If you had a lockdown baby/mat leave…

[Wouldloveanother]

Can I ask how you feel about it now? Looking back? Do you feel resentful?

My last maternity leave was a shit show, mostly due to covid lockdowns and the fact I lived in a gardenless flat. Just got my BFP for DC2 and so hoping that (all being well) it will be different this time. But it makes me feel sad that I didn’t get that lovely year with my amazing DD that I desperately wanted 😔I don’t mean that to sound ungrateful, and I don’t dwell on it too much, I guess thinking to next time is bringing up old memories.

My daughter has never been seen by a health visitor, she is 21 months now. There were no routine weighings and everything had to be by appt only, my calls for an appt were never returned. I assume that as I was a 2nd time mum and a bit older than average that they assumed I didn't need anything. I'm quite cross about it really

I can totally relate to this as I have been to many an appointment since in the hospital where I gave birth in December 2020 and I’ve had quite a few pangs of emotion come back to me…. small things such as the little charity stall that knits newborn hats, cardigans etc being open (nowhere was open during any of my appointments or time in hospital after giving birth) have set me off and seeing partners sitting in waiting rooms with their pregnant ladies has made me feel upset.
I think you’re right not to dwell on it, I try not to hold any anger or annoyance towards that time period as our little boy has brought so much joy.
try to enjoy the different journey and I hope it will make it even more special for you 💛

DS was a couple of months when lockdown hit. It was a shame that his grandparents missed out on some time with him but my DH WFH throughout and it was so special for him to be able to have more time with our baby than he would if he was out at work every day.

My baby was in lockdown. I am more resentful that grandparents etc didn't get to have that initial bond with her, although luckily they have made up for it now. My little girl is so shy of anyone she doesn't know extremely well and I think it's down to lockdowns.
However I made the best of the mat leave, joined loads of groups to meet other mums to chat and once allowed we went for walks/picnics, I did online baby classes to give the day some structure soon as restrictions eased joined baby groups, I have alot of mum friends now but it took extra effort to find the first ones online.
I am having another baby now and it's brought back the sad feelings about family missing out on her when she was small. This time will be so different and will actually be able to have help from family!

I absolutely loved having my baby and mat leave in lockdown period- but she is my 4th.

I don't have "mum friends" and no intentions of making any anyway so certainly didn't feel like I personally missed out, and she hasn't either- shes always been confident around people, and especially other children. We followed all the rules and I feel a little sad that family/friends didn't get to cuddle her for over a year, but we have made up for it now. The only thing that still utterly pisses me off was the lack of health support which would have meant the issues she had as a newborn would have been picked up much sooner.

Pandemic meant that we had that precious time peacefully undisturbed as a family; with my others it seemed we never had any time together that was just us. There was always somewhere to be, or someone at the door!

I do feel for anyone who had their first baby in that time.

Slightly different but I went back to work Feb 2020 and got furloughed 6 weeks later until the august when I was made redundant so I was super lucky in the sense that it felt like I got an extended mat leave with much better pay. The first lockdown felt like a huge holiday to me.

I had a miscarriage in the second lockdown which was really hard as I didn't get any support and couldn't have DP attend any appointments with me.

I had my second DD just after all the hospital restrictions for birthing partners etc were lifted so fell really lucky but I feel really resentful re: antenatal care.

It's difficult sometimes but mostly I'm not resentful.

DS was born in May 2020. As a FTM it was hard. Breastfeeding didn't work out for us and it was impossible to get face to face help which impacted my MH. But DH was furloughed and then WFH so he saw so much more of DS than pre covid times. Luckily my NCT group was good at keeping up our WhatsApp group for some interaction. It was my SIL that said to me that DS didn't need anyone else and what a great year he must of had with so much 1 on 1 time with me and DH put a different spin on it for me. I was fortunate that we had no serious illnesses/concerns etc with either me or DS so while it was boring at times I do look back fondly!

DD was born Aug 2021 so people got to meet her and we have done classes etc and it has been fab. But sometimes I do miss the zero pressure mat leave I had with DS.

