Who is more realistic about life with a newborn?

[Heretobenosy]

Currently TTC, we’re two women, and my DW will be the one to carry. She’s 33 I’m 36. We’re excited and apprehensive after a life without children so far.

From what I’ve seen on mumsnet my expectation of having a baby is that it’s going to be a little bomb going off in our lives, we will be sleep deprived, emotional, stressed and just trying to survive. We will only have one child and there’s two of us, and my aim will be to be really supportive and I’m hoping DW will be able to pump so that I can do some of the night feeds as I manage a lot better without sleep than DW. But I’ll be working full time. I think we will be wanting to stay home/local as much as possible for a while as going away will disrupt any routine we try to have.

My DWs thinks I’m being dramatic, she’s hoping that we will maximise her maternity by going on as many holidays as we can while the baby is free and small enough to put in a sling and go off doing our own thing.

I keep laughing and saying she’s going to be in for a shock, but do have to consider that this may be me catastrophising and already thinking the baby is going to destroy life as we know it (but obviously completely over the moon about that if we’re lucky enough to get pregnant.)

So who is right? Will be be jesetting with our newborn or will holidays become too much of a chore?

It really depends on the baby, my DD was a good baby and a brilliant sleeper so the stress and sleep deprivation was minimal. Having said that, I wasn't able to breastfeed so we never did a foreign holiday until she was weaned and I didn't have to think about carting all the bottle feeding paraphernalia away with us.

Entirely depends on the baby tbh. Mine was a nightmare, but I know others who managed to have a happily portable, easy baby and did loads of stuff.

I've had 6 dc and it's totally dependent on the child.

You might have the most chill baby who sleeps through , or you might have a baby who wake up every 30 minutes. Who knows.

It's really patronising when anyone tells a pregnant woman she's going to be in for a shock (especially whilst laughing at her).

I found having a newborn incredibly easy...I used to go to baby groups and was totally baffled by all the other mums saying how tough it was. I did have a very easy baby looking back. Personally I found the toddler years incredibly tough...far tougher than the newborn stage. But equally I've heard other parents say they struggled during the newborn phase and found it easy having a toddler...Could go either way op...all babies are different and all parents different

Depends on the baby.

DD1 was high needs and your interpretation would’ve been correct. DD2 was so easy and your wife’s interpretation would be correct.

I’d imagine that 2 women looking after one baby could manage to have quite a nice time on a low-key holiday.

Either scenario could be what happens. It's best just not to make any assumptions, positive or negative.

I never felt mike a bomb had gone off. It was exhausting, sometimes a bit stressful but nothing at all insurmountable.

If you have the spare cash then taking the opportunity to go on holidays and you're feeling up to it is not unreasonable at all.

Somewhere in the middle I'd say! A baby is easier to take on holiday than a toddler in my experience.

Pumping is a massive faff so if your wife does end up breastfeeding its better to support her in other ways rather than doing night feeds. Like settling baby etc.

The trouble is, nobody knows! Some babies are super chill, happy to go anywhere, sleep anywhere, and don’t care about routine as long as they are fed and loved. Some, otoh, just hate being babies and need their day massively scaffolded by feeds in a quiet place, strict nap/ sleep routine, totally dark room to sleep in and are tired, upset messes without it.
And it can change, and be on a spectrum between these extremes. My ds was super chill, bf on demand anywhere, would sleep anywhere as long as he was in a sling. But woke up the night till he was 18 months- and for us that was ok as we were happy to co sleep, but if that hadn’t been the case it would have been super hard.
So I guess my advice would be to see how it goes, remember the baby won’t have read the book, and be prepared for parenting to not always look like you imagined or said it would be

It depends on so many things some babies are a lot easier then others. But If PND hits. If you both actually work well as a team. If the baby has any medical issues or your wife following pregnancy. The baby maybe small enough to go in a sling to travel around but the million things you need to take with you are not. You can't really plan how things are going to be as its such an unknown.

I think it depends on what the baby is like. There are things that no one can predict like severe reflux or PND that can completely change how those first few months pan out. I think if everything is going smoothly, and you have an “easy” baby and feeding is going well then yes it’s perfectly possible to travel, but, you will need to adapt expectations of what the holidays will look like because of having to take account of a young baby means the type of accommodation and amount of luggage etc will all be very different to holidaying child-free. I would try and keep an open mind - don’t plan anything yet, just see how you’re both feeling, I definitely wouldn’t rule it out but equally i wouldn’t be dead set on travelling either.
Good luck!

Echoing the above. Depends on the baby and how relaxed you are about routine (or how relaxed baby lets you be!).

id make some loose plans and wait and see!

It’s probably a mixture of the two and I’m honestly it depends on how your baby is when they arrive. We have a super chill baby and can still get out and about to cafes etc. Even though I live abroad we haven’t flown with him as he won’t take a pacifier and I’m not getting on a plane with no way to help his ears. I also didn’t want him to travel without him being protected with his vaccinations.

Regarding your wife pumping and you being able to do some night feeds will depend on her supply. In the early days skipping night feeding can negatively impact your supply. On the other hand I had an oversupply so couldn’t pump for the 1st 2 months as I was told that would make my body produce even more milk. Even now I still do the night feeds myself as even if DP did it I would still have to get up to pump as I’d be in too much pain. So for us we decided there was no point both of us being sleep deprived! We worked it that DP got up with him in the morning after I gave him his 1st feed of the day and then I’d go back to sleep till DS needed milk again.

