AIBU to think that every new/first time parent struggles or did we just not cope very well?

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Do we all struggle?! Or just me?! My friend had a baby boy 4weeks ago, first child and has literally just seemed to carry on (other than the first few days) and seems fine. We are close so it's not like the fine from a distance type of thing. Had an instrumental/difficult birth/stitches and has started excercising today, lucky in that baby breastfeeding without any problems, doesn't seem phased by it all. I feel like I was a total mess at 4weeks post birth that's pelvic floor couldn't hold up to excercise and that was with a no intervention/vaginal delivery. Was just getting over the shock of having a baby and the whole thing was surreal! Now I'm feeling like a complete inadequate weak flake who just made a mountain out of a molehill!!AIBU?!

@londonrach I agree . I found the baby stage a breeze. I look back at it my happy young.But my god I am finding the toddler/preschool phase tough. Dd was a dream baby but she is a strong willed defiant 4 year old who Tests me every day.

My ds1 is 2.7 now and I’m still a little envious of people who find it so easy with their first.

I was an absolute mess. Birth injuries, couldn’t breastfeed, ptsd from the delivery and horrendous anxiety. Colicky baby. I spend his first 3 months in tears pretty much all day every day.

On the flip side I expected having ds2 would be much worse than it was as that was my only experience of having a new baby and it was great. He fitted right in, ds1 took to him straight away, he was a lovely, happy baby and we were all good from the start.

I struggled massively

I had a Velcro baby and found it so hard that my time wasn’t my own. I was very overwhelmed and felt like a massive failure

But with dc2 I felt like the missing piece of the puzzle had arrived, everything made sense.
I remember getting out my make up bag that i hasn’t used for 2.5 years and just sort of stepping back into myself.

I have no idea why, but that’s how it was.

When dd1 was born anyone outside my immediate family thought I had it all sorted. I was 20, single parent living with my parents but that aside I looked like I was coping brilliantly. I was at a post natal Pilates class when dd1 was just 10 days old, breastfeeding was easy peasy (I really didn't know how lucky I was with that, dd seemed to just know what to do without me being to do much about it), I was out and about all the time at baby groups etc. I even went back to running rainbows and did a computing course when she was about 6 weeks old. What nobody else knew was that dd was actually satanic in those first few weeks/months. The reason I was out and about was because the only times she stopped crying was either being fed or moving in the pram our carseat. I was surviving on very, very little sleep (single parent, living with my parents but I could hardly wake them up in the middle of the night as they were still working). I seriously considered throwing dd out the window as that would make the crying stop (my dad took over that night, at 3am and he walked round and round the house with her for a couple of hours).

So from the outside I was coping wonderfully, from the inside I was a wreck! It got easier as she grew a bit and I could put her down a bit more often. Starting solids made a huge difference as well, as she cried less (I think she had reflux but as a young first time mum I had no idea about that at the time).

Other friends say the really truly did cope with the newborn stage (and having had dd2 who was much more settled I believe them) but then struggled with toddler years (my dd1 was a lovely toddler, very calm and settled). I think most of us struggle but when and how we struggle differs.

All babies are different. Honestly. My first had colic, barely slept for more than 3hrs at a time for a year, it was a nightmare. I thought ‘well another couldn’t be any worse’ and had my second. Totally different ballgame - fed perfectly, barely cried, slept through the night within approx 6-8 weeks (absolutely no input from me, she just did it one night and that was that!). Even with my eldest turning 2 just after my second was born it was so much easier - she was just an easy baby.

@Areallthegoodnamesgone this was totally me, just thought this is how it is with a newborn!! This thread is interestingly showing it isn't always! But when you've never done it before you don't know that

I think different people struggle with different things. I struggled with the newborn phase with both of mine. I can’t cope with sleep deprivation and the lack of stimulation. With my first I was sore and broken. I remember being shocked that I had dragged myself to some sort of baby group when mine was 4 weeks old looking like shite and feeling stressed and a lady floated in with a 2 day old baby looking like she’d just been on a holiday rather than in labour. I saw her in a different class some months later and she struggled much more then.

