Things you used to be smug about, then realised your mistake when a new baby proved you were just lucky!

[perceptionreality]

My older two children, from babies slept and slept through every illness and ear infection without needing calpol or anything much before returning to their normal selves. Why on earth did people buy these over the counter medications, my dh and I used to say? Why does anyone need them?

After I had dd3 I quickly woke up to the fact that people buy these things because for some children, a slight sniffle is red rag to a bull! And that they represent the only hope of a wink of sleep for you and said child.

Snotty noses. Ds only gets a runny nose when he's ill and has always asked for a tissue. Dd's nose runs frequent rivers of gloop which she sucks off her top lip.

Ds was a terrible sleeper, eater, napper so I had no illusions about that!

yes, sleeping and eating, because dc1 did both brilliantly and dc2 was the opposite.

But OTOH I thought my struggling to get any housework done when dc1 was small was due to my being, essentially, useless. Then dc2 came along and played happily by himself all the time or watched me contentedly from a bouncy chair and I got loads done (housework, baking delicious cakes and making curry from scratch, writing the first draft of a novel....) and I realised I wasn't crap, I'd just randomly got landed with a velcro baby the first time round. So it works both ways.

That as long as I fed DD a balanced mixture of home made mush, that she'd be just as good an eater as DS. And that people with children who were bad eaters just gave in to demands and fads too often.

It didn't work. DS will still eat pretty much anything and yet, even given the same start, DD's diet is very limited. She's just a fussy child.

My first 2 DCs were never sick - not even a tiny bit of posset (I think that's what it's called?).

DC3 puked in huge quantities over my shoulder for months - I had an ever-present trail of sick down my top and trousers, and a puddle just behind me.

I eventually gave in and invested in some muslins

Oh yes I agree to the not being able to get anything done thing. With ds I could barely get the dishes done but with dd I can do mning housework to my hearts content.

that my child weaning like a trouper and eating everything in sight meant setting him up as a total non fussy eater.

I can eat anything I want while breastfeeding and get skinnier than I was pre-pregnancy 2 weeks after giving birth (thanks DS!) not so 2nd time around (buggerit DD)

everything else is a breeze 2nd time around, thank god - not sure I could do colic again

I also experienced the sick thing. I couldn't see why anyone needed bibs until I had dd3!

DS slept 'through' i.e. from about 11pm to 7am, despite being EBF, almost straight away. I thought this was normal.
DD soon enlightened me. It took 6 weeks before she'd consider sleeping at night.
DS was also a champion vegetable eater which was all down to my superior parenting. DD won't eat any.

My first two slept through the night from a couple of months old. I wondered why on earth people with babies always complained about tiredness. Until DS3 came along , 13 months and still not had a full week of decent nights.

DS1 ate everything and anything. Still does, iI've never come across a food he won't eat. DS2, lived on cheese sandwiches and yoghurt until the age of five.

I never understood why tired parents, moaning about their babies not sleeping, didn't just put them down in their cots, and wait the 45 seconds of mild grumbling that it takes for a baby to catch on and go to sleep.

And goodness me, why do mothers every enter into discussions with 5 year olds about the merits as doing as they are told? Surely you just tell them, and once they understand you, they obey you??

Oh dear. DD1 fed and slept brilliantly and was generally a pretty easy going baby. DD2 is due in April and I keep telling myself that I almost certainly won't be as lucky this time around. Eek!

Ds was a terrible sleeper, colic, reflux. He only stopped waking at 5am at 2yrs old. Currently upduffed with dc2 so I'm hoping for a sleeper!

That ds1 was/is a child who likes to please and very thoughtful and had to be encouraged a bot for mischief....

Ds2 a whirlwind, non stop fearless, and mischief maker. He will run around like mad thing and screech and general into everything.

Basically ds2 is like the kind if child I'd think to myself that the parent was a bit crap really and why don't they just make them sit quietly....

You live and learn eh?

DD1 was a dream baby. Fed well, slept well, teething - what teething? Dunno what some parents whinge about. She had all of her teeth by about 15 months and never made a peep, apart from a small grumble about her back teeth but they came through in blood blisters so that was allowed. Smuggity smuggity smug smug.

DD2 also a dream baby. Slept well, fed well. How amazing was I? Smugness personified! It was obviously something I was doing, wasn't it? Until about 6 months in when she became a screaming, teething nightmare and hasn't had a night in her own frigging bed since! I have aged ten years in the last 5 months. Smug? Not so much!

Oh yes and DD1 - happy, confident baby who would smile and giggle at strangers. I could leave her anywhere!

DD2 - Clingy and shy baby who eyes even her own Nanna with suspicion! Hides in my cardigan if someone dares say hello!

I swear I haven't done anything differently!

Tunip - me too!!

I had the opposite. A screaming non-sleeper followed by a sleepy, quiet, happy, chilled-out baby. Better that way round, but I thought I was a crap mum the first time, now I know babies are different.

DS (first child) broke every smug bone in my body . Natural water birth turned to emergency section. Breastfeeding for a year turned to breastfeeding for six miserable weeks. 'Getting my baby into a good routine' turned into me walking him up and down the room, pacing and rocking and pleading with him to go to sleep for (literally) hours. Losing the baby weight quickly (unlike those lazy people who let themselves go) became me, 18 months after first baby, still two stone heavier and gorging on biscuits as I was absolutely wrecked with sleep deprivation and had no energy.

My DS was a biter, a bolter and a a general handful as a toddler. e used to have EPIC tantrums in public and I could feel the eyes of the disapproving childless boring into me. Payback is a bitch

My second baby was an absolute breeze, though./ Glad it came that way 'round. It must be an awful shock to have an angel baby followed by a child like my DS.

Ds1 slept 11pm till 5am from the day we brought him home, sat and watched me doing the house work from his bouncy chair, gringed a little when he was hungry, ate anything, never teethed, was never sick in fact has never yet seen a GP (and he's 16 now). And then I had ds2 -. I can' think why we had ds3.

Loving these

DD slept through the night (12 hours) from 9 weeks old.

We were the only parents of a baby who had lie-ins every weekend! Sometimes she would sleep for 15 hours a night!

Then DS arrived and DID NOT SLEEP for 3 years and 4 months. I was practically DERANGED from lack of sleep. Not quite sure I've ever recovered!

When I just had DS I was totally smug about toys being unisex and how I wasn't going to have any of that plastic crap all over the house.
Then DD arrived, and my house stealthily became an homage to pink plastic crap. I don't buy it, she's just the kind of child people want to give plastic tat to