Is parenting what you thought it would be?

[Tired890]

I always wanted to be a Mum and I love my son to death but my God is it hard. He had colic and a milk allergy as a baby so I never experienced the “newborn bubble” that people talk about as he cried all the time. He’s 1.5 now and adorable, loving, funny but I still find it challenging. He’s incredibly active, an incredibly picky eater which I find very stressful and he needs constant stimulation and entertainment (as I’m sure most kids do, am not saying this is abnormal), but I find it such a slog. I feel like I keep waiting for it to get easier but the challenges just get different.

Do you enjoy parenting as much as you thought you would?

My baby (I stress baby as I'm sure I will have changed my mind by this time next year!) was a surprise. I didn't want children, I thought being a parent would be never ending drudgery. I've loved every minute so far...
I don't think there's any shame in suggesting that it hasn't turned out how you thought it would.
This time next year you will be in a different stage too and you might just prefer that one!

It’s much harder than I thought it’d be. It’s relentless.

Although I enjoy being a mother (have just had my second) I found the hardest time from 18 months to 2.5.

After this it's so much easier to understand what they want, they potty train, DD started sleeping later, they are more independent with feeding etc, days out are easier, tantrums less I've found. I guess my point is it does get easier and less relentless x

PS I also have a picky eater so understand how hard that is as well x

In all honesty I feel very ambivalent about it. Obvs we all love our children, but I really have mixed feelings about whether I would choose again to be a parent if I had the benefit of really knowing what it’s like. I do acknowledge we’ve had a particularly tough run: DS is on autistic spectrum and has always been highly demanding, and DD had serious health traumas as a baby, and their Dad passed away, so I’m on my own with them. Even without that all though, I think it’s extremely hard, and it definitely is not always rewarding.

@Tryingtoconceivenumber2 I hope I have the same experience and find it gets easier eventually. Despite finding it hard, I still find myself wanting a second but I think it’ll likely be a fair bit of an age gap! The picky eating really is so hard isn’t it.

@Pegasus41 Bless you, that sounds like such a tough time 😞 I hope things get easier for you with time too.

At 18mo it wasn’t what I thought but from about 2 onwards it was 100%. A complete joy and wonder and a life filled with love. Hang in there.

I really enjoy it but it's far tougher than I imagined, and for a long time.

It's lasting longer than I thought for them to mature i.e. the relentless repeating myself ad infinitum, telling them to put their coat on when it's zero outside etc.

I have a baby and a child in reception and I would find the whole thing a doddle if it wasn’t for the endless fucking illnesses and resulting severe sleep deprivation. I expected snotty noses and the occasional sick bug but this is on another scale and I know a lot of the other mums feel the same way.

Yes, it has been very much as I expected. I have been very lucky! My dc are now 15 & 18 and it hasn't been very hard tbh. They were easy babies, easy children and have so far been pretty easy teenagers. I had a bit of a hard time for a good while after ds was born, but that was down to health problems of mine, not down to parenting being difficult.

It's harder than I thought it would be- however it would be a million times easier if I didn't have to work FT - my DH earns well but we just can't make it work on a part time/SAHM salary - kids r older now but working with terrible sleepers is just horrific!

Well, my expectations were pretty low for the baby/toddler years, so from that point of view there was no awful mismatch of expectations.
We have faced catastrophic problems but we've had our fair share. But I'm happy with my family and like my kids (11&13)

Op, yours sounds like my first. It's hard. My second was a textbook baby though, we had a brilliant time.

No one told me how much peeling I would have to do as a parent. I feel like I spend my days peeling stickers, price tags, labels, oranges, opening things. It's very nail heavy 🤔

@Tired890 I absolutely would not have thought of having other before she was 2.5 in fact I had said I wouldn't. I have a 3.5 year age gap and it's been ok so far but only 5 days in haha x

@Blessedbethefruitz 😂 haha so much peeling! What’s your first born like now? When did they get bit easier?

@AllProperTeaIsTheft I’d be lying if I didn’t say I wasn’t jealous! Sounds wonderful ☺️

@Bumblenums I agree with the terrible sleeper thing! I forgot to mention how god awful of a sleeper my kid is too, just to add to the mix!

I don’t think anyone can truly predict what parenting will be like, it certainly wasn’t what I thought it would be like!! There are ups and downs and you need to focus on the ups and enjoy as much of it as you can.

@Tryingtoconceivenumber2 Aw congratulations! I hope you get the lovely newborn bubble this time! I imagine I might not feel ready for a second until my first is in school 😅

@Hetty356 I think you’re right that no one can predict and what I’ve learnt so far is that a huge part of your experience is down to what sort of kid you get and less about parenting choices. Obviously your parenting can influence but it seems like people either get an easy kid or a tricky one and it’s luck of the draw! They’re all wonderful in their own way but some experiences just tougher.

I had very low expectations because I didn’t really want kids so it’s far better than I hoped. I’m amazed how much fun I find the toddler years.

But I’ve just stuck my hand out and caught an actual shit before it landed in the bath, so that’s certainly an element that I wasn’t really prepared for.

For some unknown reason, I didn’t think about the toddler years. I thought a lot about babies and it wasn’t what I expected - thought he’d sleep more and thought he’d wake in the night but I would wake, feed him, go back to sleep. Ha. No.

The toddler years really challenged me and I felt like a terrible parent because my toddler didn’t respect my boundaries. I’ve chilled a lot and am a better parent for it. He’s 3 soon and we’re slowly coming through that stage.

I’ve got another one who is pretty easy really but maybe it’s my expectations are lower 😂

Mine are young teens now and it is so much easier than the under five’s. We have a decorator in at the moment and she commented that we are always laughing and joking together. I was surprised this was noteworthy but maybe others don’t rub along so well. I guess looking back I didn’t get on that well with my own parents, but I think parents were generally stricter and more separate in the 80s.

I've loved it, I was expecting to love parenting, and I have. I did worry a bit that there might be something I hadn't taken into account that would turn it into a bad experience, but there wasn't.

I do think it shouldn't be an automatic expectation in your life, that you will find a partner, settle down and have children. They have to be your priority, and every other priority has to move down a notch, and if you don't want to do it then you shouldn't.

Nope. Images of my baby gurgling cutely in the corner while I carried on were dispelled immediately- snd I had a good baby (at least me first was). While I still went out every day, I felt soooo bored. And instead of being Monday, which I had been for 41 years, I was now X's mum. Or my husband's wife. I dud hi back ti work but fue health reasons gave up in my second pregnancy and never went back.
I found it dull and full of drudgery.
The golden age for me was between the ages of 5/6 and 8/9, young enough to still have you as the centre of their world and be quite biddable. But old enough to dress themselves and not need constant minding/entertainment.
But then the inevitable. One minute they are telling you they want to live with you forever, the next they are telling you that you're stirring your coffee wrong!

I found 1.5 the hardest age with both my DC! It does get much easier from here

It's way better than I thought, but that's because I'd convinced myself that I'd hate it and feel like my life was over, and my identity lost. So my expectations were rock bottom (it was a planned pregnancy...I just went into it with desperate hope that I'd be wrong!).

Yes it's hard, and I may well feel very differently if we had other challenges (she's not an amazing sleeper but not bad in the scheme of things, she eats ok, but crucially she's developing on track and so communicating with her is a two way street now and so much easier).

I'm just overwhelmed on a daily basis by how much I love her, and how much happiness that feeling brings me. I couldn't have anticipated what this love would feel like before I had her, and it genuinely makes the tough times worth it.