to think there's a lot drama and scaremongering around women coping as a new mum?

[imicayrp]

I am open to being put in my place and told I have an easy child (so far) but I was shocked by how much pressure, stress and fear was pumped into me before birth, to find that 6 months on, I’m fine and found this pretty simple from day one. Always had that elusive hot cup of tea, always had time to speak to friends and cook my dinner. I did this all without support from my partner who had an affair 8 weeks before our child was born. I know 6 months is nothing and I’m sure there’s hard time ahead but honestly it’s been absolutely NOWHERE near what is described in the media and among colleagues (and mumsnet!). Yes the nights initially were hard but you sleep the next day? It’s a short time. Yes it can be isolating on maternity leave but keep in touch with friends? Buy yourself something nice, watch a series. I don’t understand the huge pressure and drama before women give birth and actually see it as quite a sexist thing. Women can cope, actually. AIBU to have this mentality? Does anyone feel similar?

What nobody communicated to me at least, is that parenthood will trigger your own childhood/family trauma MASSIVELY. Especially if you’re a pretty together ‘just get on with it’ sort of person. Fucking kneecapped me, anyway.

But if you’re one of those lucky people who has had a lovely uncomplicated family and upbringing, well then of course you’ll just be able to deal with the practicalities and not find yourself sobbing ‘why wasn’t I good enough’ into your coffee etc etc.

Ahem.

sorry if you have had a hard time, but I really dont think there is any correlation between having a difficult childhood yourself, and enjoying parenthood. I did

YANBU. My best friend is heavily pregnant and she is really (understandably) fucked off with other people's negative view. Every single parent she know at work, in her circle of friends and her family has said something negative to her when she told them she's pregnant. She's married, in a very stable and well paid job, in a 3 bed house, she's obviously very ready.

Yet everyone keeps reminding her how she will never sleep again, will always be fat, how painful it's going to be, giving her gory details of their own childbirth or letting her know that for them having kids was the biggest mistake they have made.

It's like people now feel comfortable expressing themselves on the subject but have also removed any social filter they had and forget they have a real person in front of them who is just sharing some happy news. Keep your shit opinions to yourself unless asked!

I don't know why that's out of touch if it's someone's experience?

Reading this thread makes me feel guilty, actually, because I know I'd have hated OP if I'd read it when I was really struggling with DS1, who never slept. But with distance and with slightly older kids that I find easier than I feel is socially acceptable to admit, I realize how sad it is that OP is having to apologise and hold out hope to other posters that she might hate having toddlers! I really hope that you can just enjoy this time without worrying what comes next, OP, and without people trying to make you feel bad or scared. This always sounds sarcastic in text but I promise it isn't: good for you!

@WhatToDo2023 I agree with this. People (especially on here) seem to think experiences can only be shared if they were bad. For a lot of people it's such an amazing time and all runs pretty smoothly, why is that not ok? I think sometimes people are only actually happy when they are being negative.

At 6 months and your first baby you shouldn't really be assuming about motherhood. Your new to it yourself you have barely started. 😅

I honestly think it's crazy how much difference Instagram seems to make. I know women in real life who are just nuts about things that it just doesn't occur to me to care about and I really do think it's all from Instagram. I think the bit where that's most obvious is childbirth. I can honestly, hand on heart say I never heard a soul tell me it would be better to give birth without pain relief or that it was less good to have a caesarean, but I know other women who say the world is full of this pressure and it really does all seem to be coming from social media.

@Nimbostratus100 it’s a known thing. Glad you haven’t experienced it though, it is zero fun.

Women can cope, actually. I'm sure some can. A lot struggle though and NO ONE had prepared me for how hard it was. It was like some sort of unspoken secret. As soon as I had my little one and was struggling and let people know people were actually admitting to me yeah it was shit for them too. The change that happens to some first time mums needs to be spoken about more. It was relentless.

Er, my colic hell was in the depths of internet time when all moaning was done on something I vaguely remember being called ivillage??

I feel like you’ve maybe worded this a bit poorly; I had twins and severe PND and if it wasn’t for having an outlet to speak to others who’d had similar experiences I dread to think how it could have ended up. I really needed to be able to speak about how hard I was finding it, it absolutely saved me.

But reading your other comments I feel like you’re more irritated (with good reason) by the ‘just you wait’ brigade who torment pregnant first time mums. I was all for genuine help and advice, things that could be useful - but there is absolutely nothing useful about those people saying ‘Sleep now because you never will again! Say goodbye to your disposable income! Good job you were slim before, you never will be again now!’ etc. Utterly useless comments. Thankfully for me they were few and far between, but they irked me something rotten.