It did take a long time to conceive DS so I was just so thankful he was here despite everything that was going on.

I had my baby at 25 weeks in 2021 and he was in NICU for 4 months. It was an hour away from home so I stayed there at the Ronald Mcdonald.

My husband stayed at home for work. No grandparents could come and visit DS or me at all, I couldn't have visitors at the Ronald Mcdonald until the last few weeks.

My husband visited daily but due to traffic and work sometimes this would only be for 45 mins at a time. I didn't really see anyone other than DS, DH and hospital staff. I saw my parents twice and a friend once when they came up to the local city for a sandwich in the park.

I feel resentful that I had to be so incredibly lonely in such a stressful situation, and that 4 months of my mat leave were wasted. DS had surgery at 2 days old and my mum just wanted to come and cuddle me but she couldn't, and I had to tell her everything was okay because she couldn't deal with it not being okay.

It was pretty rubbish, not sure resentful is the word I'd use to describe though. I really didn't enjoy it.

I'm currently pregnant with #2 and unsure how long to take off as I didn't enjoy the first one and was keen to go back to work.
But that may have just been the circumstances!

That does sound exceptionally awful @loopylum

I found the uncertainty and lack of control hardest. Mine was due a couple of days after lockdown 1 started and slightly late so we still didn't have any idea what was going on other than loads of people were dying. I was high risk so in hospitals a lot and it was terrifying, I remember one woman just sat there sobbing and we were all too scared to go over and comfort her.

If I'm honest with myself, it took me a long time and therapy to stop having what I think were panic attacks whenever I thought about walking into hospital by myself in labour with no one around to help me. Maternity leave was an improvement but the effect on my mental health that start had made it much harder than it should have been and both myself and my husband ended up having therapy to deal with the issues I think it triggered.

That's so sad, I hope everyone is thriving now?

DS is amazing and we are working through the trauma of his time in NICU, thank you

It’s actually not the impact on mat leave itself that i get annoyed about, but the knock in impact it’s had on the kids, family life and my career.

DC were 3 and 3 months when we went into the first lockdown. It has a much bigger impact on my 3 year old at the time, plus into a disrupted first year at school.

My youngest is still incredibly clingy. It was well over a year before I missed a bed time. And when I “went back to work” I was still able to feed them before naps as I was at home. It was over 18 months before I had a night out as they refused a bottle (I’m convinced this was because I didn’t persevere because I couldn’t go out anyway).

My eldest, now 6 gets upset when I go to the office. They got so used to me and OH being around all the time.

And it’s pretty much fucked my career. Couldn’t use KIP days and even joining virtual team meetings didn’t work with a pre schooler no longer at nursery, felt totally disconnected and like the whole world of work had changed when I went back (what the fuck is Teams?). It’s hard enough returning to an actual office in my line of work, but it took months for many people to even realise I was back this time.

I had a lockdown baby and honestly I don't have any bad feelings about it. He was born in October 2020 so lots of mat leave was taken up by stupid bloody lockdowns but we still met people in the second half.

I had mine around the same time, wasn't amazing but I was just grateful I didn't have her in the height of lockdown as it was more chilled by Nov. Still sucks tho

I am resentful that I was able to meet a relative in the park and stay 2 meters away from each other yet they all had a party in downing street the same day. That made me so so angry.

I was resentful at the time but have made my peace with it now, it's just a story I can tell DD2 one day

I had my first in may 2020 and currently 6 weeks pregnant with my second. It's brought up all the emotions for me again. Espec the bitterness over the fact my husband couldn't be there until I was in established labour (was induced and ignored until I begged to be examined and was found to be 9cm) but he could go to the pub with 6 mates. Fucking bonkers

Not sure it will be quite the same with a second as I'll have a crazy toddler in the mix!

I've had 2 'covid babies'. My first in June 2020 at the height of the first lockdown and my second in March this year (although no lockdown, things are def still effected by covid).

I didn't resenting at all. In fact, aside from the fear of my baby catching covid and my DH not being able to stay with me in hospital, I feel grateful for it.

