How hard is the first 6 months of parenting ?

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I know - different for everyone.
We havent had the pleasure of becoming parents yet.
Currently doing ivf.

Fully aware the first 6 months of parenting will be tricky.

Would be interested in hearing about peoples experiences and tips

Totally depends on the baby you get. They are all totally different! Best is to start with low expectations of getting anything done and work up from there!

It also depends on you as a person. Lots of poeple told me to 'sleep when the baby sleeps' and to just relax and enjoy watching box sets whilst the baby naps on your etc. For me - that drove me insane. I needed to achieve something outside the baby bubble (even a walk/sorting the washing) to feel human.

I now know I am not a baby person!

I think with your first baby, one of the hardest things is that your life has been flipped upside down! I'd look up matrescence and also discuss with your partner about how to help one another etc in terms if expectations around chores, waking in the night
Babies have different temperaments and like pp said, some people find it easier to sleep/rest in the day than others
It's also amazing op ! Just good to be prepared

I found it much much easier than expected both times. I had two extremely complicated c sections and issues after both but was able to breastfeed as I’d wanted to, both were decent sleepers (for the first few months…) and I was the happiest, calmest, most at peace I’ve ever been in my life.

My husband is bloody amazing, I fell completely in love with him again and felt he had my back and was supporting me and cherishing our babies. That is a massive massive factor.

With my second I was working for myself and I was back at it lightly, from home, within a couple of weeks while I fed the baby or DH cuddled him all evening on the sofa. I’m very much a baby person, that bit is much easier than negotiating with a toddler or friendship dramas with bigger ones though I’ve loved that too - in a different way.

Wishing you every luck in your ivf 💐

It's different for everyone and babies have different temperaments and needs. For me, I was lucky that I had two fairly 'low needs' babies. They were pretty chill and we managed to establish good routines from about 10/12 weeks. The first few weeks were pretty unpredictable, getting into the swing of things and adjusting to the extreme exhaustion of having such broken (and sometimes infrequent) sleep. Plus your hormones are all over the place. Again I was lucky and didn't have any post natal depression or anxiety, but i was still very up and down emotionally.

I personally enjoyed the first 6 months though. It was tiring and overwhelming at times, but it was also filled with lots of baby cuddles and just enjoying them.

Hardest thing was probably navigating all the new responsibilities parenting brought to my relationship with dh. We had a fairly 50/50 relationship prior to having kids and then having them tipped the scale with me having significantly more responsibility than him. That was mainly because I was breastfeeding, but I regret not renegotiating how we split our household responsibilities sooner. Instead I just took on the extra and then exploded with resentment a year or so down the line (don't recommend!). So my advice is to keep communication open and be willing and open to adjusting who does what, as it all shifts and changes when you throw another human in the mix!

Totally depends on the baby.

One of the mums on my NCT course got so bored on her maternity leave with her constantly sleeping baby that she revised for and passed some professional exams in her spare time.

My baby absolutely would not sleep unless being walked in the buggy, and didn't breastfeed well so I spent hours pumping and then veeeerrry slowly bottle feeding as she also had bottle aversion.

You can imagine how I felt at the NCT meet ups!

For me it’s all about sleep. If you get a good sleeper, you’ll wonder what all the fuss is about.

I had twins, which you may do as risk increases with IVF, and it was so hard. Really tough, I barely remember anything about it.

Mine slept OK, but never at the same time. I was so short of sleep felt like I was drunk and hungover at the same time.

My niece was the easiest baby, fell into the perfect feeding/sleeping routine by herself, slept through at 2 weeks. She can still sleep round the clock.

I have never had a nano second of regret though.

