to wish that someone had told me that 90% of the stuff I worried about when the kids were little - really never mattered in the first place?

[heQet]

Because it would have made life SO much easier! mess, milk, grub, am I interacting enough, am I interacting too much, will they ever do this, why do they do that, are they sleeping enough, should they sleep through, to cry or not to cry...

And I look at them now and I barely remember any of the stuff that used to seem so important and they've somehow managed to drag themselves up anyway . And I can only just remember roughly how old they were when they walked! Let alone any of the other stuff!

And I think how hard new parents are on themselves and how much they worry about every little thing, and I wish that there were big signs in maternity hospitals and hv clinics saying "In 10 years, you won't even remember most of this, so don't worry."

I still wash Ds's clothes separately but only because he has his own laundry basket and they're already sorted. He also still have a room themometer but that's because our house gets bloody cold. And to be fair I think you do need to pre wash a newborn's clothes, because the one time I didn't he had a rash around his neck within 20 minutes of the brand new garment going on.

He didn't have a "top and tail" bowl though - from memory it was a used plastic takeaway container. And you don't need two separate bowls of water if you don't ever put the cotton wool back into the water. I figured that out. I was too tight to fork out for half the stuff in JL - we were quite broke when DS was born and by the time we could afford all that crap he didn't need it.

And I did carry him in his moses basket into the downstairs loo with me every time I needed the loo for about the first week I was home alone. After that I realised I was being insane.

I remember thinking they must be unhappy because they cried all the time, and other people said their babies were happy: but my two tell me they love me and don't want me to die, so I must have done something right.

Me after having pfb dd1 was perfectly rational

Didnt insist that if we went anywhere for dinner that we ate by 5.30 as dd1 had a bath and feed at 5.45 and moses basket/cot at 6.30pm (an no I couldnt possibly budge from this routine from about 2 weeks old to 1 year

Didnt insist my Mum watch me puree DD1 food so she knew how it shoulf be when she looked after her one day a week when I went back to work (and felt the need to provide food for MIL even though she cookd lovely meals and bought some jars as emergency)

Insist I showed everyone who may use the buugy how to do the straps up (it wasnt technical

Ring my Mum and Dad every hour from 3pm to 10pm when they kindly had DD1 to stay at about 16 weeks old so we could go out for valentines (why oh why did I not think that anyone wouldnt look after her properly??)

If my Mum washed any bits of clothing/bibs I would rewash in case she hadnt used fairy powder!

Bought mu Mum some Milton anti back spray when DD1 started weaning (my Mum is a clean freak anyway and strangely didnt feel I could give MIL the same thing even though she looked after her one day a week too)

Ask SIL to not let neice/nephew upstairs if we were at IL's and dd1 was having a nap in case they woke her too early

I was a nightmare...it was very different with dd2

aw, Mrsdoas, that must have been miserable. I had a friend whose baby cried and cried and cried - nothing she could do to settle him when the mood took him.

He cheered up a little when he learnt to roll over and was completely fine when he finally worked out how to crawl - think he was born knowing he SHOULD be able to move but unable to actually do it and was just incredibly frustrated.

(So my completely anecdotal and unscientific theory is that babies who cry a lot may just be very clever indeed and frustrated that their bodies aren't as agile as their minds. And there's no special pleading here, ds was completely normal as far as crying went... in fact now I come to think about it, I'm probably arguing that he was less intelligent than my friend's crying baby at that stage. )

Anyone else cringe as they remember instructing their parents how to hold the baby, made them sit down so the baby didn't slip from their arms and hissed "be careful of the head, be careful of the head"

How my mother resisted the urge to laugh in my face and remind me that she had had two of her own and managed not to drop them/ break their necks, I will never know.

I have a confession, aside from having read the continuum concept a couple of years ago and having a few coping strategies I decided to try to wing it. I have read no baby books, never looked after a baby in my life (I havn't even held one and I'm due tomorrow). I have no idea about developmental milestones balh blah blah.

I have some airy fairy notion of getting to know my baby then trying to work out how to do this.

I'm due tomorrow and I'm wavering between pannic - I'm already being neglectful and the poor little thing isn't even here yet, and totally ok with that because then at least we are flexible from the start.

The good news is dh has about 15 nephews and nieces and can do basic baby care fairly proficiently. As in he has looked after up to three under 4 for weeks on end with no ability to hand back a number of times since he was 15.

