When does it get easier?

[Maisie2019]

Looking for a bit of reassurance here!
I’m a FTM to a 3.5 month old DS. I love him to pieces but it has been really hard work so far. He suffered from severe GERD from a few weeks old and is now medicated and so much better. We have now hit the dreaded sleep regression!!!
I just can’t help but feel I have lost myself and my relationship with DP. I’m off on mat leave and he works 6 days a week as he has a normal job and runs his own business. This was always fine when it was just me as Saturday was my chill day but it’s so different now it just feels like 6 long lonely days. I absolutely love my job and I miss it so much. DP is tired from work, I’m tired from sleepless nights and DS is tired too!!!
I make sure we go out every day, I go to mum and baby groups, meet other friends who are on mat leave, see family or wander round the shops. All of that certainly helps make me feel better and DS seems to sleep better too when we have been out and about. But I just can’t shake this overwhelming feeling that I’ve lost myself - will that ever come back? I never thought having a baby would be easy of course but everything just feels so difficult and such a slog, life revolving around nappies and formula and nap routines, and how many times will he wake up tonight.
I know as I’m typing this that in time things will get better - he will start to walk and talk and we will be able to properly play together and he will sleep at night. And I’m sure me and DP will feel
more human again then and not like we are stuck in a revolving door of baby-ness!!! I try to stay positive because I know this time will pass and I will never get it back but sometimes I just feel like there is no end to it all!!
So anyway my question is - when did it get better / easier / more enjoyable for you? At what age were your babies when you felt human again??

Honestly, with my first, it was when I went back to work at 4m. Then it got better again when we did sleep training at 10m.

@MolliciousIntent how did you manage going back at 4mo if they were still up at night? I don’t think I could do it - hats off to you!!! What sleep training did you do as well out of interest?

Much easier once they can communicate properly which is normally when they start school, so school get the best of them, they are then knackered and grumpy when they get home!
I loathed the baby and toddler years Op, my Dc are now 10 and 12, and I can honestly say year on year it gets easier and I love them more and more!
However be prepared for others to say the opposite! Dd was an absolute nightmare as a baby she cried constantly, as a toddler we had to make our home like Fort Knox, every cupboard needed locks every bookshelf needed blocking off (or she'd climb it) stair gates, and the front and back doors we had to add bolts at the top oh yeh and her tantrums often resulted in her vomiting...I have no idea I survived!
She's absolutely lovely now though, and I love spending time with her.
But early years parenting is bloody hard work!

I just sorta did? She was waking every 1-2 hours and I suppose I just got used to it. I also work from home, and her dad took SPL, so we didn't need to put her in childcare til she was 11m, so I didn't feel too bad about being away from her. Because I wasn't.

RE sleep training, at 6m we did Ferber so that she would fall asleep by herself, but I still fed her when she woke overnight because she had weight gain issues. By 10m she had chunked up and was eating properly, finally, so at that point we did Ferber overnight. First night she howled for hours, second night she slept 7-7.

Once I was getting adult interaction and proper sleep, I enjoyed being a parent a lot more.

Gets little bit better and little bit worse at various points!

6 months they get more smiley and interactive
whatever age they start sleeping through the night makes a big difference (6 weeks- 3ish depending on your child)
2 years you can start doing more with them (but omg the tantrums)
3 years you can semi reason/talk to them (understanding a bribe is a totally underrated milestone lol, so much easier to get shit done when you can bribe your child!)
4ish you can leave them in another room for an extended period of time without them trying to kill themselves

I think it totally depends on the child to be honest. When my twins were newborns, everyone was constantly telling me how much easier things would get after the first year. They are now approaching 3 and if anything it's got much, much harder since the first year. Sorry! My friend who had a baby around the same time has had the opposite experience though so you never know.

It gets easier and harder in waves

When they start sleeping better helps, but that's often years. You might get lucky and it just be months though.

I found it hardest between 6-18m, but it's still very hard at times at ages 3&5. Harder than newborns tbh, but I found that stage the easiest (but no health issues).

My 3.5yo was awake from 1.15-4.30 last night, so I'm still pretty wrecked by this whole sleep deprivation thing.

I think they dominate your life forever more really. From seeing friends with older kids, I'm not expecting it to get much easier, but the challenges we face will be different.

You are at the very start though, and this new lifestyle is all very new. It might not become easier, but you become accustomed to it eventually, and that helps.

I've just re-read your post Maisie2019 do you have a health visitor you can talk to? The bit about 'losing yourself' I think is very normal, but can also be a sign of postnatal depression.
Lack of sleep is also a relationship killer (well and it sucks the joy out of most things).
Do you have family nearby who could watch your baby for a few hours? Or family you could stay with for a few days for a change of scene and company?
My dh had to travel for work, my lowest point was when he'd been away for five weeks, dd was being a hideous toddler and ds was a teething screaming ball of rage. I rang my aunt in tears (my own parents were visiting ds down under) howled at her I couldn't cope, she drove three hours to pick me and my screaming infants up, and I spent a much needed break away from the endless lonely existence which had become my life (dd was such hard work that I pretty much stopped going to any groups or trying to meet up with friends).

It does get better op. But it is so, so, so hard,

I think it’s possibly a mixture of time and milestones. I felt loads better by 6 months but he was born in the lockdown so 6 months was when we could start going to cafes and shops, so maybe it was that more than the time.

Also when the sleep improves you feel better, but we’re 2.5 years in now and he still doesn’t sleep well so I’m still very much expecting / hoping when he does sleep through I’ll feel a little more like myself. But I don’t think I’ll ever be totally my old self as motherhood as basically made me a new person!

When I went back to work, and then again when they became actual beings that could articulate themselves, around 2.5. Infinitely better once they turned 6. I did have two the same age to deal with though!

