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??

hell she isn't a bad person,just bitty deluded.motherhood is a great shock to the best of us.

LOL at GP!

This is why everyone should have children. To learn humility, if nothing else.

I was like her (secretly...would never have let others know how perfect I was/my baby was going to be/our life was going to turn out).

Ho ho ho. How the mighty fell.

First child didn't sleep a full night for the first 2.5 years. If we were both dressed, left the house at all and had eaten a cooked meal it was a bloody good day...and that went on for a long time.

Hope she's got lots of support and some good friends.

i had some random ideas about routine.shame baby didn't agree with me

I had some of the same ideas but was sensible enough to keep them to myself. She's going to need your support in the months and years to come!

My dsis is the same she has this special voice that she uses on my dc and on my other sisters children too we piss ourselves laughing (behind her back) when she does it .
She becomes very posh and nursery teacher like and then looks at us as if to say "see this is how it's done" .

The only time she has had any of my children for longer than an hour was one I gave birth she had two of them overnight when she fetched them back she looked rather frazzled and unkempt she did not congratulate me on the new baby instead she said "you will not believe the night I've had" and sank into an armchair .

My friend was identical to this. (Unfortunately) she went on to have a drug free water birth which was 'everything she had hoped for from labour and more'.

She has no tummy at all...(baby about 2 weeks old.

'He sleeps and eats like a pro'

'Days and nights are wonderful'

I can't bring myself to visit her yet - keep hoping she will admit to some human feeling such as tiredness - but not yet.

Will she ever get fed up/exhausted? Or does she just view things differently?

I evilly hoped the baby would get colic. Which is horrible for the baby, so I don't really. But do a bit aaargh

Although not really unfortunate that she had a good birth, but she just went on so before hand that I secretly wished for at least one stich!!

hambo Your feelings are understandable. I expect your friend will get a reality check at some point. If not with this baby, with a future one!

And of course, she may be saying it's all rosy when it's actually not. Some mums find it nigh on impossible to say 'I'm not coping'.

oh bless her.
At a mother and baby group I used to go to there was a woman like this there. She was the first of her little group to have her baby and turned up a fortnight later looking immaculate - hair and make up done after this wonderful birth with her new wonderful baby. We all had babies a couple of months older and were slightly dishevalled to say the least. This went on for a couple of months with her looking more and more radiant compared with all her downtrodden new mum friends ! I found out (with some glee and I promise I am not normally a nasty sort of person) later that although her birth had been wonderful she had been left with crippling piles

Yes, I think that she may be the type who will not admit to not coping, or infact being normal. She is a 'high achiever' so quite possibly would not admit to being average.....

Oh dear. I have a very close relative who is acting exactly the same at the mo. One month till the baby arrives, she keeps saying how she has sailed thru pregnancy (not the best thing to hear when you've had 2 mcs in the last year),she won't have any nonsense from a newborn, and that she'll still continue to travel worldwide with the baby on her back .

This from a 25yr old who until last year was still being told by her mother when her hair needed washing. I know Im cruel, but I can't wait for baby to arrive-Then the fun begins!!

she will never admit to things not being perfect, because then she'll have to admit she's not in complete control and of course she's not.... her soon to be pfb will be...
ah well,... you have to feel a bit sorry for her really, it's all mouth, coupled with a nice big dollop of fear.

no one likes admitting self doubt.esp in new baby period as we all feel vulnerable and scared

Aww. Bless her. You only know on this side of the Dark Side, don't you?

Actually, aren't people with such daft expectations at more risk of PND? Might be worth keeping an eye on her...

Someone should gently point out to her that one of the reasons lots of people don't manage to exclusively breastfeed for 6 months is that they seem to think that newborn babies should be in a routine and should sleep.