As others have said depends on baby, circumstances.
My daughter is 2 and for me I found 13-18 months the hardest. She was mobile but had no real understanding of instructions and her lack of speech made her frustrated. But now things are so much easier and for me the ‘terrible 2s’ aren’t really a thing. For me 0-6 months wasn’t too bad, people were still around wanting to help, baby isn’t mobile so when you leave them in one place they stay 😂 spend a lot of time sleeping, no need to worry about nutrition except milk. Get a good carrier and off for nice walks, can still sit in a cafe without a crazy toddler running around 😂
all the best for when the time comes x

Like PP have said, it completely depends on your baby and you.

My eldest was not a sleep so I functioned on very little sleep for the first year. My youngest slept mostly from 6 weeks (until 2 years lol)

I find it harder parenting a 7 year old than I did a baby or my current 3 year old. The older they get the more complex they get.

First 6 months with my first? Not that hard. And he was a ‘bad’ (normal) sleep baby who just wanted to be held. Luckily I only had him and could just hold him. DH did most of the housework. I chilled out with baby DS, went for walks (Covid times) there were hard days but mostly it was fine. He started crawling at 6 months and that created new challenges as he didn’t stay where I put him. It was definitely harder as he got older, first 6 months with my second much harder as I had a 2 year old as well.

With both my kids I’ve been more challenged as they've got older than when they were small babies, but I’ve also enjoyed them more too. The whole thing is hard work tbh but I have no regrets.

Yes to this. I think what parents find difficult changes with the child, but also with the personality of the parent. What stresses me out is totally different to what stresses out my sisters in law who have similar age kids.

Depends on the baby. My first 6 months were 6 of the worst months in my life.
I had a very very unsettled baby that cried continuously that was only less unsettled if I held her. My partner couldn't soothe her it was all on me which I really wasn't expecting. I had it in my head that he could come home from work and give me a bit of a reprieve or have some easier days over the weekend when there were two parents but for the first 10 months it was nearly all on me
I would say that my experience wasn't reflected across my other new mum friends and is unusual. My daughter was eventually diagnosed with severe silent reflux and 20 food allergies and these were the reason she was so hard to start with.
It took some time to recover I developed treatment resistant depression and psychosis but she's now 4.5 and I'm 19 weeks pregnant with number 2 it did take some counselling to feel ready to risk going through that again.

Totally true that babies vary a lot! Our first was pretty demanding, no.2 was a dream. Two things I wish I'd known from day one:
• Babies teach you how to look after them; you just have to 'tune in' to their sounds & behaviour, it's actually quite hard not to - but baby manuals & googling every last thing can distract you from just listening & observing.
• Babies cry when they're bored, often just as hard as for the other usual suspects - tired, hungry, wet etc. Sounds daft when I say it now, but I used to drive myself mad thinking, what have I done wrong? He's dry, fed, burped & rested, why the hell is he still unhappy? The answer was, he needed play. Distraction. Entertainment. Oddly enough, so did I. :)

Nothing can prepared you for the massive change in you. I swear I felt my centre of gravity shift from me to this skinny, squeaky pink thing in my arms on day 2.
That was pretty overwhelming.

Also the tiredness is next level. You've never been tired like it (until #2 arrives and them you level up again.

My parents were unbelievably annoying.which was a shock. Would just come over whenever, no thought. Interrupted my sleep let alone the baby - I wasn't prepared for that.

But what I wasn't prepared for is the total bursting at the seams love. I was worried I might not love my baby as much as my cat. Lol.

Depends on the parent and the baby. I now have a 5 yr old and a 3 yr old and I’d take a toddler over a newborn any day of the week. I can’t overstate how much I did not like having a tiny baby.
But many people absolutely love it and view their maternity leave as just the best time.

It very much depends on you and the baby. Personally I hated it and found it incredibly hard. Some people love it. There was a sweet spot around 8-10 months which I loved, haha.

I wouldn't ever want to look after a newborn again.

For me personally, I found the first 6 months difficult but after that it wasn't too bad. It stressed me out to go places with the baby, packing everything, milk feeds, nappy changes etc and often times than not i'd stay in instead. Pp is right though, it depends on the parent's personality. I get easily flustered so I am glad those days are over.