It will take some time but you will find a rhythm. The hardest thing for me to adjust to was the early bedtime, DS goes down between 7-8 which is normally when we would have had dinner so our whole evening has had to rejigged.

Personally I had no expectations for mat leave and just figured it as I went. The only non-negotiables I had was I had to get out of the house for a bit each day and also have a shower each day. Sometimes even these proved difficult especially the days following his vaccinations.

Apart from the sleep deprivation (mine woke every 1-2 hours until we sleep trained at approx 8 months), I found having a newborn quite straightforward. Actually quite dull.

But we had no issues with breastfeeding and both of mine loved the sling so I would basically just pop a couple of nappies and a pack of wipes into a small bag and then just do whatever I felt like.

Toddlers OTOH are a pain.

My advice would be to plan for the worst and then hope for the best. I can't emphasise enough how little point there is in anticipating what it is going to be like and just try to develop some resilience and grounding (and savings and work flexibility!) to be able to roll with whatever is thrown your way. Good luck!

That’s one of the things my wife said, it’s contingent on if she can breastfeed

I think you’re the one being unrealistic actually with the bit her pumping to get a supposed break whilst you do night feeds. Pumping is not a break, it’s actually a massive faff and in the early days she’ll have to do it overnight anyway so it would have been quicker to feed direct from the breast, presuming that works out for her.

But if she’s relaxed, you’re pitching in to do everything you can (anything that isn’t feeding) and you get lucky and baby is a reasonable sleeper then no reason why it shouldn’t be as she envisages.

It isn’t that hard. We did lots of holidays with bottle fed babies. It just takes a bit more planning and luggage! But perfectly doable if baby is sleeping well enough for you to have the headspace.

My DS is 6mo this weekend and we are currently on our second holiday

Life wasn’t great for the first 3 months as he was a really unsettled, grumpy baby and I was depressed, but we are both much better now and have been playing in the pool this afternoon, now snuggled up on the sofa cluster feeding so it is doable, but depends entirely on your baby and how well your DW recovers.

Best of luck to you 🍀

ETA he’s combi fed so we have to lug the bottle-feeding paraphernalia along with us as well as the boobs!

Pumping is a massive pain in the arse in my experience. And she will still have to get up in the night to pump for the first few months at least so she wouldn't necessarily get more sleep.

The newborn stage was easy peasy for us. It got much harder around 5/6 months and is getting a little easier now at almost 8 months.

TBH both are right to a certain extent!
Babies are really portable but yes first 3ish months will feel like a bomb has gone off. Once your in the flow of things then it becomes pretty easy to take them away especially if bf. Pumping is pretty hard-core going long term as to keep supply up it's every 3 hours (not good if DW struggles on lack of sleep). Both mine had expressed milk but was between 8 and 11pm so I could get a sleep in before the night time.

DS1 we did shared parental leave and spent 10 weeks travelling around NZ from him being 8 months old. DS2 first holiday was 4.5 months and we did a 6 week tour of the UK when he was 9 months old.
We always went with our own travel cot, car seat and stick up black out blind. It's definitely not travelling light with a baby!

The best thing to do is play it by ear but get a passport sorted when they are a few weeks old to give you options.

The biggest upheaval will be going from 0 babies to 1. We have 2 kids and found the jump from 1 to 2 no bother at all.

0 to 1 you have to start thinking about all the other commitments in both of your lives. Work/career, social life, long term financial planning all are impacted in ways you can't imagine.

The actual parenting itself is totally dependent on the baby like others have said. The first 6 months are a bit boring anyway as all they do is feed, sleep and shit. Once they start babbling and interacting it's great.

You'll love all the phases but they'll be harder phases in their own little ways.

Best of luck.

We’re thinking of doing some shared parental leave, so at the end of DWs maternity, I take the last month or two and she takes her accrued leave.

It’s reassuring that I’m being a bit dramatic. We will see how things go.

If DW doesn’t get on with pumping that’s also fine. We both think it’s a good idea, but what do we know. We will see how things work out. Fingers crossed

The biggest upheaval will be going from 0 babies to 1. We have 2 kids and found the jump from 1 to 2 no bother at all

I found the opposite... going from no DC to one was easy but having two, nearly broke me!

I agree with the poster who said “It's really patronising when anyone tells a pregnant woman she's going to be in for a shock (especially whilst laughing at her).”

Either she’s going to have a hard time in which case she’ll find out soon enough or she won’t in which case you’re stressing her out for nothing. If she’s the one who’s undertaking to do the pregnancy and breastfeeding then I suggest you try to be positive with her about what might be possible - people will queue up to tell you you’ll never sleep again or that you and your partner will fall out, no one tells you how it can be really so lovely as well. One or two people kept telling me to sleep now as I wouldn’t be sleeping when the baby comes, which is incredibly unhelpful as pregnant women rarely sleep well and it just stressed me out anyway.

People go out for lunch, to festivals and yes on holiday with babies, and other people end up staying at home. You’ll find your own way if you’re lucky enough to have a baby but I wouldn’t try to doom monger about it.