Funniest thing said by a soon-to-be mother about the reality of life with children?

[emkana]

"I will have a two-way baby monitor so that when my newborn wakes up I will calm him down with my voice while remaining downstairs in the living room"

Before my 1st one:

'I won't be wasting money on all that Thomas/Barbie branded stuff'

Before my 2nd one:

'Hard work having 2 with a short gap? Why, I'll just put both of them down for naps at the same time'

Thing is, it's funny, but can have really serious consequences.... A friend of mine had this totally idealistic view of motherhood (only use reusable nappies, never watch TV, only breast feed, would not smell baby's bottom to check for dirty nappies) and she ended up with really serious PND because the reality was so far removed from the dream!!!

I don't have any such 'dreams' as I've had two DSDs for the last 10 years..... I still remember vividly the first time my DSD2 spat out a sweet she didn't like - as I pondered what to do with the icky mess now in my hand, I did the only sensible thing a parent (or responsible adult, in my case!) can do: I ate it myself!!!

I really am planning to go back to work when my new baby is 3MO old though....... You can take bets on how long that will last!!!!!!

lol Sobernow, that's a new one on me.

My friend is a teacher and has not got any children yet. I was telling her about an 18 year old pregnant woman I'd met, whose baby is due in August. I told my teacher friend that she'd sensibly decided to defer her university place for a year.

Teacher friend was horrified and started telling me how pregnant girl should go to university in the September, just 2-4 weeks after giving birth.

I suspect she will remember her words and cringe when she starts her own family.

Lol at these. I was one of the "never watch tv, never eat sugar," brigade. How tragically wrong I was.

very recently from a soon to be first-time mum....

'I won't be using cloth nappies as I don't want to get any of my baby's body-fluids anywhere near me'

hahaha BBM - and what were her top tips for missing the projectile vomit?????

Wait til she catches the first poo floating in the bath - mind when my dd did this to me, I could feel something hard pushing out of her bottom and wondered what the hell it was!! Baby wee is also a good way to find out that you'd cut your finger on a piece of paper and failed to notice it at the time. Ouch.

LOL at BBM too, that is just the best har har. Remember friend telling me about one of her early nappy changes with new dd. Nappy off, baby weed on her hand, then major runny poo, then as she was trying to control the poo flooding over the mat the little darling vom'd up her feed everywhere and then sneezed more milk and snot onto her mums face and neck. She did the only thing possible: shouted "full house!" and dumped them both into a nice warm bath.

Mine, i'll never do that gross sniffing nappybum thing in public. Riiiiigght....

"I'm looking forward to not being pregnant so DH and I can have sex again!"

My friend said this at antenatal classes. It was her first and my second. I thought, 'Good luck!'

Hotchocscot - my dd did something similar but minus the vomiting (thankfully). I had a changing mat full of runny poo that dd was sliding up and down in before I managed to get my Mum to hear my anguished shrieks and rescued dd from imminent drowning in poo.... I don't know why it never occurred to me to simply take her out of the cot instead of trying to clean up around her....!!

Moral of the story: do not take a nappy off a baby until you have spare vest, nappy, wipes etc to hand and not on the other side of the room.

I used to look at other people's kids and think how dirty and grubby they looked. I thought my child would always be pristine. How wrong I was...

I was very fit and a bit of a gym bunny before I was pregnant and thought that I was going to be one of those (annoyingly) fit pregnant women who keep on exercising thoroughout. My body had other ideas though, and I was one of the those pregnant women who can't make it up the stairs without getting breathless and needing to lean against a wall for 5 minutes.

Before she had DS1 my sister said "I can't wait for baby to come, all they do is sleep for the first few months so I'll be able to get loads done on maternity leave!" And she showed me her "Dream List" of everything she was going to achieve throughout baby's first few months of life. Nearly 6 years later, and 2 more sproglets later, she has done the grand total of ONE thing off that list: master breastfeeding. She has however got the most cute, smart and funny children, and has relaxed into a routine of barely organised chaos! The lesson she learnt was don't go into motherhood with any preconceived notions of what it's going to be like, and what you'll be able to do, just aim to get through each 24 hours in as sane a state of mind as possible! And she has also learnt that having 3 children under the age of 6 is actually less work than one PFB.

friend's dh to her while she was pregnant with her first "brilliant, what are you going to study while you're on mat leave? You could get a new qualification!"

"how hard can it be? All they do is sleep, eat and poo" - that was me. Yeah, right.

childbirth doesn't hurt as much as women say
and terry nappies aren't that much more work than disposables. From same woman came the old,'Why bother having them if you're going out to work' line.

Mine will never make the mess your children do I will tell them to tidy it up!!! - go on then tell them see what happens!!

' ds wont wear primark just next etc' yeah right that happened! 'oh no he will sleep in a cot' when a friend told me she co slept. 'i am gonna stop bf when he is one. Followed by i will stop when he is two!' oh and i am gonna sleep train ds!

I always used to wonder why mothers let their toddlers wander round with snotty noses all the time

Now I realise it's because toddlers are made of snot and leftover breakfast

I can remember that when DS1 was a newborn I read a newspaper column where the journo said something like 'I always wait until my DCs have asked for something at least twice before I haul myself over and do it for them.'

I piously thought, 'That is terrible and fails to respect their emerging sense of self. I would either do what they wanted immediately, or explain to them carefully why Mummy won't do that for them just now.'

Every single post on here is spot on! v.funny and v.true.

When pregnant with Ds1 "my baby won't have a dummy, people only use them to shut their babies up"

When Ds2 was born "FFS someone get me some bloody dummies!!!"

children are only as much work as you allow them to be. MY child will know who's boss!

3y later I meekly accept that i am slightly lower on the food chain than Thomas the Tank Engine (but still higher than dh)