Noone can explain new motherdom to someone though, especially the tiredness. I remember when DS1 was about 6 weeks and thinking 'Oohhhh, that's what they meant!'

she not necessarily more at risk of PND.exact cause unknown likely genetics,past mental health Hx all precipitating factors.

i do object to the oft touted middle class,high achiever mum with unattainable expectations who some how is responsible for her PND,that is harsh and victim blaming

PND is a pernicious and common illness
1 in 10 affected

The thing is though if we weren't a bit delusional we'd never get pregnant. I'm sure lots of people look at snot smeared toddlers who are screaming their heads off and think 'my child won't be like that'. If you think that they might be then legs crossed time! I must say I did get annoyed that some people went out of their way to tell you how your life would be over and it was all going to be hell. Well it's the best of times and the worst of times. I thought I was going to have an uber intelligent child that would be a gifted musician (his father is so its not totally mad ) I did get both into cast iron routines which I have to say was my survival mechanism. However, although my eldest is bright in certain ways amd shows some musical appreciation he has enough special needs to sink a ship and so becoming a talented musician is unlikely to happen and my second sprog has to now stick four injections into himself a day to keep himself alive. I will say that birth though wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. Boring more than anything else and long winded but not like those screaming writhing blood spattered women on the BBC costume dramas that scared the bejeebers out of me when I was younger.

I bet this bloody woman does sail trhough childbirth though and does have an easy baby and it all is perfect. I bet it will be reading Rememberance of Times Past in the Original when its aged 5 as well. It would be sod's law wouldn't it. Oh well perhaps when sprog is a teenager (teee hee) all can be unleashed.

My dear dear friend who had twins 6 weeks ago said to me accusingly the other day "but you NEVER told me it would be this hard!!". Er, yes I did. But I for one blithely thought when having DC1, secretly, at the back of my mind - oh,but it won't be that hard for me...Loads of people must think that. Otherwise the birth rate would plummet.

And of course it was. Not in all the ways - but many. And my friend wasn't demented like the OPs friend, nor was I. I had the good sense to keep my thoughts that it would be easier to myself!

My view is that most people luck out on certain aspects - you get a good feeder, but a poor sleeper. You are back in your size tens but your front bottom is torn asunder....and so on. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. It's rare that someone gets all the good luck - and hopefully as rare that someone gets all the bad luck too. And I guess the normal "bad" stuff we moan about pales into insignificance when you know people who have lost babies or who have babies with serious health problems.

Turniphead, very wisely put.

OP -I think your friend may need some support once her baby arrives . She will be v grateful if you are there for her.

I remember naively not really understanding why anyone would even consider not breastfeeding. It was normal to me. I had no evidence of anyone ever experiencing difficulties. Didn't mean it went to plan nor was plain sailing though, sadly, but those people who supported me to get through it are friends for life now .

hambo -I wonder if your friend may be still on a complete high from a straightforward birth? After my home waterbirth without drugs (dc2) it took me about 6 weeks to 'come down'. During that time things weren't perfect, but I was so high on my own hormones I barely noticed. It was one of the best and most unexpected consequences of a drug-free birth and a complete contrast to everything that happened 1st time round .

FFS. Thing is she probably will end up with a perfect baby and it will all be rosy, but she needs a serious dose of reality and a huge injection of empathy.

Jeez-oh.

I had the first-child-who-won't-eat-won't-sleep-won't-stop-puking-won't-talk-won't toilet-train thing.
I definitely thought I must be pretty hopeless as I struggled with ds1, and friends seemed so much more relaxed.
Then we all moved on to 2nd dc.
Ds2 was a doddle - ate, slept, chatty, has his little ways but nothing in the same league as ds1. We sailed through addition of him to our family, moved house when he was 12 weeks without difficulty (other than ds1 being properly ill...)...had it been the other way round it would have been a shocker, to put it mildly.
MIL always used to say that if my BIL had been first there would have been no second child!
I hope you can support your friend if things are less than perfect for her.

I could have written your post mybabywakesupsinging. DS1 was such a nightmare highneeds baby. DS2 was a doddle. Thank God it hadn't been the other way around.

You know,
She will have a perfect baby and then you will stick cocktail sticks in your eyes.