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!

That cosleeping was ok! Feels silly now to say because I see it as the most natural thing in the world to sleep next to my baby, but the second night of his life I couldn’t bear repeating the first night of him waking and crying EVERY TIME I put him down and me being so exhausted I was going to fall asleep holding him anyway. Now I just never want him to leave the bed 😬😬😬

With dd1 I remember being in a panic because she overslept and was likely to skip a feed. I said this to dp and he simply said 'has she ever skipped a feed?
No she certainly hadn't 😆

When nursery suggested crocs or jelly shoes for potty training (DC2) because they can just be rinsed and dried after an accident.

Myalinsnacan make a decent emergency nappy if a poonami occurs

Choose the cheapest formula milk because they all have strict guidelines anyway

Kids don't really get toilet trained, they have to sort it themselves

Lol that should be Muslins make a decent nappy 😝

In the very early weeks just after DH went back to work after paternity leave it was: 'I just need to respond to DS's needs i.e. feed him, let him sleep and change his nappy'.
I was driving myself mad in circles asking DH what needed doing next (PTSD following traumatic birth so couldn't made decisions myself and too shell-shocked). I remember the relief I felt. I thought, actually I can do those things.

Very early days but the realisation when you have to start putting them down to sleep instead of them just falling asleep wherever they are in the first couple of weeks! I missed so many sleep signals!

Also keeping an eye on how long they tended to be able stay awake for putting them down to sleep after that.

That she's not always ratty and grizzly because she's tired; she's bored and needs/likes fresh air, not the same-old sitting room day after day. I'd read all the "baby groups are bullshit, stay in and binge-watch Netflix" stuff but had forgotten that not everything applies to every baby. (I still don't go to baby groups. But we love a trip to the supermarket or a ride on the bus!)

Oh and very young babies can get overtired. For some reason I only thought this applied to older babies and toddlers. Nope!

To pull out the frills around the legs

Say what now?! 😂 well this is my lightbulb moment... two DCs and many leaks later I never even thought to do this

That small babies are simple creatures.

When DS was tiny DH and I would repeat like a mantra the 3 things that would make him cry:

1. Hunger
2. Wet nappy
3. Gas

We KNEW this off by heart but it was incredible how many times at 4am we’d be freaking out about DS’s crying, saying ‘What could possibly be wrong? Do you think it’s xyz?’ In the early months it was ALWAYS one of those three things.

Luckily the midwife told us about the frills whe dd1 was born!

Mine have both been recent - it doesn't matter when having a really bad day if toddlers eat a sandwich/cheese on toast for lunch whilst watching Cbeebies. By the time they've eaten that and I've eaten my lunch, had a cup of tea and tidied up we all feel a while lit happier.

The other was last week when I took 2 yr old dd to the dentist and he said her molars are coming through. Ah so that's why she's started waking up in the night again! It had never occurred to me that she would still be teething at 2 and a half!

I sort of have the same realisation this week SnugglySnerd. DS has been waking in the night again, couldn't figure out why as he has all his teeth.
Took him to the dentist this week who said his back molars hadn't completely come through. I just assumed as soon as they appeared it would be done. But that's not true. He's still teething as they are slowly coming through.
At least that explains why he tried to bite my face the other night.

Oh, and a friend told me about the frills before DS was born thank god. She also told me if he got attached to a comfort object to buy multiple in case of accidents or if one gets lost.
We now have 3 comfort toys that get rotated round when one gets dirty, so they all look the same. DS currently can't tell the difference and we don't have a panic if one decides to go swimming in the water and sand table at nursery.

Mine was that it's perfectly fine to feed a 9 month old to sleep inbetween us and then all get a couple more hours kip. The baby at that size will not immediately suffocate, fly off the bed or explode.

Also, opposite to some other comments, it's fine if DS prefers mush on a spoon to spag bol chucked on the high chair. I don't really want him to eat with his fingers in the long run anyway.

These are great.
My baby days are well behind me, and there's probably not much I understood about any of if it. .BUT ..the thing about the nappy frills and the vest going down I just guessed straight away, it seemed obvs.
I'm shocked now that I knew something others didn't because I spent the first 6 months feeling like a fraud and like any minute some team of social workers was gonna burst in and remove the baby from my inept care!

That there's no point worrying about future challenges / phases etc because things will be so different when you get to them. I remember weeping when DD was around 3 months because I couldn't imagine being able to cope with preparing food on top of everything else. Of course by the time it came to weaning, everything else was much easier! From then on I refused to allow myself to ever worry about things that would happen in the future. We'll deal with them when they get there.

I had a similar experience with sleep. Spent hours rocking, pacing, bouncing, hushing to try and get DD over at night. One night the screaming got too much for me and I put her in her cot and left the room to take a breath and calm down. She stopped crying the instant the door closed and when I looked on the monitor she was asleep. The same happened the next night, and the next. So I started putting her in her cot wide awake and just saying goodnight and walking out. She self-settled pretty much every night from then on.

That small children will not starve. My daughter had no interest in food when little but at 9 will inhale the contents of the kitchen.

That comparison is largely a waste of time and what works for one family wont necessarily work for another. It never ceases to amaze me how judgemental people can be about 'well I never did that, baby just slept on the go because I wasnt prepared to change my routine'. Marvellous if your baby naps in a pram - some dont! Things like that can be really damaging to a new mother who is usually worried about doing it 'wrong'.

Feeding - DS and I share a bowl of porridge. No idea why it took me 5 months of weaning to work that out! Also let them eat in just a nappy outside if its warm - saves on clearing up!!

Leggings are great for boys, we find trousers get in the way for DS (because of his little stubby legs!)

To put a baby sleeping bag on a wriggler/ crawler/ runner: do up the poppers at the top then put it over their head and pull their arm through like a vest, then pick them up tick their legs in and zip up. We'd been struggling with laying out the bag and trying to make DS lie still while we zipped and did the poppers

I still need to learn that they won't starve, it's the one thing I do get anxious about.

I never knew about the body suit coming down until about 20 months And he was out of them a month later. This should be shouted from the rooftops to help in poonami situations.

I have learnt to just stop stressing about the next step...with anything, moving them into their own room, sleeping routine, eating solids, stopping milk, potty training, flying for the 1st time or changing routine for any reason.

I worried about all of it and he just took it all in his stride, I need to chill out more and only stress when the s*it actually happens' not months before

Tuck not tick!

My 1st post on the thread did have paragraphs but they seemed to have disappeared

You're a mother but you're still you.

You don't suddenly change personality, become an Earth Mother or some kind of perfect person.

You're still you!

That a baby boy will often wee when you take the nappy off but won’t if you keep the relevant part covered! Put a wipe or a Muslim over until the new nappy is on.

That cold wipes aren’t nice and stuffing a couple in your bra while you take off the nappy warms them up to just right.

Forgot they were there more than once though!

In the early years, the most helpful insight was that trying to continue our old lives wasn't going to make us happy (get up, have coffee reading the paper, read books, go to film etc). It was way nicer once we embraced having a baby and went with his flow - got up, put coffee in a flask, went out to the park or zoo or whatever with another family.

In the teen years the most important insight I had was when dd1 was going through some mh issues. I woke up one morning and said to dh "no-one cares as much about her as we do. everyone else- helpful as they are, sees her for 50 minutes and then goes back to their own lives and worries. We are the only ones who can see what really needs to be done" it was immensely helpful to how we acted after that.

My insight now my kids are older teens/young adults is that their relationship with each other is a lovely thing and it is nice sometimes to get up from the table and go into the other room and leave them talking/chatting/laughing with each other without us.