Thanks to lockdown, my DH was able to work from home and spend loads of time with me and DS. I had loads of practical help from him and he had a great opportunity to bond with our son.

He's still WFH now that DS2 is here and is just as hands on and helpful even throughout the day. I couldn't imagine looking after 2 really young DC alone everyday or DH not spending as much time with the kids as he does.

I'm not the mother and baby group type though and would never have attended any of those classes even if they were available. I'd probably feel different if I'd had my heart set on taking my babies to sensory classes and making mum friends.

I had DS1 in December 2019, so he was 3 months old at the start of the first lockdown.

At the time I dealt with it by (almost manically) trying to see the advantages of having a lockdown mat leave. My DH was furloughed so that meant our baby got a lot of uninterrupted attention from both his parents, and I do believe that for a baby under 12 months or so that's much more important than seeing other babies. I breastfed exclusively until 6 months, because there wasn't much else to do. We got into a nice routine of taking DS1 for lovely woodland walks in the sling every day in the early morning when it was quiet and generally he had a very nice, gentle first year.

I felt grateful to have something to focus on during 2020, and a way of convincing myself that lockdown could be a positive (because of these benefits to DS1). And now at 2 and a half he is a sociable little chap and settled into nursery really easily this year - even if one of his first words was "Mask". I think if we went into lockdown now it would be much harder on him than it was as a baby as socialising is becoming important to him, and the playgrounds being taped off would make him howl now.

I do remember crying in the shower though, because I was so tired and worried and the baby groups I had been looking forward to were cancelled.

I now have DS2 who is the same age now as DS1 was when the first lockdown was announced. I have to say that mat leave has been a joy so far. It's great to be able to take the baby out to meet people and to just sit in a cafe with a coffee with him in the pram, especially after a rough night.

We're in the throes of 4 month sleep regression now but I'm so much less stressed about it this time, I think because normal life is carrying on and it's easier to keep a sense of perspective. I'm still breastfeeding but have introduced a bottle of formula a day to give myself a break and I feel really relaxed and positive about that, whereas with DS1 I got a bit obsessive.

So overall - I don't think lockdown was necessarily bad for babies. But it was fucking hard work for their parents.

💕 ❤️

I had lockdown twins - DH didn't make conception (IVF) or the birth due to covid restrictions.....My twins didn't meet their sibling for 3 weeks as they were in NICU with lots of restrictions. Am I resentful.....not at all. I watched 24 hours of dozens of queuing ambulances when deaths were over 1000 per day.

My pregnancy was made a LOT easier due to WFH directive and pregnant women being told to stay at home from 28 weeks.

I didn't miss taking them to baby clubs. It's not the Be all and end all of maternity leave

I had a lockdown baby.
Positives: private room instead of busy ward after the birth and no pressure to have visitors straight after the birth. Negatives: probably post natal care and support was lacking but professionals were trying their best and relatives couldn't meet our baby for a while. Maybe a lot of people feel their post natal care wasn't good enough before lockdown.

I think in the grand scheme of things lots of people fared far worse. You need to have a sense of perspective. The whole of the uk was in lockdown and some people may have had a really bad time. I mean this nicely though, what's the point in feeling resentful, its not going to change anything.

No one goes through life without experiencing some hardship and to expect to do so is setting yourself up for a massive disappointment.

I had my 4th child in the summer of 2020.

Honestly couldn't have cared less about the general social restrictions.

I cared that we spent 3months in hospital though. Well she did. That was shit.
And that my other children couldn't visit her. That effectively her own siblings or grandparents couldn't see her for 3 months.

And that it was such a faff between me and my husband swapping without being together at the same time. That on day 1 of her life they took her to the specialist hospital in a ambulance that "due to COVID rules" couldn't take me as well.

That I had to be in the hospital on my own without my husband in those initial shitty hours (after the birth, she was born at home, that part was fine).

That was pretty crap.
The baby group, going to the park/coffee house to meet other mums etc no i didn't care but then I never really cared for it before.