To think maternity leave is supposed to be enjoyable?

[Newmumhere40]

When does that happen? Baby is currently almost 3 months, I'm sleeping 5/6 ish hours a night in 2 chunks, not sleeping during the day. Exhausted every morning. My partner is fantastic, extremely supportive.

I was so looking forward to maternity leave but I'm just feeling monotony and tiredness, sad that 'this is all I do now', change nappies and breastfeed. I get outside every day and that helps, but this feeling is just not going away. Please understand I absolutely love my baby girl, but this is a question to the Mums, does it get easier?

As soon as they reliably sleep long stretches. Some babies do it very young, many don’t. Sleep deprivation is torture you won’t really enjoy anything when in the thick of that. My mat leave 1 was an exhausting slog. Mat leave 2 was the best year of my life as baby slept a little longer (2-3 wakes a night usually compared to 6-12 for baby 1).

Maternity leave is exhausting at the beginning. Once your milk settles down and you start going to Parent and Baby Groups it will start feeling more enjoyable. I'm not promising you don't suddenly have something new or sleep routines go totally askew but things do improve.

Maternity leave is to recover from having a baby! What led you to believe it was supposed to be enjoyable? Lots of aspects parenthood aren’t enjoyable.

Well if you're the sort of person who enjoys sleep-deprived ultra marathons, but without the changes of scenery, sure, I suppose you may even still enjoy maternity leave?

I had a theory when mine were young that the more senior a job someone had - particularly if they had agency for how they arranged their own time - the harder the transition was into maternity leave.

Here you now are, with an exceptionally inflexible schedule, a hundred things to sort out for this tiny dictator, sleep deprived, no longer doing something you're experienced at, and your existing support network generally not of much use.

Hang in there! Figure out who your new support network is (clue not the mums at baby group who are saying their 3 month old takes a bottle every night at 8pm and doesn't wake til gone 6am the next day!), get over your internal hurdle of asking family for specific help.

And eventually I hope you can enjoy some of it - try to make the most as the sun comes out, as close to home as possible so it's not a major logistics faff that outs you off getting out at all. Try to find other mum friends & places to meet that allow for 15 minutes of flexibility around meeting times. Ditch the ones that make you feel bad if you're 3 minutes late because it demonstrates you feel your time is more important than theirs-we all know that no-one actually feels this way & shit (sometimes literally) happens. But you don't need to pally up with people in your circle who will make you feel like you're doing an inferior job, it's hard enough!

Talk with your partner about this. They often manage to be utterly oblivious about how soul destroying it is to feel shit at something for months on end. You're not, but it's too easy to get lost in that feeling.

Good luck!

You can enjoy:
Seeing your baby for the first time and marvelling at the tiny person you created.
Watching your baby sleeping, smiling, grabbing your finger, looking at you.
Introducing him/her to your family and friends.
The deep feeling of contentment when your baby latches on and your oxytocin levels rise.
Dressing them in the teeny tiny clothes that you've been collecting for months.
The love your partner shows to you and your baby.

Those are just a few. These are things we are told about and most of us experience when we become parents.
Obviously it's not all buttercups and roses but there should be joy as well.

I must be an outlier going by this thread because I loved maternity leave. My three mat leaves were the only time in my working life where I wasn't under the control of someone in work and could completely please myself. I visited my parents every week - they lived an hour away - and I went out and about a lot. Yeah it was tiring, I was breastfeeding so DH couldn't do night feeds. I'd had c/sections all three times so there was that to recover from. My babies were all colicky and DC1 had reflux.

I remember my maternity leaves as a time of freedom that I haven't had at any other time in my life. The lack of sleep in the winter with my 3rd and at 40 nearly did me in, but I still loved my time at home.

I didn’t enjoy mat leave first time. I did have PND and was always the youngest mum so didn’t make any mum friends.

Second time around I really really enjoyed it but I wonder if it’s a combination of having friends that have also had babies. Going out to my normal ish activities with baby, and having an older kid whose routine didn’t change and so we were still up and about when baby was small.

Mat leave was a welcomed break for me though because my life previously was super super busy. So although we had sleepless nights I made up for it with lie ins. I appreciated the act of not doing too much (except looking after baby) - my partner took care of lots of the domestics so that’s all I really did.

I set myself a challenge to go to as many baby groups as I could until I found my “mum tribe” - I wish more groups took place later in the day.

3 months is still young. You can give yourself a goal like daily walks, mum clubs, see how you feel.

Not in the sense it’s not a break or a holiday, no. Depending on the pregnancy, delivery and many post natal factors, including support or lack thereof it can be a very challenging but also a very variable experience.

I’m not sure who told you it’s meant to be enjoyable but absolutely no one I know enjoyed it. You’re sleep deprived, doing all the things you usually do and then caring for a tiny human too. Most people have other kids so there’s that too.

FFS....if you don't have advice why bother commenting?

Thank you! That makes so much sense. I'm a director as a job so I get what your saying.

Thank you 😊

Totally relating to what you've said and thank you for taking the time to respond, it really is so helpful to know I'm not alone.

Thank you, there really is no need, this site would be so lovely and supportive without people like that poster. It does suggest unhappiness so I can only feel sympathy.

I love this, thank you!

Thank you for the kindness, it really really has helped. So interesting to hear about all of the different experiences.
Not sure I'm allowed to ask a different question on the same thread but you've been great so might have some advice on this...

How to not 'lose' your relationship with your partner in the midst of all this? Feeling very distant at the moment...😞

Maternity leave is hard work. I hated it and couldn’t wait to go back to work after 6 months.

To be honest it’s only been recently that it’s felt better. (Daughter is 2and a half)

It’s hard to make the effort for each other when you feel torn between baby and yourself and your relationship. If you are comfortable with it, could have someone watch the baby for a couple of hours whilst you spend time together. The first couple of times we literally just laid on the sofa and cuddles and we had really got the chance.

If I sound combative it's because those things would be very helpful to most new mums but are entirely outside our control. If you have friends and family available for adult company, or your DH can meet you for coffee, surely you'd have thought of that already? And if you haven't, you can't magic them up.

Looking after a newborn is hard. I think you assume it will be all baby tambourine (insert latest trendy baby activity) and coffee meet ups whilst baby snoozes peacefully in their pram, because this is what tv/social media tells us. It doesn't often show being awake at 3am with a colicky screaming baby or portray how lonely it can be when the rest of the world is asleep and it's all you can do to keep yourself together. Go easy on yourself and try and enjoy the moments as opposed to the whole experience.

OK, I apologise. Didn't mean to upset or offend.

I didn’t enjoy it. I went back to work pt at four and five months each time and felt 100% better. Over twenty years on, never a single regret.

I've been a pro at sleeping while the baby sleeps since the beginning, which really helps. I coslept with my toddler the other day after a bad night of sleep.

One thing I found really made a difference was not having a lot of caffeine. One tea max. My friend would unironically chug her fourth coffee of the day whilst telling me she couldn't sleep. Caffeine also spoils the sleep you do get.

People look at me like I've got a second head when I ask for a decaf though.

@TheNinkyNonkyIsATardis I didn't have any coffee for the first 2 months of baby's life because I was afraid it would affect him through breastmilk. It made zero difference. I was super wired in the day. Even in the pits of sleep deprivation, I couldn't regularly sleep in the day. Made no difference as baby mostly napped ON me anyway, so it wouldn't have been safe sleeping.

Thanks Cat, apology not necessary, I guess I was over touchy. I craved adult company during maternity leave - someone to talk to, who would talk back!