When they are babies, it’s so exhausting because there’s not really much you can do with them. And they need you so, so much.

I found it easier once DS started sleeping through and having predictable naps - knowing I can ‘clock off’ at around 7 and knowing I have a ‘set break’ around midday is REALLY helpful. Little babies sleep a lot but a lot of it is pram / car seat style naps.

I was having coffee with my friend yesterday and we were ruefully laughing about how easy it was once as it was us, babies in prams, nice chat. Now we have toddlers things like that are much harder - but then it won’t always be so.

somuchgoo providing there is no significant SEN, so far my experience has been 'easier' as they get older, obviously their problems become more serious, and dd is just on the cusp of entering the teenage years so I'm expecting more wearisome crap to fall, but for the moment I find as a couple dh and I now get a bit of time on our own without the need for a baby sitter. That's only started this summer, (my youngest is very sensible) so I can now let them go to the cinema on their, go to the park etc. having an hour or two on a Saturday or Sunday morning drinking my coffee in peace, reading the paper or even talking to dh without interruption is absolute bliss. Even just nipping to the shop for milk without having to drag two noncompliant toddlers/ preschoolers/ grumpy 7/8/9 year olds is so much easier.
I'm lucky though as dd and ds now get on well (I wouldn't let them go to the park or cinema on their own, but together I know they make a good team).
I think the early years it's the constant relentlessness, constant interruptions, constant watching when they are awake, and then constant catch up if/ when they sleep which is so draining (just thinking about that makes me shudder, and glad I've put those years behind me).

I found I turned a corner at 6 months, when they get easier and sleep in a better pattern. DH and I got in a routine and things felt more manageable. I agree every year that passes things get better, it’s hard at the start

That's good to know.
I've heard a lot of negative things about parenting teenagers though, and my friends with kids that age, are are take starting to see the effects of those hormones.

I wouldn't be without them for all the money in the world, but I truly think the only the mine have ever been easy was the first few months.

I’d say at 6 months I started feeling like I knew what I was doing and I wasn’t so worried and mentally exhausted all the time.
It may also be worth having a chat with your DH about how you’re feeling. I held back for a long time telling my DH just how miserable I was during those first months and how much his absence with work made it ten times worse. It’s definitely not a blame game but I think it’s important our partners know the extent to which we are struggling.
I’ve just had my second DC and even though the sleep deprivation is hard it’s hell of a lot easier than the intense mourning I felt for my “old” life when my first DD was born. I truly felt like I’d made the worst decision and I missed my children life with a passion. I know others will say it but I promise you it gets easier. I’ve been on nights out, DH and I have had nights away, I got my evenings back, I went back to work, I sure high heels again! All things I thought I’d never ever do when DD was a tiny baby.

^ childfree life

I went back to work pt at four months and from then on it became far more easy (as I outsourced a lot of it) and enjoyable. Had regular time away to be more stimulated and focus on non baby stuff. The mental drain of babyhood was far harder than the practical IME.
They're now 19 and 17 and nothing was as hard as those first three months.

You're in a transition period still at this age, coming to terms with the loss of who you were and now this new version of you.

I would say it will get easier the more you lean in to being a mother. I accepted she needed feeding "again" I accepted she had another false start or another wake up, when she throws food, I sit with her when she has a meltdown, I hug her even when I've truly had enough and just want to be on my own. I accept and I lean into jt.

The first 6 months were really hard in their own way, the next 6 months in their own way. My DD is 20 months now and just wonderful, I wish I could bottle the joy.

It's always hard, but the joy and the love make it worth while.

We are all poorly with nasty colds at the moment and it's been a miserable week. I am tired and feel dreadful.

I've thought a lot about it and I think a lot of it is adjusting expectations.

Just like their sleep, it’s a rollercoaster, just when you think it’s easier it gets harder again!

Personally I’d say toddler is harder than baby, but then depends on your kid! My sister in law tells me starting school is awful and it all falls apart again. So maybe when they are 18 and leave home 😂

I have a 3 and a 2 year old. Honestly I look back on them being newborns and wonder why I didn't realise how easy they were at the time. Toddlers are hard work. I'm sure it does get easier, but so far it's only got harder for me . Sorry I don't think that's much help is it.

IME it gets easier as they get older and can communicate better.

It doesn’t necessarily get easier just different. Some things easier, some harder. I have a teen and younger ones, teen is obviously easier in sense of being able to do things themselves but other things get harder - more worry, trying to balance quality time, a lot more expensive so judging that, friendship issues, what level of independence to allow, constant phone calls/texts from them etc etc. In some ways I’d love a newborn baby instead!! Other ways, not so much.

As they get older, you’ll find some things easier but something else will come along that’s harder (the mess with weaning, toddler tantrums, wanting to dress themselves but it takes AGES and you need to get out the door etc). Try to enjoy each stage rather than wishing your life away to get to the next stage. X

It is different for everyone, as you can see from the replies. But the crucial thing to hold on to is that it WILL get easier than the utterly overwhelming and exhausting phase you're in now, and will continue by stages to be less and less physically draining and identity-sapping (if perhaps emotionally trickier- but no point in dwelling on that now.)

For us, with our first, it got easier at 9 months when we sleep trained. Being able to sleep through the night made things so much better. Then yes, I felt I had got a lot of myself back when I went back to work after a year. And there was a real turning point for us when DC turned 4- that, though, is not shared by everyone!

I found the newborn stage so hard with my first! I felt like life would never be 'normal' again! But once the start going to bed at 7 (happened after 4 month sleep regression) and we got our evenings back I felt it start to lift. By the time he was 1 I felt like time had flown by and the new normal was the best! Xx