I'm not the parent I thought I would be

[Stefka]

Before I was pregnant and throughout my pregnancy I had certain thoughts as I am sure everyone does about the sort of mother I wanted to be. Things have not gone the way I thought I would and I am feeling disappointed and guilty about it. Sorry in advance for what is a very moany post.

I desperatly wanted a natural childbirth and did lots of reading and preparation using hypnosis CD's etc but my baby was back to back and after thee hours of pushing I caved and had pethidine. Both my baby and I were very dopey when he was born and I feel that I wasn't with it enough to bond in the way that I had wanted to. It also caused problems with breast feeding.

I was sure that BF would come naturally to me. It's been a nightmare and I am still not enjoying it. It's been so painful and 9 weeks on although my nipples are healing it's still sore on one side and really uncomfortable on the other.

I wanted to co-sleep but after six weeks of having him in the bed the fear from one horror story too many got to me and I moved him into his crib.

I planned to baby wear but found that it hurt my back and that I also sometimes just wanted to put him down and be on my own for a bit.

His vaccinations are due - my instinct is that it feels wrong but I know I am a coward and will most likely just get them done.

Anyway I am just moaning but I wanted to share these thoughts with someone but don't feel able to talk about these issues with anyone.

My SIL does have her mother on hand which must be a help. My mum is too far away and I am own my own a lot of the time. Sometimes you lot are the only people I speak to in a day!

I have found my views now are often different to those I held before I became a Mum. I have lots of nephews and nieces and children with friends and I had some pretty definite ideas about how I would parent. All I can now say is it is completely different when it is your own child and your heart often leads the decision making. It is completely natural so just relax and go with the flow. It is all a big learning experience!

I think we forget that our babies, even when tiny, have their own opinions about how things are going to be.

Babycarrot declined to sleep seperately from me, hence we now co-sleep.

She isn't mightily impressed with the gorgeous silvercross pram, so I wear her in a wrap sling (and half the time it's just a piece of unhemmed fabric off ebay too)

She breastfeeds nicely, but is the skinniest baby on the block - not a great advert for it if you think babies should be chubby and bouncing.

My lovely homebirth also ended 2 days later with every intervention going in hospital.

And I'm in my jimjams as I write this.

Here's my advice...INDULGE YOURSELF. Do whatever you want without caring what other people would think (if they knew), and without caring what the pre-parent you would say!!! These days are precious and short and guilt is daft and gets in the way.

You are the mother you were meant to be, and that is wonderful.

First time motherhood is a huge shock to the system. You are suddenly dealing very much with the absolute reality of life with a baby - not the soft focus, rose tinted image you had when you were pregnant (and that so many of those stupid pregnancy guides pedal - really annoys me!).

I had also planned a completely 'natural' birth - all aromatherapy oils and low lighting etc - but ended up having a c-section.

Also planned to BF for a year - lasted 6 weeks

Planned to use a sling - c-section put paid to that

Planned to wait until 6 months to wean - weaned at not quite 5 months

Planned not to use a dummy - used one!

Planned never to feed my child 'crap food' (weaned on rice cakes and organic veg - now 3 yrs old and his fave foods are chocolate buttons and sausages!)

Planned never to be one of those frazzled looking haridans screeching at their kids in the supermarket - frequently have to drag DS kicking and screaming from public places!

And so the list goes on....

Motherhood is a big learning process. You will grow and change almost as much as your child. You'll find things out about yourself you never knew. You won't like some of the things you find out (I never knew just how impatient I am or how low my boredom threshold really is), but you will also be pleasantly surprised by other things you learn (I never knew I could be so selfless in some areas of my life...or how little sleep I could get by on!). The main thing you learn is that you cannot control or plan for everything in life. Don't beat yourself up about what you can't change. And be kinder to yourself. It's not easy!

hey stefka
Sometimes being a mum is great - like when he smiles and tries to talk to me. And when he cuddles me & falls asleep - when only his mummy can make it happen.
But then there are all the times when it isn't - crying at 3am because it hurts to feed and you're both tired and you just can't make it happen.
The one thing I can say for sure is its never like i imagined it would be - because i just could not imagine the wholesale way it changes you.
I am so used to being in control that learning to give up some of that to chance and what's best is difficult to come to terms with. Being a stubborn perfectionist - and nipple shields, a dummy and a swing - are how i think i've managed to get to this point, 10 weeks in, of feeling like i can do a good job despite the ups and downs.
Whatever happens your baby will know that you care....

