Why does no one talk about what parenting is really like.

[Mama9076]

After having my first baby, even after attending NCT classes I was completely shocked and I don’t think anything could prepare me for the, exhaustion and sheer relentlessness looking after a baby takes. Especially after having a tough birth with no time to recover. My friends who had been super excited for me to join the mum club and so positive, suddenly opened up about how hard they found it to. It’s like a secret club that only unlocks once you have a baby yourself. Going in eyes wide open for baby#2. I find myself not being open and honest with friends that are expecting their first. Are you like this or are you honest about how it is?

I just admit before I had children I naively assumed comedians relating their experience of parenthood were exaggerating just to try and be funny. They’re seriously the most relatable
accounts once your in the thick of it. The Kevin the teenager is a classic, our ones were a mixture of not so bad and far worse so think overall was a pretty accurate caricature

My two were both relatively simple (but bloody long) labours and then I got them both in good routines early on and sleep was fairly ok. I was however, very prepared and had read a lot of books and had a good plan. But, what I didn’t expect was how completely all pervading and dominating looking after a new baby is. Literally 24/7 from the moment that they’re born. In the first few days I was literally hanging on dd’s every breath! I felt like someone should have prepared me for that. Now I tell pregnant friends that it’s like having a bomb go off in your life. A wonderful, lovable, amazing bomb but a bomb all the same. If you ever thought you were busy or tired before you’ll look back and laugh at your own naivety. But it’s definitely worth it.

The key thing is that (amazingly) it's different for everyone.

For example, while I was tired with my newborns, I never experienced that mind-numbing exhaustion some women do, and mine were luckily fairly good sleepers within the bounds of babyhood.

However, I really struggled with a sense of discombobulation with my first. Like my world had been upended & I had no one to explain it to me.

Equally I found having 2 DC fine - easier than 1 - but when I had my 3rd in 4 years I really struggled. But others have had a completely difference experience.

I, too, find the teen years I'm currently in, the hardest - and loveliest. I enjoy them greatly as people & yet am driven to utter despair & exhaustion dealing with the daily realities of teens being selfish, not listening, upending my house. I've never felt such bone-crushing exhaustion, physical & mental, as I have in these recent years.

There's no way to make each individual experience relevant to all mothers.

I remember late in my first pregnancy a friend who'd had her first about a month before coming to visit me. She went through the (horrific) details of her labour at length. It didn't put me off at all - rightly as it turned out. My labour was short by first labour standards, not easy but manageable & straightforward. But equally me assuring other women there's would be like that would have been pointless.

I love being a parent but I also had a very easy birth and baby, so I may have just been extremely lucky. I don't actually find parenting bad at all 🤷‍♀️

Why does no one tell you breastfeeding is excruciatingly painful for the first 10 weeks then absolutely exhausting and draining and mentally so hard for the next 4 months as only you can fed the baby and can’t leave the baby for fear of the baby needing you.

I bottle fed number 1 due to a tongue tie . It was a walk in the park compared to breastfeeding number 2 . People kept saying how sorry they were for me that I couldn’t breastfeed number 1 .

Now I’m breastfeeding number 2 I can’t believe people really all loved breastfeeding. When i say I find it hard - everyone Diablo’s admits it was bloody hard and not enjoyable!!!

My mum still says - breastfeeding is amazing and I say- I appreciate it is binding but I find it isolating and exhausting and then she agrees and moans about it ! Then the next day is back to breastfeed is amazing !!!!’

I’m about to have a baby and I can only think of all the misery and relentlessness. The sacrifice and boredom. I find babies pretty horrifying, especially as newborns, and I’ve always found them annoying and exhausting. I couldn’t even face changing nappies on a doll for the NCT stuff as I find it so depressing. I passed it off as a morbid fear of baby dolls (which is true) but I also was just depressed that I’d be changing shitty nappies instead of having my interesting and fulfilling career as an academic. I find the environmental impact and consumption of baby raising shocking. I was advised not to go ahead but I couldn’t break my partner’s heart like that. It would have devastated him to a degree that it would have demanded such cruelty from me so I couldn’t do it.

To be fair, my partner has been amazing throughout and I am extremely well supported. But I find threads like this really triggering as this is what I have known/suspected all my 37 years, being confirmed in black and white. My partner is the kindest and best man and so profoundly happy and excited about our dc arrival, which does make me very happy to see; and we’ve been together 17 years and are finally affluent after many years of struggle. I hope all in all that it’s enough. However, threads like this make me more convinced that I’m not sure it is.

@BurbageBrook I find newborns and babies amazing. I find 15 months to 3 hard , hard work.
I just could not believe how well I took to being a mum. Then my child became a toddler ! I now have a new baby again and she is dreamy and I can cope easy. It is the toddler !!!!!! Ahhhhh

Complete opposite here, I was expecting it to be hell on earth, to the extent I almost didn’t have a child. Found it an absolute doddle really.
I found everyone overplayed how bad it is to be honest. Yes it is hard at times but it is also the best thing in the world.

It isn't so awful as op is planning number 2

Yes one of my DC has always been an absolute dream and if had only had her would of wondered what all the fuss was about 🤣
However there are some parents who find it a struggle even with a relatively ‘easy’ baby (e.g baby who just cluster feeds in evening, wakes 3 hourly for feeds in night and is easily consoled with a cuddle or feed)

Ha, yes absolutely agree with you there!!

