Why does no one tell you just what a nightmare the first six weeks are

[RuthT]

...and if they did would it help anyway?

Were you shocked at how tough looking after a new baby was?

What got you through it?

Top Tips for new mums?

What one thing did you buy that was a life saver?

Basically what's your story. I am really interested because no one really talks about it, it's like some conspiracy.

Oh and forgot to add the huge bunch of grapes I found sticking out of my arse that first morning too!!! :o

I am really enjoying reading these contributions, although extremely jealous of those finding the whole thing a breeze

very worried about mums who are finding later stages really hard. Have to say that scares the living daylights out of me.

Lots of good tips on keeping visitors at bay and the phone stuff.

Agree with the breastfeeding comments. I found it incredibly painful to breastfeed my dd. Even the nct breastfeeding counsellor almost cried seeing my pained expression, tears and cracked nipples! I think the best book I bought was the Claire Byam-Cook on 'What to do when your breastfeeding and what if you can't'. I did persevere for 3 months but this book was my bible.

I found that the 6 week thing mainly applied to the level of physical pain I was experiencing rather than anything else.

The thing is, I cant remember the first 6 weeks being that hard. I remember day and night blending into one. Being worried feeding,weight gain etc. I didnt think it was as hard as I was told it would be. However I am now getting scared as baby no2 is due in 3 weeks and am starting to think I lucked out last time.

Yes - I find it hard not to feel really sad when friends of mine are having babies - I feel so sorry for them and know there's nothing I can do..! We tend to send chocolate parcels to friends who live a long way away, and phone often but understand when they're too exhausted etc. to talk.

I think the 6 week mark was right - not sure why really. I'm not sure the smiling thing necessarily had much of an effect on me to be honest - I was so ready to throw them out of the window it barely registered... I remember wondering if social services would consider taking them away for the odd weekend - and really thinking this was a real possibility...! I still think baby hotels would be a good idea - you could just deposit them for a few days and pick them up after sleeping for a straight 72 hours or so - do you think I should open a baby hotel business??!

I thought it was the first nine weeks that were hard.

Childless friends had no idea whatsoever that my life had been turned upside down and I couldn't find the right words to describe how difficult it was, so they all expected to visit during the evening and I allowed this.

My worst visitors were:

My PILS bringing five of their friends over at 8.30pm when the baby was 48 hours old.

Childless couple who turned up after their evening meal and stayed until 11.30pm, meaning we had absolutely no evening meal and no food in the house. Husband had to go looking for a take away after midnight on a sunday. They also just sat and expected us to wait on them.

Childless friend who wanted to continue calling me at 6.15pm for an hour long chat about her wedding plans. She called me one evening when I'd been out walking the baby in the pram (to stop her crying) and she insited on talking to me even though I explain I had literally just returned home and was putting the pram into the garage. I couldn't get her off the phone despite baby crying in the background.

Visitors are a complete drain and if I have a second baby I won't have evening visitors at all. And that includes my PILs, who have never given us any help.

(but they can leave the presents on the front step )

Actually, the advice I give about visitors "have them visit when it's convenient for you" is really because I couldn't believe how selfish people could be. I finally blew my top at a friend who said she'd be coming over after she'd got home from work, let the dog out, had her dinner, got changed and dropped something off at her mum's house.

So that would be about 9pm then!

And people seriously expect you to keep the baby awake so that they can see them, or to wake them up!

just 6 weeks? For me, it was the first 17 months! First 6 weeks were actually relatively easy. Then dd shook off her jaundice and sleepybabydom to .... become one unhappy babe.

Advice - no visitors unless they were prepared to do the nights.

Sorry not read thread but in answer to OP
Thank goodness no-one tells you - why would they? Everyone's experience is not the same. FWIW I found I was soooo busy with ds1, but when I had dd I wondered what I had been doing all the time while she slept and demanded little.....
Top tips for new mums are that you can put yr baby down and leave him/her unattended while you go an have a shower. As long as he is on floor/in cot and you don't have a dog/other children nothing terrible will happen.

I found sleep deprivation the hardest part of having a child. I feel like crying sometimes when DS wakes up for a cuddle in the night, without waking feeding a baby for an hour, then changing him and settling him back to sleep, just can't for the life of me think how I got through it, but you do and you then rejoice when they start sleeping through.

not read all replies but I don't think
a)mums-to-be really listen to the "bad" stuff
b) even if they did, they could fully comprehend the sheer exhaustion, intrusive demands and general disruption which is so dfferent to all previous experience.

ds slept a lot but was a pain to feed. Took me ages to get organised enough to get out of the house - he'd usually poo just as I put my coat on - and I felt bruised and uncomfortable for several weeks, making driving and carrying him hard work. With dd I was doing the school run a week later, so felt fitter, but she screamed at night.

They do tell you (they certainly told me before DS1 came along!) but I think we're pre-conditioned to zone out when the bad news is being relayed. As we are to forget the sleep-deprivation etc after a year or so of giving birth, so that we have more. I found life after the first baby pretty hellish for the first few weeks. But I had a proper job and maternity leave then - boy, if only I'd known how easy I had it! THIS time (2 weeks after birth of DD1) I have a lively toddler, I'm self-employed, working from home for 30 hours a week for 2 clients (one of whom doesn't even know I had a baby), we've lost our cleaner, we're moving in 2 weeks, I have until the 31st to file my tax return for 2004/5 and this kid wants to feed hourly! And I'm calmer than with the first one; go figure....oops, there she goes again.

