Whats the funniest thing you've heard a new or soon-to-be parent say?

[ninipops]

This might well come across as a bit sneery or patronising but its not meant that way honestly!

My DSis is due her first baby soon (6th baby between my sibs 3 of which are mine) and during an email discussion between us sibs recently she made a comment about wanting 'to be able to concentrate on and enjoy the first few weeks of being a parent'. DH & I both read it and instantly burst out laughing - not meant in a patronising way but more because we know all too well how the first few weeks of sleep deprivation etc etc can be somewhat challenging. The idea of having any option other than to concentrate on that new bundle just really caught my funny bone.

Anyone else - or is it just me being a bitch?!?!

"It will be nice to wear my old clothes again" - me - I actually even packed some of them for coming home from hospital. Why didn't anyone tell me I would still have a 6 months pg bump???

"I will just make a friend at antenatal group who has a baby the same age and then we can just take turns looking after the babies so we can work." Me again I then realised looking after 1 baby was almost impossible, and there was definitely no one in my antenatal group I would have wanted to hand my baby over to.

An incredibly smug friend knew everything about babies before she had one, even after I had one and she hadn't, she knew better than me. Then she got pregnant, how we all larfed and rubbed our hands with glee.

The baby came on his due date and has been the most placid, obedient, sleeps-like-clockwork, well-behaved little poppet ever since. Gahhh!

I thought 'why wouldn't I breast feed, it's so natural how hard can it be' haha. DD was on formula after three weeks of agonising cracked nipples.

The other was 'it must be perfectly possible to survive on up to four hours of broken sleep every night'. Again hahahha. I was so naive about the whole thing. I really didn't enjoy much of the first three months, until I started to come out of the 'fug'.

A friend recently told me she was ready for a homebirth having read a hypnobirthing book, that labour is all about "getting in the zone" and taking one contraction at time.

Admittedly I also envisaged a water birth (cue slow labour, high bp, epidural and ventouse) but pretty sure I didn't say anything quite so irritating naive and certainly not to friends who already been through it.

Happy she was trying to scare me because her waters had broken painlessly by themselves, and they were sorting out a bed for me to go and get my main waters broken artificially, because my hind waters had already gone. She was telling me how MAHOOSIVE the crochet hook was, and how painful it was, and how you can feel them ripping at your insides

Yikes!!!!!

Work colleague planning on taking extended holiday - so he and his wife could go 'backpacking' to India for 6 weeks when their DC was 3-4 month old. Baby would have had its injections, dodgy food wasn't a problem cos it would still be bf - a shame not to take advantage of his wife's 6 months maternity leave ...needless to say it didn't happen!!!!
Me (8 months pregnant) at my first meeting with my PhD advisers - after they picked their jaws up off the floor when I walked in - 'I'm just concentrating on doing as much lab work as possible whilst I can - I've got a box file of research papers to read on my (4 month) maternity leave'...both fathers I saw them glance at each other and smirk...and thought you're underestimating me ...when I returned part time at 3 months I had to brush the dust off the unopened box file

My darling sister who was 6 months less pregnant than me (but being the eldest sister could not for a moment imagine that she knew less on the subject) suggested I needed a headband for labour - you know so that my hair didn't get into my eyes and on my nerves, whilst I was pushing baby out. Clearly, hair in my eyes was the last thing on my mind.

How will I know when I'm in labour?

Errm... actually I turned out to be really, really crap at knowing when I was in labour.

And a friend turned up for a routine antenatal appointment and was whisked off to delivery by an eagle-eyed midwife (apparently frantic giggling and saying 'You'll have to catch me first!' were a giveaway. Who knew?).

80s child that's a very sweet anecdote and sounds like the type of advice I give my little sister! At least sisters can speak their minds to each other!!

I remember saying 'I will be straight back to work as soon as [the baby] is three months old. I will be bored by then'
I couldn't bear leaving her! It was torture. When i had to go back at 6mth I kept leaving work early because i missed her so much.