Some people gush over tiny babies and the cuddles etc. I much prefer older babies. My second is coming up for 9 months and although she is trouble, I enjoy my days much more. My mum for example is brilliant with 2-4 year olds but a bit shit with teenagers.

I struggled massively and was diagnosed with pnd, with ds. But to the outside world I was super organised, totally had my shit together, and loved being a mummy. (For some reason the word mummy still sets my teeth on edge). In hindsight the pressure i put on myself to appear fine was both a symptom of and contributor to my pnd. No one except dh would have known i was struggling though. I told my sister not long ago and she was shocked.

The positive news is that j now have 9 week old dd, and it's been so much easier this time round, largely because I've stopped giving a fuck, and am now much more honest with people about how things are going.

I probably looked ok from the outside - was out every day with baby, back in my jeans after a month, coped on my own for weeks with OH away - but I was struggling with not BF and had some fairly rubbish birth injuries. I'd admit it all if asked though - I'm a bit older than most of my new mum pals so probably a bit more confident in going "well this is shit isn't it?!"

I found have a baby just slotted into our life. For both Ds1 and Ds2. It's now they are older I find it more demanding. One hates school so it's tears, crying, anxiety every day, also has SEN so struggles with friendships etc. My older boy is hitting pre teens and starting to back cheek. Give me my newborn and toddler stage any day

I found the baby care part much much easier than expected. I'd never cared for a baby before, never even changed a nappy.
Pre birth I was very organised, everything washed and nursery set up, freezer full of food, tidy house etc.
But DD was born with a serious physical disability missed on scans so my brain went into worrying about that.
I think I just got on with baby care and didn't have brain space to worry about smaller stuff. Without that I think I'd have stressed more and probably DD would have been less relaxed picking up on it.
She ended up bottle fed (after being tube fed in hospital) and pre birth I'd have been horrified but had much bigger stuff to worry about than breast v bottle.

I was a self-employed single parent and with both my DCs was working again within a week, working from home with the baby there, almost no family support. I could never work out why married women with helpful husbands and helpful parents living nearby and year long maternity leave made such a fuss about how hard it all was. It was very draining, but no mental health issues. I enjoyed the babies.

I took DD1 to a play gym thing when dd2 was a baby. I felt an absolute mess and had reached the stage where we absolutely had to get out the house right now.
I was wondering around behind dd1 feeding dd2 and another mum looked at me and said 'gosh you make it look so easy with 2'
Looking back i can see why she thought that but my head was an absolute mess. I wasn't really hiding how I felt, obviously just looked good in the moment.
The point is, everyone feels envy and also feels like shit at times. You can't compare yourself to others
Some babies are monsters and others are a dream so comparison doesn't work.

@Torchlightt were both your babies reletivey settled?
My gut reaction is to think woahhh well done you but then the other bit of me finds it abit sad and baffling!

It was a horrific, utterly life altering/shattering experience for us with first born. If we'd had our 2nd/3rd first, life would've been fucking EASY. SIL had an absolutely heavenly first baby - slept through text book style, easy, never cried etc. Thought it was because she was just an obviously amazing parent and we were obviously "doing everythingwrong". Then her second came along...bam. yeah. Kid never slept. Would wake multiple times until about 3 years old. Etc. She never again got smug. It CAN be easy. But it can also be horrifically difficult and you can NEVER know what type of human you'll be getting.

Horrendous pregnancy, spent most of it in hospital and DS was born premature. To be honest, once he finally got home there was nothing that could compare to how bad the preceding few months had been.

He didn’t sleep, he had a tongue tie, and he was a Velcro baby, but I just spent the first ten weeks or so stumbling around feeling grateful he wasn’t dead (not suggesting anyone else should feel grateful for that, just that we’d already been through the mill so the actual reality of a newborn was a bloody cakewalk by comparison).

Still doesn’t sleep through, and he is almost 3.

I was a self-employed single parent and with both my DCs was working again within a week, working from home with the baby there, almost no family support. I could never work out why married women with helpful husbands and helpful parents living nearby and year long maternity leave made such a fuss about how hard it all was. It was very draining, but no mental health issues. I enjoyed the babies

You got very lucky with such "good" babies. Not everyone does.