We do get told but don't listen. Same thing with childbirth.

First time round I was hopeless - I kept thinking that if I just carried on as normal everything would be alright. So by 8.30 every morning I'd be up, showered, dressed with my hair done. Weird or what? I got freaked out by the weirdest things - I couldn't steer the pram, or get DS strapped in the carseat, I was terrified to leave him alone for 2 minutes even to go to the toilet....The midwife came round one morning and found me in floods of tears on the bed surrounded by all the parenting books and freebie leaflets trying to. He started to sleep properly at 7 weeks and life improved hugely. Until he was 7 months old and he stopped again [eye-bags emoticon]

No#2 and #3 I just went with the flow. So much easier. But I remember saying that I'd rather go through labour again 10 times over than go through those first few weeks. And I meant it.

Wasn't told anything both my close friends who had had children had easy labour and birth's, fell in love with their children instantly and life's been roses ever since.

Bears no resembalance to my experience what so ever - ended up with blood transfusion, and PND for 18mths. I was horrified at how bloody awful it was and I hated it and felt a complete freek for feeling like this.

When the 4th friend in the group had her DD she had a similar experience to my other 2 friends so my experience was irrelevant and still is.

Tips for new mums?
It's all a phase - the good and the bad bits enjoy the good bits and do what you have to to get through the bad bits.

Sleep when you can, it is relentless for the first 6 weeks, I remember ds getting to about 7/8 weeks and suddenly everything felt a little bit easier so there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Use your partner and rope in friends and family if you can - ask they usually won't offer. I have had to develop really thick skin about asking and ignore the tuts and sighs when we do.

Something someone suggested which I'm going to try this time is be in your jama's when you have visitors - that way you will be seen (subconciously) as not able to wait on them.

The 2 things that helped my back after giving birth was the changing table so I didn't have to bend down to change DS and buying a garden reclining deck chair to use as a feeding chair rather than trying to sit up in bed or manage on the sofa - had nice squishy all in one cushion and the arms where high enough to put the V cushion on and hold DS at the right height to feed without having to hold his weight. (only cost 17 quid from B&Q)

Sometimes I feel a little sad, a little wistful that I missed these very early months with DD1 (we adopted her at 4 months old). Then I flick through something like this and feel waaaaay better! So thank you.

Issyfit, so glad we can make you feel good about not missing the first few weeks, how did you find the first six weeks with your litlle one?

Well, I've had two jaundiced, sleepy, not-ready-to-be-born babies who slept for most of the first six weeks (fed two-hourly round the clock, but slept in between). Which was handy for recovering from the cs.

The hard part was around 7 or 8 months, when other people think things must be easier, and you must be getting enough sleep. So you don't get any sympathy and no one cuts you any slack - but actually you're still desperately sleep-deprived. I expected the first few months to be hard but I also expected the sleep deprivation to end. Slowly realising that it was going to go on for years was dreadful!

Hi RuthT, the first 24 hours was really tough as we tried to get DD1 (who had been exclusively breast-fed) to take a bottle. But after that the first six weeks were absolutely lovely. Within the four or five days of adopting DD1, DH had left Hanoi and I brought her back home to the UK alone - a journey that took nearly 24 hours and involved changing planes twice. But you have to remember that I didn't have all that exhaustion that goes with the last few (or maybe nine!) months of pregnancy, I hadn't gone through childbirth, I wasn't breastfeeding and DD1 was four months old not a newborn. I was a bit lonely as I didn't have a group of friends from child-birth classes, but otherwise it was a cinch!

Just seen this thread.

I wouldn't say the first six weeks were awful, but I did feel that I was in a dark foggy tunnel, just lurching along trying to get to the end. I'd had a long (loooong) labour, culminating in an emergency section, so I had the beaten up feeling from the former and all the post-operative pain from the latter. I struggled to feed through pain and nipple shields, whilst going slightly loopy with sleep deprivation. I was weepy and remember having panic attacks at the thought of my husband going back to work - thinking I'd never leave the house again.

A friend of my husband turned up to visit five days later WITH HER TODDLER and let her run around the (un-childproofed) house while she sat there drinking tea and commenting on the potential dangers. She'd had a section herself - and was pregnant again - so you'd think she'd have known better.

My aunt crocheted some beautiful but utterly impractical baby clothes which I received when she was a couple of weeks old - and then threw a hissy fit because I hadn't thanked her a week and a half later. WORSE - my mother passed on the message that she was annoyed, in a manner suggesting that I was being rude and ill-mannered. She also asked me why I was still taking pain killers when I came out of hospital.

My father kept making comments about how I was STILL tired, even when no longer pregnant. When they (finally) came to visit for the day when DD was two and a half weeks old, bringing my grandfather with them, I asked him to bring a pint of milk, so that they could have tea. His response? "Why can't you go to the shop yourself?" Well - let's slice you through the middle, shut you in the house with a baby and a dog - and see how far to the shop you get, shall we...?

I asked him to drive me to the hospital for a blood test and he thought I was being feeble not to do it myself. They didn't comment on the state of the house (but only because I'm desperately untidy at the best of times) but didn't lift a finger to help all day, whinged about the dog being boisterous because I hadn't walked him before they got there and failed to spot that I'd (painfully) hoovered the place completely before they arrived.

The worst thing was that they made me feel that I was being more feeble than the next person so I was quite hard on myself.

Btw - am appalled at your family, MrsSchadenfreude. For lunch, I think I'd have pointed them to the pub down the road...