If one more person tells me I know nothing about being tired until....

[BlingLoving]

after the baby arrives, I think I will lean over, spit in their face, kick them between the legs and walk away.

That or start screaming like a crazy woman, "I don't give a flying F%%% about how tired you think I will be. At least then I might get some understanding and sympathy and I'll certainly get some help from DH, from DM, from friends etc. Because you know what, I already get up every morning at 6am and that's after waking up at least once every 90 minutes all night and having to get up. And you know what, when I get up at 6 I don't get to stumble around for a bit but have to get dressed, and showered, and make myself look good for the City and then schlepp into the City where I have to perform at peak for 12 hours every day in order to earn the money that DH and I live on before staggering home. So butt out with your cute little suggestions that I should start getting used to waking up early now because just because you haven't had a job since a year before you got pregnant because your DH is a rich banker and can support you, does not mean that the rest of us have that pre-baby luxury."

Rant over.

Deep breath.

Sorry. I am just losing the will to live here today and the "helpful" message from someone suggesting that I'd have to "get used" to waking up early after very little sleep has pushed me over the edge.

oh god. Was that even vaguelly understandable?

I must also confess that I am actually so tired and fed up with being pg, that I would like the baby to be a week or so early (without detriment to its weight/health of course)

With all 5 of my DC I found being pregnant more tiring than when they were newborns. I think it was because the tiredness when pregnant was an all consuming tiredness. I physically felt tired as well as being tired from not sleeping very well due to pregnancy. The tiredness I felt with a newborn was more one of just needing a good nights sleep iyswim.

Lockets - I'd buy that if it wasn't for the fact that it's actually the non solicited comments I get that really really wind me up. The kind where someone calls me at 9 am when I've been at work for an hour and opens with, "haha, I hope this isn't too early but you'll have to get used to early starts soon" or something equally ridiculous.

Maybe I just need more

[Grin]

it is true though

pregnancy ends and the your just tired toll they leave home
good luck

OP, I agree that people saying 'you don't know what tired is' and other such gems is not at all useful. I can remember the crippling tiredness of pg, I had hyperemesis and it was just god-awful.

But having said that, if you really struggle to see how it can be that much worse than your current life (getting up 4 times a night and then for good at 6 am) then you need more imagination.

I have had one angel baby and one who wasn't an angel at all. It can get much, much worse. You just have to smile sweetly and ignore the people who comment and keep your fingers crossed that you get an 'easy' baby.

bling not wanting to annoy you further (honest) but waking up for a wee in the night is not the same as when a little baby wakes you up- when you wake for a wee, you go through stages of sleep and rouse yourself gradually. With a LO, they wake you, and then you may find you are up for an hour feeding and changing them and trying to settle them back to sleep. I think people are just trying to prepare you . And I worked up to 36 weeks (3 pgs), and yes, it was knackering, but I was at my most sleep-deprived once my last LO was here (although working, being heavily pg with 2 under 4 wasn't much fun either )

Has anyone said "wow, look at you - you're the size of a house, you're enormous!"

Guaranteed to make any pg woman's day.

Pregnancy is tiring, having a newborn is tiring - the main difference is that with a newborn you can have naps during the day, you don't have to talk to colleagues, clients or anyone really and you certainly don't have to listen to people predicting what your life is going to be like.
Count the days, and enjoy your mat leave

I share your annoyance, Bling. I do a demanding job with deadlines and stress. E.g. once working through the night two nights running, with full days at work inbetween. When I said it was at least some preparation for motherhood I was laughed at. But it was.

I did not find having a baby more tiring than that. Tiring in a different way, certainly, with the emotional stress of worrying about my DS feeding etc, but not more tiring. Mind you, he is a good sleeper.

I reckon you will cope. The only thing I fear is illness, which means even with DH and me sharing the load, we might have a badly interrupted night, little time to catch up on work and leaves me having to go to work on no sleep plus stress and worry. Fortunately, after a tricky start DS is hale and hearty.

There is truth in what you are bein told, but equally some people have no (&££$^*&% clue what a bloody slog working life is for a lot of us.

so you been up since say...7?

well 5 is early

Well I did night BF-ing and all my DCs were OK-ish sleepers (probably woke 2 or 3 times a night the first few weeks) and d'you know what when I was heavily PG with DC3, I longed for him to be born so that, although I would have a c-section scar, and be tired from feeding, I could actually get to sleep, and not lie awake too uncomfortable to get off.

There is a particular type of post-natal tiredness which is like nothing on earth- I'll grant you, but so long as you don't try and do too much you should be fine.

