Is everyone being dramatic or am I being naive?

[EtherealRoses]

Our baby is due at the end of the year, and I have been so excited but everyone on the internet and in person is starting to fill me with utter dread. I was talking about how we’re not going to build nursery furniture until baby is 4/5 months as otherwise we lose our guest room for 10 months for no reason, and have also mentioned how I hope to get a sling so I can pop baby in and tootle about the house…but it seems everyone’s response is “don’t be stupid, you won’t have any time or energy for anything”. It’s making me want to cry constantly at the thought of this 😭 I KNOW that we will have lots to do in terms of looking after our wee person, but surely this won’t take up my full 24 hours a day for 9 months? How can it be possible that we don’t have 2 hours out of a week to build furniture or half an hour out of the day to do some laundry or make food? It’s freaking me the absolute f out. Is everything really that bad once baby arrives that you don’t have time to look after anything at all between two people, or are people just being dramatic/lazy?

Your mindset will help you. You are obviously a positive person who is self motivated. During my maternity leave I did a hell of a lot of cafe visits, playgroups with friends, walks, gym sessions (gym had a fabulous crèche) baby groups, my house was cleaned, food bought etc as normal. I even squeezed in plenty of Uk trips and a couple of foreign trips with baby

I had a non sleeper, survived on 3 hours a night for 16 months but you either wallow in it or try and make the best of it!

as others have said, birth injuries etc can affect peoples experience but I had a straight forward birth and had been active throughout pregnancy and so just carried this on afterwards.

I will add, you say how hard is it for 2 people to build furniture, you have 2 people now. You’ll have 1 free to build furniture in the future whilst the other settles/feeds/plays with said baby that won’t sleep. So tasks ar e it always as simple as now but the a positive mindset, are totally doable!

I think it very much depends on the baby.

My first was very chilled and only cried when hungry.

I had so much time for myself on maternity leave and it was honestly one of the best periods of my life.

On days they are not at school, I have a lot less time for myself and housework now with a 7 and 5 year old than I did with a newborn.

Oh yes I do think you're being naive about how hard it is to build nursery furniture! I still clearly recall The Great Cot Fight of 2014!

Ours was the great nursery wardrobe fight of 2014 😂

Those bloody doors nearly finished us off

They are being ridiculous. I had sections and was out for lunch the day after coming home. I always took a shower in the morning and hod no problem cooking and taking care of things as usual. The only thing was I did not drive for six weeks. So I walked a lot.
Babies don't move you just put them down when you need to do stuff!

Mine was born mid October and by Christmas was sleeping through the night. The following year and beyond she was a breeze sleeping. My 2nd a couple of years later look twice as long to sleep through. Both dc had their challenges but you get through it and can always have a shower ffs and cook food. Some are just very dramatic for the sake of feeling superior.

Some babies sleep a lot, some don’t. Some are easy to soothe, some are really, really difficult. Some don’t do regular naps or quick feeds.
My dd had colic and anywhere I went, she screamed. If you haven’t gone through it, just trust people when they say it’s hard.
I could go to a coffee shop alright but what’s the point with the baby screaming the whole time? Not very relaxing.
Same with trying to watch the tv, make/eat a meal etc.
People gave me endless tips and advice, nothing really worked.
She hated the sling so that was out. Liked it on my partner but not on me.
The sleep deprivation made it harder to cope with.
It was the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through in my life.
It’s just impossible to explain unless you have gone through it.

Stop listening to all the doom mongers. "It's life 'Jim' but not as we know it."
A new life for all of you!

People are resilliant and cope with the next step, minute, hour, day...

I was 3 weeks away from No1 when the people we visited one night gave us the horror story lecture of labour, birth, first few weeks. FGS!

There were moments, I have to admit mainly due to sleeping (me), but it all worked out.

You're on MN, which intrinically is for people looking for solutions to their problems. You're not going to have a problem, you're going to have a baby. Congratulations and enjoy your new life.

I’m not even sure why small babies take up so much time but they do (or mine did!). They are just like little sponges that soak up all your time and energy.

My first was hardest, she was a non-sleeper at night and would only sleep in her cot during the day. If she didn’t sleep she was a horror but equally, couldn’t be transferred from her car seat (the only other place that she’d possibly nod off in) to the cot so my life was spent trying to time things so she got enough sleep to be manageable - I spent many months doing anything outside of the house in the 60-90 mins I had between naps, for both our sakes.

I have PTSD thinking about it now 😬

I did read lots though, and watched LoveFilm (no Netflix) - but there was no leisurely coffees for many many months!

My first was a truly awful sleeper and honestly it was hard to find time to eat at the beginning as he would only sleep while being held or pushed around in his pram. I would advise having food in the fridge/freezer than can be heated up
and eaten easily.
However, even with my sleep hating baby, I managed to shower and clean and shop (he loved shopping) and go to coffee shops and meet friends. We even managed to move house while he was still a baby.

