Trying not to be - just feeling like <snorting> at friend about to have dc 1 who thinks it's all going to be perfect!

[weegiemum]

Not a very close friend but I end up bumping into her most weeks.

Her dc1 is due in a fortnight.

She's had this "fabulous" pregnancy and says she knows "nothing can go wrong now" (tell that to the 2 people I know who have had 40+ week stillbirths).

She's "definitely" having a home waterbirth and thinks you are "letting yourself and your baby down" if you go to hospital/have pain releif etc (well we all know people for whom the pain-releif was a lifesaver - me, for example!)

She "doesn't understand" why people don't breastfeed exclusively for 6 months (I was a very keen breastfeeder and did do this but I have sat with friends crying with bleeding nipples - I know its not all plain sailing).

Her baby will be in a routine and will sleep apparantly.

PND is just a frame of mind - getting out for walks is the best cure (not the most tactful thing to say to me who ended up in hospital with it ....)

She is going to go spend her maternity leave baking and making homemade food (I didn't make a cupcake for 4 years! Too flipping tired).

when she goes back to work she has already picked out the "perfect" nursery and doesn't think there will be any bother for her or baby adjusting to it.

All of this is volunteered information (I stopped asking her about things a good while back after she told me that morning sickness was purely psychological! )

I'm just king of nodding and smiling and ignoring her about it all - it doesn't affect me. But I get cross for all those mothers (all of them?) who are not perfect, and I also worry a little about her - how is she going to be able to ask for help if things to go tits up??

My step SIL made comments like this about my parenting and still does. Now she has a ds and still thinks she's perfect even though she's doing all the things she slagged me for.

Some people are just arseholes and unfortunately don't learn.

Smug smug smug - grrrrrrr - I really hate people like that. Of course it would be lovely for her if it did all go according to plan - but even not knowing the person I very very much hope it doesnt - sorry, v v evil person that I must be - tee hee.....

ha ha she's in for a shock, she'll soon come down to earth with a bump!!
can't wait till you bump into her, huge bags under her eyes, unkempt hair etc etc.
Theres nothing you can do for her, she's gonna have to find out the hard way.

OTOH - when I was expecting DD1 one of my friends was extremely negative about what having a baby was going to be like. She never missed an opportunity to tell DP and I how our lives were going to change (for the worse) and that having a baby was such such hard work, being pregnany was terrible, giving birth was horrendous etc etc. Guess she thought she was preparing for motherhood?

Anyway - my pregnancy was worryfree, giving birth was a piece of piss, breastfeeding was easy and painless, our lives did change - but for the better. I know I was lucky and that not all mums have it as easy as I did.

So just because motherhood might not be all apple pie, doesn't mean that we should automatically expect it to be shit either.

I had a friend who said, at 6m pregnant, "I have absolute confidence that this child will be good-looking...and I have NO problem with child modelling...I've had a look online and it all seems do-able."

I was . There were other things, to do with the baby weighing a certain optimum amount at birth...the keenness to have a routine....Of course this friend ended up with low-level depression, PND, issues that are ongoing tbh.

Of course not all PND is to do with unfulfilled expectations, of course not - it just cannot help if people set themselves up for perfection.

Actually, when I think about it I didn't know her when I had dd1, so she might not know I was in hospital with PND ....

She is the first of her "close" circle of friends to have a baby (they are all around 28-30, I am almost 40), so I suppose she just hasn't seen the things that can go wrong - I am far less blase about pregnancy/childbirth/motherhood/parenting than I was back when I had dd1, though I don't think I was ever smug.

Well, not much

She'll learn.

Or maybe she won't. And then will carry on being unbearably smug and make people hate her unless she learns a little compassion.

Oh those not-quite-yet parents aren't my favourite, it's the smug 'we have one baby and they are perfect so therefore we are better parents than you' people that make me laugh. Cut to 2nd normal baby who cries/ doesn't sleep/ won't put weight on/ climbs on things and they aren't so confident.

We have 2 DC and they have both been hard work and with DD I was surrounded by people with 'perfect' babies. I was so miserable about what I was doing wrong (nothing) and why couldn't my DD do what all the other babies were doing? I think that those parents had a greater culture shock to discover that they weren't exceptional parents just lucky the first time round. My second was a nutter too but I was expecting it and am therefore much more chilled out as a Mum of 2 than your average bear!!!