Found out about my son on the Friday and following Wednesday I was on 12 months leave from a job I loved. I was NOT ready and had nothing for him, no natural bond.It was like somebody handed me a baby and said crack on. No immediate family close by. I had tofind my iwn way. Definitely could not do it again but absolutely adore him now. Im a better toddler parent than baby parent. We are al different.

I think it’s easy to look at somebody else and think that. I was a complete mess with both of my children, I had concerned healthcare professionals asking “Is it your first?” while I was sobbing at them, but it wasn’t! I was somehow still shocked by the reality and responsibility of a baby. I doubt anybody who wasn’t close to me would have known how much I was struggling.

I remember having a bit of a go at my husband over not being very verbally supportive or being as much of a cheerleader as I wanted. I rarely go on Facebook but I stupidly decided to go on there and compare myself to another new parent whilst already feeling rubbish. Her partner had written a gushing post about how amazing she was and they had photos where they looked like they had everything sorted, days out, social life, funny captions etc. I felt quite inadequate because I hadn’t left the sofa for six weeks and told my husband I wished he was more supportive like her partner. I met up with her a few months later and she told me that they had split up because her partner had been sleeping with random women throughout her pregnancy, was an alcoholic and had expected her to do everything around the house while looking after their baby and recovering from a c-section. She suffered a particularly bad bereavement during her pregnancy and he complained that she “hadn’t exactly been fun to be around” to justify cheating on her. I was absolutely gob smacked. It just showed me that i shouldn’t make assumptions about somebody else’s life and also that I seriously misjudged her partner.

My newborn was an absolute dream, fed like a champ, hardly cried. It was amazing, I had a shower everyday, they found watching me do my make up hilarious. I'd never looked better or felt more accomplished. We really did count our blessings and tried not to take anything for granted.

Our child then missed every single milestone and we embarked on a long and quite lonely journey to figure out what was going on. They are still a joy and I wonder everyday how we managed to be so lucky but geewhizz it is hard going to be more uncertain of what the future holds than the average parent, to deal with everyone's expectation of your child and you as a parent and the continual judgement of a what seems to be a normal child behaving badly. Every day I feel like a failure and woefully inadequate, as if there is more we should be doing.

We genuinely did find him easy but I know lots of mums that were running themselves ragged trying to keep up appearances, to look like everything was great, to be perfect for Facebook and Instagram and despite the big smiles were quite miserable.

Parenting is tough, you think you have it sorted and your child changes the rules, the goal posts move. You have to be kind to yourself. Comparison really is the thief of joy.

Depends on the baby. If you have an easy baby, that breastfeeds well and sleeps well you will find it easy. It actually is pretty easy. I had one of each. My daughters an absolute nightmare who cried all day and night (no exaggeration) for 8 months. I nearly ended up in a psych ward. She had a couple of quite major undiagnosed health issues that once were treated she was a dream. It was honestly the worst time of my life.

In answer to the comments, they were both happy babies. But baby 1 barely slept, even as a newborn, and it was very tough keeping the business going for 3 months before she could start nursery. Then when dd2 arrived, dd1 took it badly and became a very difficult toddler. I worked with baby 2 at home for 4 months before she could start nursery.

I had this with my first. He was a very sleepy baby, very placid, smiled at everyone and was happy to go anywhere, anytime.

My second is savage.

I think I was on a high that lasted at least a year. I found having a newborn an utter joy. Breastfeeding was easy. Being off work was wonderful. Making new friends was a joy. I found it hard to identify when people kept telling me it was a whirlwind and so hard.
However, the birth was awful and took a long time to recover from. And the sleep deprivation was tough.
But I knew I was lucky because my baby was so easy, never cried and reached all milestones early. He was so happy and friendly. I adored my maternity leave.
Now, nearly 6 years later, I have 3. My youngest is nearly 2. It is much more difficult juggling daily life with 3 small children. But as babies they were all easy, and I honestly found that first year of motherhood pure bliss.

There is no normal. Each pregnancy, birth as baby is different. As others have said it depends so much on so many different factors. People just go with what they've been given. Some babies sleep through the night. Some babies take to breastfeeding like a duck to water. Some people don't get PND. Some people have lovely supportive partners and close family. It's all individual to that family.