AIBU to ask the best things about having a baby in lockdown

[RobynNora]

This is inspired by yesterday’s newborn threads, which caused me to reflect on what a weird time in history I ended up having a baby! I find it fascinating and would love to hear from others

I hated having our first baby in lockdown last year for all the obvious reasons (partner not around for much of birth, nobody met baby for well over a month, no health visitor, no support, pandemic anxiety and stressful pregnancy, no NCT, extreme isolation when too cold to meet for walks, Christmas as a couple alone with new baby was stressful, solo masked scans, nhs chaos etc) I moaned quite a bit!

But with time my perspective changed and I think I’m glad we had a lockdown baby. Best things for me are:

• my partner is very close to our baby thanks to WFH and has spent so much more time with them - including many hours in the morning, coffee breaks and lunchtimes (we’re lucky to be remote) I can sleep in until 9am if I want to

• because we’re alone without mums helping out and sweeping away baby, we’re figuring it all out together and beginning the parenting journey on a more equal and so less gender stereotyped footing. My partner is really confident in a way I don’t think he would be if we had lots of other women helping

• a no-pressure fourth trimester. Sure, we had no help, but also no social obligations. So we got to hang out with baby intensely

• no anxiety over milestones or competitive parenting in the early months because we weren’t seeing anyone else

• my poxy statutory mat leave felt like loads because we had nothing to spend it on

• easy to create routines with baby because there was nothing else going on

Just wondering what other benefits you’ve noticed?

Just time to sit and be calm with a newborn (and the homeschool kids were pretty good entertainment as the littlest got bigger too!) and time to be out in the fresh air enjoying life as best we can.

I only had to see my mother a handful of times!

@EishetChayil 😂😂

@RhodaDendron

I had my third a few months before the first lockdown and I think she’s by far my happiest baby, not to mention fattest! I was amazed how much being at home all the time helped breastfeeding and I now feel quite guilty for all the times I dragged my older ones out and about when they possibly would have been happier spending just a bit more time at home!

Same here!! My third baby and she's been the happiest and most easy going one of the three, I'm convinced it's because she's grown up really secure having her whole family around the whole time. Although maybe that's just her personality!

Locked down baby, June 2020. I agree with what everyones said. When I think back to when DS was a newborn, I truly feel like the 3 of us were on our own planet. There was nothing beyond the walls of our home. At times it felt really lonely and scary, but looking back at it, it was cozy and a totally unique lovely time that we shared together.

My husband is very close to my son. DS was born last summer, DH only went to work for 6 weeks October / November between lockdowns. Apart from that, he's been at home be entire time. Son spends the whole day with dad perfectly happy (apart from going to sleep at night time...that still has to me 😅).

And I didn't have to deal with so many breastfeeding, bed sharing and "you hold your baby too much" comments. I live abroad and my family are usually very supportive but in the early days I had comments thrown at me and really upset me. Although it's incredibly sad they haven't seen my son grow up the last year, it's been nice not having to defend my parenting choices or fight them off with their unsolicited advice. It's easier to end a phone call 🤣

@Fernando072020 nice to be able to get on with judgement-free parenting just the way you like it!

DH having loads of time with DD and being able to help me loads.

Family being around loads due to working from home so less time spent alone in early days (close family only - covid bubble)

Walks! Really got me back into walking and my legs have toned up loads

No strangers wanting to approach and touch my bump or my baby !

When restaurants opened I loved booking and having table service instead! Much neater and no people sat elbow to elbow

No expectation to do tons of baby classes which was fantastic as DD breastfed so much up until 6/7 months! I've only just got her to 5 feeds a day at 11 months!

No random advice from annoying strangers

Not having tons of visitors descending on us in the early days.

This is a helpful thread. April 2020 baby and I was so sad about having spent the best part of his first year locked away, not having shared him with friends and family when he was tiny etc., I’ve found it hard to see positives as I really struggled with PNA and PND and I blamed the pandemic in part for this - couldn’t talk to any one in person about my issues, and I didn’t have other inputs to distract from the hard times.

However there were huge positives. I loved walking in the countryside with him in the sling hearing only the birds, feeling his heart against mine.

I loved that all of his first meals (indeed for nearly 7 months) were at home in an environment where I felt in control and didn’t need to worry about the mess.

I loved that on the occasions we did go out of the house to an outdoor activity like a botanical garden it felt incredibly exciting, almost elicit. Trees that autumn seemed to have an extra deep colouring and I loved sharing that with him.

We were lucky to be living with my parents for his first year and so we had Christmas at home with DH, LO, and my DM and DF - was actually lovely and LO made it really special. lack of others meant it was very low stress for LO (usually were 14+ for Xmas and it is rounds and rounds of visitors over the week between Xmas and NYD)

The relationship I share with my son is incredibly intense.

Finally lockdown actually made me grateful for work! I didn’t have the most amazing year off on maternity leave - it was isolating and mentally really tough. Going back to work in an office (where the pace has slowed due to WFH adjustment) has actually been great.

Phew - long post - therapeutic!

Mine was born immediately before lockdown so my midwife appointments weren't affected and DH was able to attend the birth.

I would say my 3 year old has a really nice bond with her sister which may be due to spending lots of time with her as a baby.

Husband working from home was handy, broke up with day for older one when he came down for lunch etc. He was also furloughed for the first 5 weeks so got a sort of extended paternity leave.

I think it was easier to establish breastfeeding and I got to enjoy the short lived newborn cuddles just sitting around, rather than rushing here and there.

Oh and 100% the best thing was being able to form a support bubble with my parents and brother in December. If we didn't have the baby we wouldn't have been entitled to that

Nope. Nothing here..... all those benefits you mention I didn't have them.

It wasn't that dissimilar from having a pre pandemic baby apart from having to be outside all the bloody time.

It's been lovely to have DH home so much - he worked away a lot and I'd do weeks by myself but it's been great to see the bond between him and the kids.

My boy was born April 2020 and I hated it, I ended up with emcs as my waters broke before my planned section, all I wanted was my parents and my best friend to be able to visit me and hold him while I got a wash or a nap. My husband went back to work after a week and a half as he's self employed and had to! Breastfeeding was such a hard slog despite it being easy with my older 2, I spent a fortune on a set of scales as he lost over 10% of his body weight to begin with and took weeks to regain it, no baby clinics didn't help my anxiety over it. Turned out he wasn't gaining weight well as he had cmpa which we found out at 6 months, having read up on it all when he was diagnosed I recognised so many symptoms from the last 6 months that I felt had I been able to see a health visitor regularly I could have discussed it and he could have been diagnosed earlier, plus I may have been able to continue bf, I stopped as I was so exhausted and stressed with him constantly feeding/not gaining weight. I also had 2 secondary school children who were home schooling and struggling with not being able to see their friends and being stuck in.
We went to a swim class for the first time yesterday and he's 15 months, finally felt normal! We are going to a play session next week too hopefully, I've decided we need to just live now.

I’ve so enjoyed reading these and agree it’s quite therapeutic! So sorry to hear of the negative experiences though - there’s no detracting from the fact it was an incredibly difficult time.

I’ve just thought of another positive in that having a baby felt like a joyful and hopeful thing to bring to people in an otherwise terrible time. It’s also lovely to now see my baby interact with old ladies etc in shops and I hope I’ll never take that human interaction for granted!