It just really depends. If your baby turns out to be a good sleeper generally, will sleep on the go (buggy or whatever), is an easy/efficient feeder, no reflux or colic or anything like that.

And you've made a good recovery from birth.

The yes it should be doable.

None of that's a given however.

And while my babies were relatively easy on those points, there were days where I knew I could prepare a reasonable dinner OR go for a walk out of the house, but not both.

I felt very much like you - freaking tf out at people saying my life was over etc. I have a 19 week old daughter and this has been my experience:

• I have two dogs so I HAVE to get out every day. I’m an outdoorsy person and this helped me in the early days when I thought I was losing my damn mind as my life had changed beyond all recognition.
• yes babies sleep a lot, but you might get a reflux baby like I did and they can’t be laid flat until you get to the bottom of it. I had no comprehension of how much I would be wearing this child. Saying that, it hasn’t tied me to the house or anything - she’s been to two weddings (the first when she was 4 weeks old and we were away for five nights!), a 40th birthday party, numerous nights/meals out and we just got back from camping - proper camping, in a tent 😂. People have said they can’t believe how much we’ve done but if you’re determined to get out I think you can find a way (and I say this as the mother of a baby with severe reflux that also spent many weeks in a pavlik harness)
• there will be days you won’t get anything done. Today was one of those days, my goodness she would not stop screaming. I couldn’t have a shower, she wouldn’t settle in the sling for me to do jobs…these days will happen. I had visions of just plonking the baby in/on something and on some days that does NOT work.
• don’t listen to anyone because they’re often full of shit. I had no idea how much of a thick skin you have to develop. My baby has a birthmark on her head and randomers feel the need to come up to me and comment on it, and when she was in her harness I had no end of unsolicited shit “advice”. Doesn’t happen to my husband 🤔

sorry that was long but I have such vivid memories of people telling me I’d be a miserable prisoner in my own home for weeks on end and I wanted to reassure you it’s not necessarily the case! Congratulations ❤️

It's hard to explain until you are in the thick of it! There are good days and bad days. My first maternity leave was filled with the most amazing highs accompanied by tears and massive lows. You will get all that lovely bonding time and you will get out for coffees if that is what you want to do. You are likely to find it harder to achieve hobbies or projects. I recommend doing as many coffees as possible when they are tiny as it gets more complicated after a few weeks when they sleep less and need more entertaining! I don't find it as simple as popping them in the car and going out to sit in a cafe because I have to factor in trying to get a feed in as close as possible to leaving so that they will be settled, hoping they fall asleep just at the end of the car drive so that they will sleep for some of the coffee but without you having to actually put them over to sleep in the cafe which can be tricky, etc. The cycles of feeding and awake time are quite short for a few months. It's never fully relaxing but it's also not forever! I think it's important to take it one day at a time. I found it stressful at the start because I wanted to achieve X Y and Z in a day and felt like nothing was ever done, but became much happier when I lowered my expectations and let some things slide. It also does entirely depend on the baby. My first woke hourly for months and still doesn't sleep through now at 2.5 so the exhaustion was a shock to the system, my second has only ever woken 2 times a night and we are several months in. First likes napping in his crib and likes lullabies and did epic 40 min feeds...second prefers movement and white noise to sleep (trickier) and finishes feeds in 5 mins (easier).

The others are definitely being OTT.

When DS2 was nearing 6 months and we needed to get DD1 out of the cot to let DS2 in there, we went out and bought a racing car bed for DS1, built it, reorganised the room (they shared a huge room). It was fine.

There are 2 parents, and clearly somewhere else for your DC to sleep while the building takes place. Not as though it needs to happen in one day, either.

Nonsense. How do they think mothers with newborns and elder children get on?! I sure as shit had to just throw the sling on and do the school run, tired or not.

Btw, that's really not the only thing people will be OTT about. The horror birth stories (from people who went on to have more children, so clearly couldn't have been THAT bad....) will start coming, thick and fast.

Nightmare "non-sleeping child" stories from people whose child is napping delightfully when you catch up.

Pick out the genuinely helpful advice, and ignore the rest.

It's become a thing to talk endlessly about how awful and horrible parenting is, and yes it can be tough, and it's good people can talk about this aspect of their lives and not pretend everything is perfect. However it's gone the other way now. If you coped fine with having babies or enjoyed it, you can't mention that as you are assumed to be a liar who also has rose coloured glasses on. My dc slept decently from a few weeks old, but at mother's group I pretended they were bad sleepers so I didn't seem smug.