It was really interesting - I remember the health visitor saying to me "oh, its overwhleming, isn't it, all the responsibilitiy" and all I was thinking was "no, its not the responsibility, its going from a busy respsonible job where I felt I was 'Doing Stuff' to a life where a win was finding time to hangout the washing"

I felt like I had been put in a drawer and replaced by someone whose entire existence was to cook/clean/feed/wash/wipe. Basically, as though I no longer existed.

Very personality-driven. I think I am in the minority - but I far prefer kids when they can talk!

The lack of sleep, and the anxiety about trying to do things right were challenging. Spent many a night on mumsnet, youtube and googling, which sometimes helped and sometimes made me anxious - every baby and parent is different, and lots of things (sleep training) just caused stress, i couldn’t get it to work and wish i’d gone with the flow. For me i loved being with my baby and didn’t get bored at all. Overall I look back on the first 6 months positively, as a time when I just had to focus on day to day life and focus on family more than work etc which i was able to pause for a bit. Having lots of support and community around me made a big difference - being on your own at home all day with a small baby is much harder than hanging out with another adult / adult and baby.

I found the baby stage quite easy - I was just very bored.
Later with one primary child, and one a bit younger, two FT jobs and a home, that was harder.
Good luck!

Best of luck with IVF, my first is from IVF.

I found my first really hard, not exactly him, but our new life.
I did mourn the freedom I once had.
so I would go in open, don't stress about the small things like dishes, washing, they can wait.
accept help from family.

the anxiety I found hard, I once googled 'will my baby die if they haven't burped' as I was in the depths of night feeds and couldn't for the life of me get a burp out of him.

my second has been a breeze but I think that's because I know what I'm doing this time 😅

as a pp, the sleep when the baby sleeps comment drove me insane! Along with my MIL 🙈

I agree with the first post. I’d say well over 50% of what determines your experience is the baby’s temperament. DS1 was high needs, a terrible sleeper, struggled with breastfeeding and cried a lot. My mental health was in the gutter by 6 months. I hated that maternity leave.

DS2 (who unsurprisingly came along after a large gap) did nothing but sleep, smile and fart. Breastfeeding was easy. We were out all the time, If he’d been my first it would have been gloriously easy.

The other bits are how birth is and what your support network is like. You can have the world’s easiest baby but if you have a terrible birth and you are extremely lonely it still won’t be much fun.

Also the tiredness is next level. You've never been tired like it (until #2 arrives and them you level up again.

That wasn’t my experience. Third trimester insomnia with heartburn and restlessness was way worse than having newborns. It was a pointless stressful exhaustion while being up in the night with a baby had a purpose. I bf and coslept/used a next to me cot so even when I was woken often I wasn’t awake for long. The end of my pregnancies were plagued by people telling me to sleep as much as I could as I’d never sleep again which was very rage inducing and also untrue for me.

Bloody loved the first 12 months both times. Neither slept particularly well but I did have a nap with them each day though which helped. 12-24 months was waaaay harder. My first was a runner though and I had to resort to only going out to places with a fence 🤦‍♀️

I found it so hard and so amazing at the same time.
i struggled hugely with PND and PNA and her sleep drove me crazy- I really focused on wake windows and leaps and nap timings and schedules and she just wasn’t that baby! She woke lots in the first two years and on the days when we’d had a particularly bad night (every 20 min wakes for months) I’d struggle. But she was this lovely little light and I loved her so fiercely, I’ve never felt anything like it. It’s hard and you need your support system around you (I had no one but my partner who works 50+ hours a week and was right at the beginning of covid and lockdowns) but it’s also the most incredible thing.
im now trying for number 2 and really looking forward to just chilling out a bit!!

Honestly it was the worst 6 months of my life (never doing that again!) but then I looked back a few years later and realised it was quite easy in comparison to having a toddler.