I remember a colleague getting really humphy when she was expecting twins. She wasn't going to sort out any childcare because 'they will be able to come to the office and sleep here'

In a hospital, in the A&E department, twins....

kitties I had DC5 4 years ago.
I was totally unsure whether I was in labour or not but too embarrassed to admit it!

Me - "kids don't need stuff, they need love". I seriously miscalculated the cost of food, clothes,toys, clubs, more bloody food, birthday parties, shoes, even more food, even bigger shoes........Love is all you need my blinking arse.

It's funny, because those first few weeks, we did just concentrate on baby and being a family. Baby did get into a routine, we then adapted ours to have a new family routine. Managed to go to the gym and do up the garden on mat leave. Decorated the nursery in advance so didn't have to do it with a newborn, and there is kids stuff in the nursery and living room as planned, nowhere else. House is tidy, I still sleep when baby sleeps (he is 15 months ).

This is not a stealth boast. Just trying to point out that no one is necessarily unseasonable in saying these things. I think where we were smartest, is that we did not make any sweeping statements before baby came. We just wanted him home alive, everything else just fitted in and therefore didn't really matter.

Unreasonable

at honeypie's "essential oils" ha,ha!

I did insist that with DD1 I would never breast feed, thought it was gross etc. But after she died, I insisted I would with rainbow DS, not a chance I was going to miss out on any available experience!

I am a bit now at how insistent I was. But anything else I said I would / wouldn't do, I've pretty much stuck to. And I've not been foolish enough to make any plans for DC3's arrival!

PS I didn't twig that I was in early labour. Despite it being my second child and despite being 40+10 with an extremely large tummy, when I got the first cramps I thought to myself "I am bloody fed up with all these pregnancy aches and pains, I've been getting these ones every 20 mins like clockwork. When will this baby ever get a move on!"

Duh .... it took me about three hours of that and the pains reducing to every 10 mins or so for me to twig that maybe I should ring DH ...

We've all said them:

1. My child won't... (usually with the emphasis on my)
2. It won't change me
3. I won't live my life around my child
4. Have you thought of... [insert inane suggestion here]

I didn't know I was in labour until my waters broke and it occurred to me that the back pains I had had all day (including during an argument with my friend in which he insisted I would know when I was in labour!) might have been early labour.

I couldn't wait for the gas and air, having heard great things from hippy friends, but it turned out it didn't do that much for me except give me something to focus on when I was having contractions.

I do have a friend who doesn't have children yet who told me that she's ready for sleepless nights, she has cats who often wake her up at 4am and need putting put into the garden. She is deadly serious about thinking this is the same

I didn't twig that I was in labour! Twelve hours of regular contractions WHICH I WAS TIMING and I didn't catch on! Slightly concerned I won't next time either

One of DH's friends is a a bit foot in mouth and tactless. They are expecting their first child- both in their late 40. DH;s friend actually said to us a few weeks ago that they had spent some years observing where their friends had 'gone wrong' with their parenting so they felt well able to handle whatever came their way.

DH and I both choked on our starters...

Not quite parents to be stage but slightly prior to that my DBro said they'd like twins.
The idea that they might come to order made me smile as well as the idea that anyone would actively want two at once for preference (no offence to parents of twins)

I was going to learn Spanish.
LOL.

I was going to have no visitors at the hospital, just DH and I.
I ended up bored out of my skull and having to phone people and convince them that I did want to see them. That really makes me guilty, how rude I must have been when I was explaining this pre-birth

On Day 3 we would all be home and have a little party, with a tablecloth and napkins and M&S food to introduce the baby to the family. MIL and my SILs told me very, very kindly that this was A Bad Idea.

Baby was going to sleep in her lovely moses basket and maybe wake up once a night.
Again, LOL.

My 38 week pregnant friend reckons she'll be back at work full time when the baby's 6 weeks old!