Seriously, just ignore! Family members get over-excited and try and jump the gun with pram/cot/car seat suggestions, etc… and everyone wants you to follow their ideas, getting hurt if you want to choose for yourself. (It’s like a weird cult indoctrination.) People love a dramatic horror story, be it birth traumas or sleep deprivation or pnd, etc…. If everything was so dire with babies, there’d be a lot more single-child families. If I’m honest, I didn’t dig the first couple of months, but there were circumstances that affected this. (First baby had terrible reflux, and next pregnancy was twins. One twin had a cancer-scare from 20wk scan that involved a lot of anxiety until ruled out at three months.) Despite all this, I understood what was going on and that the babies and I had to adjust to each other and form new family routines, etc. DH and I worked really well as a team and as a result, we were pretty flexible - had a feeding routine that suited us both, nurtured each other through the adjustment period and then really, really enjoyed hanging out with the little people we had created together. (They’re not so little now at 18, 16 & 16 but we still love hanging out with them!!!)

Everyone has a different experience- personally used a sling, always had a shower daily and house was tidied up. I never understood the I can't shower one- it's 5 mins, max, and I left the baby sleeping longer than that at other times. Sling was fab as you could nip out anywhere. It's all personal- some people have a much different experience, but there's no need to assume it's negative for most people.

We got the keys to our house on the day I was giving birth. The house needed lots of cosmetic work doing to it but we managed. Our first was a very easy baby though and slept through the night at 3 weeks. If it had been our second the story would have been very different.

I would say that rather than having no time, it was the tiredness from the things you have to do with a new baby. There were lots of things I probably had the time for, but not the energy.

I do also think it was easier then (the 80's). I put mine in their rooms to sleep, so there was a tiny bit of "distance" from the demands of a young baby. They weren't in the same 6 ft parameter as us all the time and I didnt have to be hyper aware of every breath. Not saying it was better then, just different. Obviously we know now that it's not completely safe to do it how we did then.

Being able to shower and eat was definitely not a problem. Even the housework got done. Can't exactly remember how that was achieved. Probably benign neglect.

OK, I'll give you MY truth, not necessarily anyone else's!

I went out for our first meal about 7 hours after DS was born, no fucking way was I cooking after being in hospital for 4 days. Nope.
Within a week, I was in town, going for an eye test, baby in pram on my own.
Driving to see friends an hour away, taking trips to the inlaws, joining baby groups,

As we were grappling with finding a routine- crafty little bugger could SMELL the kettle going on, I couldn't make myself a cuppa. Baby didn't want to be put down. Nothing seemed achievable.
Within a few weeks, we found our rhythm, between his baby carrier, and his vibrating chair he has for the kitchen, we did pretty well. I'd prepare a basket of washing, take him down and pop him in his chair, run up, get washing and sing or talk as I loaded the machine. I'd pop him in a carrier, squat down at the washing machine, take a few bits out to the lune at a time.

DS is chilled, at 18 weeks my life pretty much resembles life before I had him (except right now, we both have covid!)

The carrier literally is a lifesaver.

“I just invisaged my 9 months off of work being a lovely, giant bonding session with a little mix of reading, a few coffee shops visits, and being able to be a housewife thrown in there.”

Sorry op but this has made me laugh! I can see why people around you are feeling the need to drop a few truth bombs.

I’m super laid back and sociable, don’t need much sleep and thought having a baby would be one long summer of picnics and baby groups.I used I think why can’t they go out? Why does it take them so long to leave the house?

BUT I ended up with a baby who struggled to sleep at night and then also fought sleep during the day. She was always exhausted and cried constantly. Just to give you an idea, I attended baby massage class with her and I got her down on the mat to be massaged twice for about two minutes a time. The rest of the time I was walking around with her in her sling while she fretted. I ended up very short of sleep from broken nights and struggled to shower etc as she woke and cried terribly if I moved away from her side, or tried to put her down in the crib.

i would say just be open minded that you may end up with a baby who needs a lot of hands on input and take any relaxing/coffees/chilled time as a bonus. It you get lucky and have a super chilled baby that’s great - fingers crossed for you!

I think it largely depends on the baby, but overall I definitely think other people are being dramatic. I've got twins, and the comments I got whilst pregnant were awful! When they arrived, I was left feeling like I was doing something wrong... I thought "Is this it? Really?!" I was watching box sets, cooking lovely meals, keeping the house clean and tidy. Best time ever. Now they are pre-schoolers it's a different story though, bloody nightmare 😂

I know the newborn stage is definitely not like that for everyone, but in a way I think all the comments did me a favour. I had geared myself up for such a hard time that I was pleasantly surprised! The bit that tricked me was how everyone says it "gets easier"... Absolutely not in my case. Now I am struggling to keep on top of the house, never get to enjoy a hot drink or a poo in peace and we eat fish fingers for dinner... Again, it's different for everyone 🙂