agree with everything everyone else has said. main thing is not to comp[are yourself to other mums.Everyone's just muddling along, whatever it looks like on the surface.. I remember the first meet up my antenatal group had after the babies were born. the babies were all just two weeks old, and the mum whose house we met up at had cooked banana bread. i couldn't believe it - I barely had time to go to the toilet, never mind get my pinny on and start baking, because my LO was crying all the time and didn't sleep a wink, all day or night.
Now, the tables are turned,and he is sleeping fine, giving me a bit of time for baking,if I wanted, while her LO is a real challenge. your time will come!

hi stefka
just to say hello and hope you have a good day today
x

Oh Bless You... and how very very normal you do sound

This is a period of adjustment if you can just take it moment by moment and ease along with it without any prescription of how you should be acting / reacting you may find it much easier

Nobody ever knows what it is going to be like .. it blows you apart and then puts you back together as a far better person

go with the flow sweetie .. don't compare yourself to other people .. this is YOUR baby .. and YOU are the mummy now

You can do it

You will look back in a couple of months and not recognise this feeling

Such true words have been spoken...
I really agree with how books mess with your head! I read soooo many with DS1 that I think I lost my own instinct, I would just have all these memories of sentences about the problems which all conflicted and I completely lost confidence in myself.
I had wanted a home birth (the books had made me frightened of hospitals) and ended up with a long and stressful birth and a CS that probably saved my and DS's life. (guess I was unlucky, am still jealous of women who had the home thing but realised hospitals do in fact care!)
Have you noticed how these books actually say very little, but say it again and again to try to convince you? The reason there are so many books out there, is because there is no 'correct' way to go about things. This pregnancy I have resolutely refused to read ANYTHING. I also haven't planned anything as you really can't tell until you get there.
good luck. just wait until weaning starts, there'll be a whole load of new theories to deal with...!
I would say LoveAngelGabriel has hit the nail on the head.

Stefka - babies can't read books, they do their own thing and the majority of us, just like you, muddle along.

We do our best and it's good enough.

Enjoy your baby and try to stop looking around you thinking everyone else is doing a better job. The likelihood is they may look serene on the outside but like a duck they're paddling like hell underneath.

Everyone thinks that everyone else is somehow managing better - either they are serene lentil-weavers with karmically balanced perfect babies or they feed their infants on burgers and gin and DON'T CARE yet the infants persist in thriving... or they look polished and perfect and witter on about how they've 'blossomed' when you're covered in sick and have both piles and a cold sore. Chill, girl, your LO loves you whatever you do - and there are many threads on MN of people having done magnificently daft things and survived.

Please don't compare yourself with anyone! My best friend had her ds 3 months after I had dd1 and confessed recently that she had not wanted to discuss all her problems with me because she thought it all came so easily to me and I might perceive her as a failure.

But in reality I was an anxious basket-case, obsessed with what people might think of me if I displayed one iota of weakness! I was in no way coping any better than she was, and if only we'd been less exhausted and more conversational we'd have both realised this!

I don't think anyone is the mother they expected to be tbh. I'm sure you're doing a great job - especially given the birth trauma you went through. Do enjoy your baby and take no notice of what everyone else is up to. Best of luck xx.

Stefka, it sounds like you are doing really well and I don't think I could have even composed such a coherent post a couple of months after my dd was born. Getting her to latch on was a nightmare and I was crazy with mastitis and drove the wrong way around a roundabout on the way to see the doctor about it. I also had a sil who had had a dd a couple of months earlier who seemed to be breezing through bf, getting back to normal etc. So I got her to bf my dd and then we did a quick change to help her to learn to latch on.

Stefka

I'm so sorry you are feeling this way. DD is 5 months and I have been through all the things you are feeling

dd loves her dummy
several barely used slings (mainly coz I can't figure out how to use them!)
would love to co-sleep but she sleeps and I lay awake uncomfortably listening to her (and DH) snore!

As for the bfing, I honestly took months to feel comfortable with it, maybe 3 or 4? we had lots of problems, but now DD is 6 months (yay!) and we are still going strong and I (mostly) love it! Keep getting your latch checked if it is still hurting. It may be he has grown and you haven't adapted your position (also, and I hate to say this, but say it from experience, possible the dummy is affecting his latch you could try these) but honestly it will get better!

Please give yourself a break. I know you say you don't want to speak to anyone else but can you at least mention to your DH how you feel. It will only make things worse if you bottle them up.

Be kind to yourself, you are doing a great job

Stefka, your post rings so many bells with me! Thing is, when it's your first we can't know how it's going to be - we just can't, but weirdly we thing we do...

How I laugh now (to hide my shame ) at my wanky judgemental comment about a woman I know who was stuck to the sofa with her newborn because that's the only way she would sleep. I think I may have even, oh the shameful, shameful horror, used the words "rod" and "back".