I hate these smug posts by first time mums who have one 'easy' baby who isn't yet a year old. No empathy or thought that not everyone was dealt the same hand or that not all babies are 'easy' to everyone at every stage.

Not ashamed to say my high-needs first baby had me contemplating putting rocks in my pocket and wandering into the duck pond. It wasn't until I had my smiling lovely potato of a second born that I realised how hard I'd had it.

glad I haven't experienced what?

plenty of people with difficult childhoods go on to enjoy parenthood! I did, as I said

Yes the nights initially were hard but you sleep the next day?

Yours naps independently during the day then? Lucky you.

The relentless comments before you have a baby are annoying, but OP you have had an easy baby. This is the exception to the rule, it’s tougher for most…

My DD was up very 45 mins for 12 months. She wouldn’t take the bottle (we spent hundreds on different bottles and seeing feeding specialists), and she wouldn’t sleep unless she was in the pram or in the car - in neither of those situations could I catch up on sleep and nap. She would breastfeed in the evening for hours and hours. If I put her down she would cry so much she’d make herself sick. So I couldn’t shower easily, or make a cup of tea, or have any time to myself. Hearing others who had been in the same boat helped immensely, to not feel I was an awful parent and actually some babies are just high needs. So, I am very pleased you have a good baby but that isn’t the case for everyone. So if someone wants to explain how hard life was for them, they should be able to do that without feeling bad, as you should be pleased to have an easy baby. Just don’t assume that is the case for everyone. I think all babies are different. I would be offended if someone said I didn’t have the ‘tolerance’ - I consider that I just had a much higher needs baby.

@Nimbostratus100 the experience of your own difficult childhood triggering a lot of pain, upon becoming a parent. It can be a big contributor to PND.

This is not to say one cannot experience the above and enjoy parenting, or that those with difficult childhoods will even have that kind of experience upon having children, as you have found. But that triggering of intense pain is a thing that can happen upon new parenthood if you have any trauma, and I personally was not aware of that.

People often post here when they are having problems - we all do that. And often they receive lots of support, which is great. But it is understandable that first time Mums reading these posts might get a slightly distorted impression of parenthood. For every Mum looking for support there will be others who are doing really well, but we tend not to hear from them.

Some babies are easier than others. After DD1 I felt like I'd been hit by a bus, whereas DD2 was a dream baby. I thought I was an expert parent then DS was born prematurely and had chronic health issues and we spent his toddler years in and out of hospital.

Some adults find some stages easier than others. I didn't enjoy the baby stages and I like my DC more and more the older they get (they are teenagers now and really are very sensible and easy) whereas DH was really good with them when they were younger but struggles with adapting to them getting older and getting more freedom and tends to default to 'no' when our very sensible 15yo asks if she can do something she's not done before (e.g. she asked to go on a daytrip with her friends by train to the beach last week).

This is so true. I also was not prepared for how triggering becoming a mum was in terms of my own traumatic past.

I agree with you to some extent. I spent so much of my pregnancy wondering what if we had made a mistake because of the constant comments that we'd never sleep again, I'd hate my husband and I'd almost wet myself because it would be difficult to go to the toilet because I'd barely have time for a wee.

He's 4 months now and it wasn't my experience at all. I was actually bored out of my mind and went back to work when he was 12 weeks.

I found it very easy with my first and she was a difficult baby. Didn't sleep through until a week before dc2 was born.
But because I only had her and didn't have a social life anyway I didn't mind.

When dc2 was born, everything smug I ever felt went right out the window. Don't get me wrong I've done anything by myself etc and got on with it but it's been fucking hard with two it hit me like a ton of bricks!

I found every second of being pregnant horrendous and the first six months after my daughter was born were really awful. She cried for a huge proportion of the time and after the first couple of weeks, she hardly seemed to sleep. I'm not a baby person anyway and always expected to find the first few months hard going, no matter how desperately wanted she was, but it was much worse than I expected. Life got very much easier once she got to around 12 months. But nothing would have persuaded me to have a second child.

I suppose every baby is different. The fear mongering wouldn't really be a thing if some mums hadn't had difficult times in the early months. I was so fortunate to have a good sleeper. Honestly think it makes a world of difference - and, I didn't have PND.

I have found the toddler years then second baby, more toddler years much, much harder.