This is my first post here but since having dd1 a year ago have found these forums invaluable for advice and even just to know I'm not the only one going through something. So I thought I would share a few of the things I have learnt in case they are of any use to anyone else:
1 - you can survive on far less sleep than you ever thought possible.
2 - excepting your life has changed forever is far less stressful and exhausting than trying to do everything you did before
3 - celebrity mothers clearly have lots of help to get back in shape
4 - having a baby will change you and your partner's lives - it won't necessarily make any difference to anyone else. So if your mother has always been self centred and lazy, then she probably still will be
5 - they do let you take your baby home from hospital even though you are clearly incompetent at looking after a small child
6 - it does get easier, or you learn to cope better with not really knowing what to do
7 - it's one of the hardest things you will ever do, but you can't really explain it to anyone without children
8 - most parents whose kids are older than about 5 only seem to remember the good bits about having a baby, not the exhaustion, frustration and the need to just cry sometimes
9 - if your baby has reflux there is very little research done into it, you just have to keep going back to your doctor until you find something that works
10 - co-sleeping is not the work of the devil, your child can learn to sleep on their own even when they just slept on you for the first 3 months
11 - this is not something you can really tell people in real life but your own baby is the most beautiful, interesting and clever little person in the whole world
That's about it, I think. Feel free to add to the list.
XX