Six months later, and the gods had been just, I was glued to the sofa with ds for his first 8 weeks.

Btw, I don't know if this will help a tiny bit, but I had a horrible time with bf, dreadful cracks that wouldn't heal, seeking the perfect latch in vain, up until 16 weeks. Really quite suddenly it got better and has been good ever since (ds is 13 months). Just want you to know that it is not too late for bf to become a joy for you if you're in despair at it ever coming right. I know that 16 weeks feels like forever away - dunno if I'd have stuck it if I'd known it was going to take that long but we were going one day at a time (one feed at a time for a long while) and then suddenly, maybe ds just got bigger I really don't know, it all came together.

You may not be the parent you thought you would be but you're doing a great job at being the parent that your ds needs. Be kind to yourself.

I think it isn't helping that my DH keeps implying that I am not coping as I should be. I was at the Dr yesterday and had to return today and I was complaining about having to go out again when DH said the following:

that going out isn't so difficult and I am strange for making such a big deal out of it and that there are 16 year olds who have babies and manage just fine

Also that he doesn't sleep at night because of something I am doing ?!

The baby doesn't sleep I mean not DH.

Stefka am short on time but read your OP and wanted to say you mustn't worry about these things, though it's hard.

I was going to have the hippy-dippy natural birth and then follow every guideline known to man, I had the big shiny travel system, the frilly moses basket, the huge cotbed ... guess what, I had a section, my baby sleeps on his side in bed with me, all the gear is collecting dust and I cannot peel him away from me for more than 5 minutes.

Life is so different to how I had imagined/planned it to be. But it's because you just don't know who you're going to get until they arrive, and you don't know how you're going to feel until it happens.

The thing is, plans are great, but the best sort of parent is the one that survives the mishmash of stress and strife and worry and guilt and all the rest that comes with a newborn and just gets by.

Better to do what you need to do to survive and be as happy as you can be than to struggle towards an (in my case anyway) impossible dream of the ideal parent-child scenario and always be miserable. I think if I have learned anything in the 5 months of my baby's life it's that flexibility is vital and never to feel guilty for doing what I need to do. I am still learning new stuff about him and myself and our relationship every day.

At the end of the day it's about the long haul - things are magnified just now but we will look back on these days as a bit of a blur, and hopefully with fond memories. Don't waste a moment berating yourself for not conforming to an ideal that doesn't exist. Just try to enjoy each day and know that your children will never grow up to hold a grudge against you for any of this.

Re your DH I think he maybe needs a bit of a reality check. Firstly every baby is different (as is every 16 year old ) - some are easy, some are like living with Ghengis Khan, some sleep, some don't, some feed well, some don't. They're not mass produced by underpaid children in a factory in the far East.

Secondly, the bit about your baby not sleeping because of you ... why not give him 48 hours and see if he can do better?

I think you need to ask him for more support. You need that more than ever. At 9 weeks I was at my lowest point I think - you feel like you should be 'sorted' but in reality you're now chronically tired and your baby is even more demanding and sleepless. And give yourself a break - you will be doing a thousand times better than you are giving yourself credit, I am sure.

Thanks - I don't feel I am getting the support I need from him but he feels that he works all the time and that this is harder and told me I could swap if I wanted to.

He is also out a lot which means I am on my own a lot of the time. He is out at the moment at the works christmas do even though he said he would be home in the afternoon. I don't know if he is coming home for tea and I don't have any bloody food in the house if he doesn't come. He is on holls for two weeks and already has plans tomorrow afternoon and Sunday afternoon to go out.

He means well but I don't think he realises how hard I am finding everything.

Stefka - just wanted to echo everything people have said on here really. I also had a natural birth in mind but ended up having an epidural as my ds was also back to back and then ended up having a c-section.

also - re the breastfeeding - you have probably already ruled this out but is there any chance the pain could be due to thrush? I had loads of pain weeks after he was born whilst bf and it was because i had thrush. it's all cleared up now and we are still going 6 mo later.

oh yeah - the cloth nappies thing - also had that expectation but that really didn't work out either!

Stefka, have you ever left your dh with ds for any length of time? The first time I did that my dh was practically weeping with relief at my return and put his hands up to finding it x1000 harder than he had ever imagined.

Might be worth a try, for your own sanity if nothing else. I'm talking for an afternoon or something - nothing major, but make sure you give him an errand to run as well so he has to get himself together to leave the house - see how he measures up to this mythic 16 year old mother-progidy

I haven't yet no because DH is always working or out. I hope to over the holls though. I went for a lie down for half an hour the other night and he found that hard! Seems to have forgotten that though.