Do a video interview with your friend about her views on childbirth, breast feeding, sleeping, parenting etc before the birth.

Then you can both have a hilarious time watching it back later on!

Ignorance really is bliss. Poor thing will be in for a hell of a shock.

You know, I actually feel a heck of a lot better for having said this out loud. She has been intensely irritating (you really would think that she was the only person in the world ever to get pregnant) and I can't help seeing her relatively regularly ...

Some hysterical laughter form you lot has most definitely helped!

Just nod & smile politely all the while laughing on the inside knowing that in a few short weeks she'll be just as sleep deprived, stressed, still wearing her maternity jeans & walking around with baby sick on her shoulder like the rest of us (or is that just me?!)

Send her round to my house - we're 19 days in and it is nothing like I thought it would be. Daft bint!

YANBU - I have one DD. I completely expected the worst. I thought everything that could go wrong would. It didn't. But due to my ridiculously low expectations I am having a ball - despite my DD still having 2 or 3 feeds a night (she's 7 months) and existing on not much sleep (5 am wake up call anyone?) - but [massive caveat emoticon] am expecting the worst again if I have another .

I hope she'll be as positive and optimistic when she's only had one hour's sleep per night for six weeks and feels like bits of her brain are falling away like a wet cake (Thanks Black Books for ace phrase).

Really though, building up your expectations that high can only be a disappointment, because any tiny thing that does happen to be less than perfect is going to feel like a personal failure to her. Bit really.

shootfromthehip

Those are my favourite too! On another forum, I recently had a good old laugh as a mum of a 5 month-old (firstborn) bragged about how 'laid back' her baby was and how it was all thanks to her parenting! She was offended because one of her friends had suggested she might just have 'got lucky' with a predictable baby and that he might not be so easy when he's 18 months, or 2 or 3 or 4... or that she might not be so lucky with her next child. According to the poster, her friend was just jealous and felt inadequate next to her 'chilled out' parenting style

Am intending to hang around on that particular forum for at least the next 5 years to see how it all pans out.

ach let her be!when reality bites she will rue her pre-baby sentiments

anyhoo i knew a women very similar who chirruped on about the perfect analgesia free birth,after all pain weas a frame of mind said she.no nasty interventionist medics for her.no siree.just chant an incantation and chew some goji berries said she

anyhoo,first wave of pain she nearly levitated off table and demanded an epidural. i met her post birth.she had puffy eyes,no routine.had become more humble less preachy

Good point tidey Ironically, she could be setting herself up for PND if she is a very controlling type of person and her expectations cannot be met.

My Gp had twins and once she had had them, she admitted that she ought to drive round the streets with a loudspeaker apologising for all the crap she had spouted to the local mothers.

pruneurs, I agree - I have known a couple of what I call 'princess mums' like this and both have ended up with severe pnd. I am absolutely the convinced that the princess tippy toes approach to life played a big part in how much they suffered with the depression.

Babies are a culture shock to those of us who actually live on planet earth; they must be devastating to people like this!

she does sound a tad of a nutter. But...

I think that there are some who go too far the other way too and tell you that having a baby is all hell - that you don't get any sleep for at least the first year/that your relationship with your dh will change, possibly for ever/that you will never eat a meal together as a couple... etc etc. At least those are the sorts of people I came across.

And, is someone who has a baby who sleeps really lucky? or is it that someone who has a baby who doesn't sleep unlucky?

just to clarify no one sets themselves up for PND it is a complex physiological-psychological illness.exact cause unknown

yes there are acknowleged risk factors for PND which can increase risk,but they are not necessarily causal

the sterotype of the perfectionist middle class mum bringing PND upon herself is unhelpful,innacurate and a bit victim blaming too

Utterly hilarious and deluded, but as others have said, worrying too as she's unlikely to ask for help when childbirth and motherhood don't turn out to be the rosy idyll she's so confidently picturing.

If you can bear to carry on being friends with her, she might need you a lot in the months to come.

And we'll need updates - so we can have a good laugh as she gets a reality check so we know that she's ok in the end.

bless her little cotton socks.

Bloody hell! She really is in for a shock. I've yet to have a baby. I'm not even pregnant and I'm not that delusional.