My baby would have been much easier if....

[BotBotticelli]

...he had been one of those babies that just drifts off to sleep in their mum's arms whilst she chats away in a coffee shop, or taps away on MN. I have seen such babies! They exist!

My DS, as a newborn, would scream his head off when tired, even if not overtired, and it would be a 15 minute battle to vigorously rock him to sleep whilst replacing his dummy and shhhhhing like a maniac. He has never once drifted off into a contented sleep in my arms! Even now, at 8mo, he self settles in his cot by spending 10 minutes babbling, shouting, crawling around, rawling about etc etc. Sleep just doesn't come easy to him!

What would be the one thing that would have made your LO 'easier' in the beginning....?

If he was less efficient are turning milk into poo. How does a baby so small contain so much of the stuff? oh, no, got to go - he's done another one!

if now at nearly 2 in november she would sleep without me during the night

he'd slept for longer than 3 hours ever, in his first 6 months. Or for the full 3 hours on more than 2 occasions.

Exhausted mummy, overtired baby, breastfeeding and a refusal to wean made an interesting conversation.

Having said that, he's now a fab 4 year old, ad I wouldn't change anything about him now but still wish he'd eat more

If I had just given him a chance to sleep!

Poor DS was pulled out of his basket the second he would make a noise by hyper-active mum me and rocked and cuddled and sung to until he was properly awake...And there I was, posting threads in despair on MN that my 5 mo just would not sleep . The poor soul was propably wondering why I wouldn't allow him to sleep...

50Bales of course you can brag about your lovely grandchild. Very happy to hear that all turned out well!

If she'd made her way out without the aid of drip induction and faced the right way so as to avoid EMCS

If she'd not had jaundice and needed endless blood tests and readmission

If she'd taken to breast feeding

If she'd not had colic

If she'd slept for more than 40 minutes a day from 0 - 6 months...

...but, she's 9 next month, and I can't tell you how much I'd love to travel back in time and have her in my arms as a tiny baby again.

If I hadn't had an emergency c-section after 2 horrible days of full on labour. Changed the game for me, I couldn't deal with anything after that. Still can't...2.5 years later...still here though with a happy toddler who eats and sleep for the moment. Those first few weeks really were the worst ever in my life and like someone above has said, felt cheated.

If he hadn't been ill when he was born and ended up in the special care baby unit and I didn't have to force feed him formula to the point at which he lost the ability to latch, so he would gain weight. If other people didn't criticise me for not being able to breastfeed. And now if he was a more normal height. I'm so sick of people going on about how tall he is. I know he looks like a 7 month old at only 4 months but he is totally in proportion and he has stupidly tall parents, it doesn't mean his development should be faster or I should be weaning him.

If they did what gina ford said they should. ie, 'now 7 week old dd, gina says you will sleep for 2 hours'. book would get thrown out of the window if it wasn't on my kindle :)

... She lived in a tidier house. And her mum ignored more of what other people say about how babies ought to sleep / behave / feed etc.

I had hired a cleaner and accepted more help

I had found MN first instead of all of those sites that make you feel like shit if your tiny baby doesn't sleep

I had just accepted that the sling, my bed and the pram were the perfect places for dd to nap in and not something to feel embarrassed about

I had known about overtiredness and age appropriate awake times...poor dd!

I had realised earlier that dd was in fact a normal, nay easy, baby and not a high maintenance one particularly because people lie!