I on the other hand have never even played with dolls properly - I used to beat them up

I'm sooo dead arn't I?

Of course there is no way I would have phoned the hospital at 3am in a panic because DD1 had slept for 5 hours and anything more than 4 hour between feeds would lead to jaundice

trickle - I have not read any baby books either, DS is 1 in a couple of days and he is doing great, so you don't need them.

I wish I hadn't read the books

I wish I could have enjoyed my PFB when he was tiny like I did the next one

My abiding memory is never letting him be, always interfering and doing something with him to "aid his development". How very, very silly.

This describes my parenting experience from DS1 to 3 v accurately .
Should be handed out at every antenatal clinic in the country IMO.

heqet so glad you have started this thread, because you are so right right right.Take heed those with mum neurosis it will all be fine. We worry cos we care, but top and bottom is we need to chill.

LOL at this thread. I wasn't like that at all. It was some other loon who phoned the hospital maternity ward at 3am to ask if I needed to sterilise the Infacol dropper before putting back in the bottle...

I had twins and although it was buggary hard, I am kinda grateful because I couldn't do any PFB worrying etc. I knew I could never meet the exacting standards of friends PFBs, books etc.
I just survived.
And I think I was spared quite a lot of anxiety tbh.

LeQueen

i can relate to all of the above. i too cringe when i think back! we left ds when he was a few weeks old (or may have been months!) for the very first time so we could go nto the cinema...i made my dh phone my mil to make sure she wouldn't let her cat sit on our baby in his moses basket. honestly, shameful!

i have 3dc now, and i can honestly say that i thoroughly enjoyed my dc3 so much, because finally i had the confidence to do my own thing with him..it was quite liberating!

it always makes me smile (in a fond memory kind of way) when i see brand new babies out on a daytrip being pushed by mum and dad, and TWO sets of grandparents hovering as well, when often i am out with 5 or 6 kids by myself!

we have come full circle now...when we go on a very rare night out, i don't worry about the children at all...i worry about the babysitter!!!!!

If you ever saw a mad woman pushing her baby in a pram, the insides of which were covered with large crossword puzzles - that was me [hmmm]. Once, I was in Sainsburys, closely studying labels on organic (natch)babyfood jars, when one woman leaned into pram to look at sleeping DD, then asked politely how she was getting on with 21 Across. I explained, very seriously, that the black and white squares were there to stimulate her visual cortex, but of course, she couldn't read yet.

I know, barking. But the stuff you read in parenting magazines somehow gets to you when you have this tiny person to look after!

This thread is so funny! I love threads like these on MN

This has made me laugh out loud...excellent stuff.
I was 'laid back' about stuff like changing tables (I am scatterbrained, and figured that when I forgot wipes/nappies/cream, etc., ds couldn't fall off the floor if I needed to leave him for a sec. BUT, I was weird about other people holding him, was being a bit of a 'routine nazi' with him for probably the first year of his life. And yes, everything was sterilised to death, food was lovingly prepared and pureed. DD came along...no routine, a good wash in the dishwasher did her sterilisation, and she ate whatever was available.
She will be a better adjusted person...

Here's your chance to shine. Should you meet anyone that is where you were all those years ago, fretting about nothing and getting all 'Daily Mailed Up' about the latest University of Pointless scary research or some daft book promising a contented little ankle-biter....... tell them they're doing a great job, to trust their judgement, that there's no such thing as a 'perfect mother' and to stop worrying.

I was looking at DS the other day, running around the living room, climbing onto the sofa and throwing himself off and generally being a little bundle of toddler energy and thought that it was amazing how I used to worry about his gross motor skills because he never crawled.

Most of the things I've worried about he's grown out fairly quickly.

What a lovely thread! Thanks heQet .

Has really cheered me up, have been feeling down about weaning, sleeping etc. etc. with 7m DD. I do have a bath thermometer , but always overide it as well, too cold!

at babygros being easy

I hated them with a vengeance with PFB. I remember getting sooooo stressed as I got to the top of the sodding thing and realised I'd missed a popper somewhere. Somewhere by his bits - there were a million poppers going in different directions there - if only I could work it out, stop sweating, get some sleep so my vision wasn't blurry etc

It took me a ridiculous amount of time to realise a) how they worked b) that you didn't need to change them if they had a stain on them c) it didn't matter if the f*ing poppers were done up wrong

Babygros to the first time mother are the work of the devil.