When I was expecting DC1 people always teased me about the "sleepless nights" I'd be having. Well I have never had a sleepless night in all my nearly 11 years of parenting. I have had quite a few when I have had less sleep than I wanted, and a few when I had significantly less sleep than I wanted, but sleepLESS? No.

I don't understand why so many people on this thread are repeating the annoying thing that the OP really doesn't want to hear. It doesn't help anything, what will be will be and she will deal with it then - where is the advantage in insisting that she will be so much more tired when the baby comes/

I think it's different kinds of tiredness. I know having the baby out isn't going to give me and energy boost but I find the 24/7 drain on my energy worse than I did maternity nannying. And I didn't have those nice hormones everyone is promising me!

I have points where I just feel utterly exhausted and it's so difficult to recover because your resources aren't yours.

Sleep deprivation I can cope with. You can share the carrrying of the newborn. People expect you to be knackered and help.

Pregnancy isn't an illness so you're expected to continue as usual alone!

oh come on everyone being pregnant is utterly knackering ! You are constantly carrying someone else on top of your bladder !!!

I walked round the supermarket breathless the other day, god knows how you feel going into work after so little sleep.

It is tiring having a newborn but your body isn't at least the cause. I just found out I am aneamic this morning so that adds to tiredness too, I'm also at the beginning of my third trimester so op check that you aren't aneamic

tell everyone else to take a freaking hike then they they'll shut up with their stupid suggestions, everyones pregnancy / babies are different so bear in mind they may have had an easy pregnancy / baby

Selective hearing is very useful in pregnancy, just pretend you weren't listening and change the subject to your very interesting job etc.. very infuriating :)

Bling - if you have such a stessful full-on career, how come you have time to be on mumsnet mid-afternoon? Sounds like my kind of job . . . .

Casmama I wasn't suggesting she will be more tired but that it is a real possibility. I think it totally depends on how your baby is.

I totally agree that people shouldn't be making silly comment to her, silly comment used to annoy me too, but that she should be aware that her tiredness could be worse afterwards, or not. There is no way of knowing.

Telling herself it is going to get better though won't do her any favours if she ends up with the 'amazing never sleeping baby' like I did!

Thank you Cas!

Cointreau - yes, I've had that a few times. Don't really mind. Except when it's done in that tone, you know the one:
, , , , asks : "how did you get so big?", , says, "but you're so huge", ...

For the record, I've had sleep issues, not just going to the loo issues so I don't get that much sleep at the moment, contributing significantly to my grumpyness. It's true that I'm not soothing a crying baby for an hour but I'm awake a lot. (And DH would probably feel he has experience in soothing a crying baby as he wakes up and has to comfort me as I scratch myself into a stupour/ sob gently with tiredness/ kick the cat in my frustration).

Casmama - because the alternative is to say 'no you are quite right, you won't be any more tired when the baby comes' - which wouldn't be right because it just isn't true!

Bling - the part that will be worse is that you can't switch off, at all. You cannot sit down and eat a meal and know that you'll get to the end without needing to get up and see to the baby, you can't start a TV programme in the sure knowledge that you'll get to the end. It is exhausting, even without then having a very disturbed night with feeds etc.

It will be hard in a different way to the way your life is hard right now, but you will adjust and you will be fine.

Jynxed - I am having a bad day and not working at my usual optimimum levels. I simply don't care right now! Three hours of meetings this morning has made me feel justified in slacking for a while. I might regret it later though, I admit!

I was more tired in pregnancy than with a newborn because of having to get up more than every hour to go to the loo.
That said, if you actually ARE able to perform at peak, or indeed, perform a job at all, you probably haven't anything like plumbed the depths of tiredness. (My worst moment was when I was pregnant with dc2 and couldn't actually remember dc1's name; I literally didn't know what day of the week it was, would have been turning up at work on a Sunday if I hadn't been signed off sick.)
What you are under now though, is a kind of pressure which IMO is far worse than anything you get with a new baby: with a new baby you basically just have to get both of you to the end of the day alive and you are just answerable to yourself. Trying to perform at peak when you are seriously tired is a whole different kettle of fish and I sympathise, it is ghastly.

Sorry to be flippant Bling, I know those jobs when your turn for a lunch break comes round every couple of months. Sadly there are worse things than being pregnant and working - being pregnant and working with a toddler and a child a school also. Add in the nursery run, the childminder or pre-school school club, the vomitting in the train toilet on the way to work, and the early meetings, and that is life-not-worth-living. That's why so many mums stop work for a while after 2 kids (and why I am off sick today, probably stress-related). Good luck!

I already told DH I am having serious doubts about DC2!