@Mummasummer

I'm so sorry you had that experience. Breastfeeding shouldn't be painful, and not for that length of time.

But again, that's not the same for everyone. I had no difficulties with breast feeding apart from occasional sore nipples and I really did love it.

I don't go around saying that to new struggling mothers of course.

Not everyone has that same experience of parenting. My pregnancies and births were very easy and I felt very little pain (none at all during birth as I had epidurals, with no other interventions for the first). Pain afterwards was minimal with otc painkillers. Breastfeeding very easy, no pain and babies just knew what to do. Babies didn't sleep well but I didn't feel exhausted as I have always tended to get very little sleep. It was relentless but I had made that decision to give up doing other things to focus on the babysitters, so didn't feel like I was missing out. I'm lucky to have excellent support from DH who had a long period of leave, but no other family help.

I tend to keep tight lipped because I sound so bloody negative. The newborn stage is tough but wonderful, but I think it gets worse as they get older. Mine didn’t sleep through the night for YEARS. They are 5 & 7 now and it’s still such hard work. There’s moments of pleasure, but on the whole it’s fucking relentless and I’d love to have just snippets of my old life back.

I felt like all I heard when I was pregnant was how difficult it was going to be, how my life as I knew it was about to end, etc. I am happy for people to normalise the challenges of parenting but for me it would have been much better to have heard the good stuff so that I wouldn’t have been filled with so much panic, anxiety, and dread while heavily pregnant!

Absolutely same for me. Every minute of every day I love my baby girl and the joy she has brought me. She is nearly 12 months old and I love it all. Nothing is hard. It is all just amazing.

I'm still breastfeeding several times a night too!

I do tell people, as gently as possible, that it can be be very hard at first. And not to worry if they don’t know which way is up and feel like they’ve made a horrendous mistake in the first few weeks. It might not be like that, but it can be, especially after a difficult birth.

One male colleague was talking to me about his and his wife’s first baby being due, and I chatted to him about how it was going and wished them well etc but also said about how it might be hard and not to worry if they go through a tough time etc. He was a bit miffed and “don’t piss on my chips” about it.

Fast forward to after the birth and he said thank fuck you said that, it’s been so awful (difficult birth, trouble with BF, colic etc and traumatised new mum) and we would have thought we were going mad if no one had told us. I think often people don’t, and a lot of new mums conceal any problems/ doubts and pretend it’s all fine. Or if they’re genuinely having an easier time, that can make it harder for those who aren’t.

I always say it’s fucking shit and tell my friends to not have kids. Mine have a 11 month age gap so I’m sure they think I’m mad for that alone. At least they won’t say ‘no one ever told me.’

I completely agree! All I ever see anyone talk about nowadays is the so called “reality” of parenting which seems to mostly be a race to the bottom of how shit they find it, how hard it is, how much they hate their kids and husband and how crap they feel all the time. I’m not saying some bits aren’t hard but I think the negativity around parenthood is way over the top nowadays, no wonder birth rates are dropping!

Maybe it’s different in different circles, demographics or something. I remember going to a baby group run by the HV and it was all mums boasting about their babies’ achievements and no honest chat about feeling overwhelmed or having any problems.

No judgement to you whatsoever but this is one of the reasons I don't share my experience. I have & am having an amazing, positive experience parenting as well as a pretty easy pregnancy and straightforward C-section but I feel if I tell people that they will believe I am being dishonest. I almost feel I have to find some negatives when speaking to other mums. I know it's probably silly of me

It is different for everyone and there are so many elements - the birth, sleep, feeding, PND etc meaning the experience can range from great all round to really terrible. It’s not that I didn’t believe people about the good stuff, but I did feel there was a culture of not admitting to any negative feelings or talking about things like BF not going well, after effects of traumatic birth or whatever. And that just perpetuates itself as it becomes harder for anyone to take that step.

It's true what some people say, though. "It's different when it's your own." Re the changing nappies thing. Yes, the newborn nappies stage is hideous. But a bit later on it's a bonding time (if you let it be that, and don't just see it as a chore that you have to get done asap because you need to be somewhere else). They're gazing up at you doing their "talking" and smiling, and playing with their feet. You can make them laugh just by pulling a silly face. Babies and toddlers do make you "unclench" a bit, you can just feel more free to be silly for the sake of it.

Child development is actually quite interesting if you read a bit about it. I had already studied a bit about children's language development at university so found it interesting to see how my own children's language developed, and how their cognitive thinking developed and enjoyed picking out activities or books etc that I knew would help them with their particular interests or likes. I really enjoyed explaining the way the world worked to them, I didn't mind all the "whys" at all. I remember my mum just couldn't be arsed explaining stuff to us, one of her favourite phrases was "because that's why". Meant nothing!

So I do sometimes think it's how you approach things. If you choose to only see the surface things then they WILL seem boring and monotonous.

You're kidding? I see non stop threads on Mumsnet, newspaper/magazine articles, and endless reels on FB and Instagram about how dreadful it all is.

I feel sorry for women who are pregnant today - they must be dreading what's to come! The reality is most parents find some days hard but they get through them. Most people who have children do not regret them (quite the opposite) but the people who do seem to me to shout about it very loudly!

Why do people presume it is easy?