeding her, and I was terrified of what might happen, she said "oh I just used to feed you lying down next to me". I ended up loving 4am feeds, all snuggled up.

That vests can go down as well as up! Dealt with so many poo explosions getting the vest carefully up over DS's head. He was about 5 months old when I realised

OMG my DS is 16 months old now - I never realised this!!!

That DD would cry because she was tired and wanted to sleep- not because she wanted me to hold her or be there, she wanted me to leave her alone long enough to drift off and all my rocking, hushing, etc was just keeping her awake.

She had a different kind of cry when actually upset and wanting me but it took so long to realise the difference and that she didn’t want soothing all the time.

Mine was to stop dressing ds in clothes I cared about getting messy. He has a set of outfits for nursery, all bought second hand, and if they come back covered in paint or food, no harm done. They're cheap, cheerful and of absolutely no sentimental value whatsoever. He gets to get messy and have fun, I stay stress free. It's a win all round.

The other thing, now hes at nursery, is that when I do laundry over the weekend, I make up his outfits for the week, and put them in his drawers. He has a set of five drawers, one for each weekday. It makes mornings so much easier, because I'm not scrabbling round for a tshirt or socks.

I'm ashamed to say I never twigged about the vests (DS is almost 9).

Baby classes aren't for babies - they're for you! I took DS to a baby sensory class once a week and although it could sometimes be a nightmare to get there, but once I was there I got a (hot)cup of tea and a friendly chat with some other mums and felt human. It was the one thing I made myself do each week and I felt so much better for it. Other days If I got dressed before lunch it was an achievement but I always made sure I attended sensory class.

If DS drained his bottle consistently for a day or two every feed, I would up his oz's. It took me a few weeks to realise this though and only after speaking to my mum/other mum friends. Poor bugger must have thought he was on a diet sometimes lol

Don't sweat the small stuff - if DS wanted to go to nursery in his wellies in July would it REALLY matter? No. It wouldn't. It would mean we got to nursery without an epic meltdown and nursery were happy to change him into sandals once he was there. Pick your battles - I still do now

Double layering bed is genius and DH and I have done this for a while now - makes changing wet sheets in the middle of the night sooo much easier - and actually on a couple of occasions DS has just done it himself. Though now I come to think of it - we haven't had to wash wet sheets for a few days (bad mummy for not realizing). Go DS!!!

My lightbulb moment was when I realised that my son wouldn’t do x y z if I chilled out / set firm boundaries / listened to other people’s lightbulb moments.

Because actually my son was on the spectrum, and that was that, despite other people’s opinions on what they saw in the car park when he was having a ‘tantrum’ or crying hysterically in the museum at the sound and light display.

My mum told me you dont have to wake babies up to feed them every 4 hours, just let them sleep and they wake themselves when they're hungry. My babies got a good sleep and I got extra hours of 'me time'. (I couldnt do this with DD2 straight away tho because she was too premature and just wouldn't wake to feed)

When DD was 5 months old she would fall asleep easier with a pillow, but I had to sit and wait for her to fall asleep so I could remove the pillow for her safety. After doing this for a few months I googled the reason why you shouldn't give babies pillows and it said because the pillow can end up in top of their face and they could suffocate. So I made her bed with the pillow under the mattress protector and sheet. Problem solved. She's now 15 months and still sleeps better with it than without.

This thread is brilliant

For the first few weeks with our 1st dc we tried the dream feeding every 4 hours thing. It just resulted in him properly waking up and then staying that way for hours. My mum asked, when I complained about not getting enough sleep, why would I wake a sleeping baby? He's not going to sleep properly if I keep waking him up. If he hungry, he'll make it clear. I stopped the "dream feed" thing and he slept through from 7 - 7 at 6 weeks old.

Shame he doesn't sleep like that any more - it's like he's motorised and can't switch off now and is awake until 11 most nights. At least he's quiet though!

That socks made great scratch mittens. Pulled up to the elbows with enough wiggle room for fingers, he couldn't fling them off.

That on preparing any kind of food for yourself, you should cut it up into small pieces straight away, so that they can be stabbed with a fork and eaten one handed. Then if baby wakes and is crying for comfort, you can have them in one arm and carry on eating with the other.

That and making yourself a packed lunch for the next day so you have something ready.

Food and being fussy.....he used to hate veg and I used to sit there getting in such a tiz, veins pulsating with stress when he was eating, begging him to eat say five more peas. Then one day I was like wtf am I doing, is another 5 peas really going to make a difference. I learned from that day to pick my battles and life became so much easier.

Mine was about 6 weeks in. Bumped into a mature work colleague and she said "You know the baby books? Well the baby hasn't read them".

Blackout curtains.

They stopped my DS/DDs 5am wake ups in the summer!
The sun coming up at 5am meant mine just wanted to be awake and play.
If a baby is hungry/wet/unhappy they will wake you regardless of light/dark.

Similar to NbyNW, my HV said to me “Nobody has written a book about you and your baby”.

Another one. I was gutted and sealed with guilt for bottle feeding my baby from 7 days old. About a month later we had an NCT reunion, where I was desperate for the NCT course leader not to find out. She did, and her reaction was “there are many ways to nurture a child, how you feed them for their first six months is only one of them”.

Mine wasn't something tangible really, but more of a realisation that when a crappy phase ended it probably wasn't because I had fixed the baby...it was just that he'd developed out of that phase and was starting another

This, exactly. I also found it liberating to realise that whatever thing I was worried about now would have been entirely forgotten in a few weeks, and something else concerning would be happening.

The lady in Marks and Spencers asked me if I was ok during a general chit chat when he was three weeks old. She said sometimes it hits you later on. I thought that if I'd got through the first few weeks ok and didn't feel depressed or sad then that was the adjustment sorted. She was so right, I found week five such a shock, suddenly I was so upset about how my life had changed. A few little breaks and some decent sleep and I and came out the other side fine.

YY to cutting your food up in case the baby wakes. Sometimes I have a cold picnic lunch just so it won't go cold and I can come back to it anytime.

If he cries in the car sometimes it's just better to push on and get home quickly than stop and prolong the upset.

He is happiest at home, I've taken him to classes and tbh they're just for me. He seems to find them overwhelming or sleeps through.