Is having a baby really as hard as people make out? What's the hardest bit/what uses your time?

[Jellybabie3]

So im 33 weeks and over the moon to be preg. But now its getting closer to the end i am wondering why it so difficult to have a newborn? In a totally naive way i know....but what makes it so difficult?? What fills up the time to mean you cant do anything for yourself anymore?

I'm not trying to sound thick/patronising or whatever i am literally trying to prepare

Feeding, winding, changing, trying to get them to sleep anywhere but on your chest, and repeat!
All babies are different though, and everyone's experiences are different. Some babies give you a two week grace period where they just kind of sleep almost constantly. (Which can help you rest and recover from the birth) Others don't.
Good luck, you'll be fine!

I found having a newborn comparatively easy. He breastfed really well, slept a fair bit, could be carried around in a sling... 6-16 months was hell: he didn't eat, didn't sleep at night, would only nap on me, spent all day running around and had to be watched/chased constantly... I have never been so exhausted and miserable in my life! He is now a lovely 2 year old and, despite a few tantrums, absolutely gorgeous to have around. We have so much fun together. Ages and phases, I guess. Every child is different and you just have to get through the hardest bits by reminding yourself that it will get better!

Having one was a breeze
It's next time when you start throwing toddlers and older kids into the mix when it gets hard
You'll look up and realise you haven't showered in 4 days and hadn't even noticed

I found having newborns the easiest stage if I'm honest. Yes you are shattered but you just get on with it. I'm pregnant with my third and I will have no option but to get out and about. With my second I had him on Thursday and I was out and about at the weekend. I honestly believe for me anyway that if I sat in the house it would drive me crazy. Xx

For me it was the lack of sleep, compounded with getting no time to recover from birth.

In my case, I had a long, failed induction and and emergency c-section. So I was knackered before I even began motherhood. Then I had a baby who wanted feeding every 2 hours, around the clock, but who would not latch. So I pumped, which took ages, and then I'd still have to feed him what I'd pumped. A standard cycle for the first few weeks went change bum, feed, burp, settle child (maybe 30 minutes on a good day), pump breast milk (40 minutes if uninterrupted, which I always was), stuff that has to get done like sterilising my pump equipment/bottles, having a wee, eating something myself, child wakes up for another feed, repeat. At some point I must have slept, but it was rarely for more than an hour. And I'd had major surgery, and was anemic. I felt like I could never catch myself up.

But that being said, I am doing it all again, this time with a toddler in tow! I have just accepted I am not making any plans or commitments for the first couple of months. In our case, it did suddenly get a lot better about 2 months in. At 6 weeks, I switched to formula and instantly freed up about 35-40 hours of my week. The 2 hourly wake ups did get better overnight at about 3 months (although he stopped sleeping in the day! But it's amazing how much better you feel after 4 hours of solid sleep. He's a really good night sleeper now, I feel lucky!

Honestly, I didn't much enjoy the newborn days. But it's different for everyone. And everything afterwards have more than made up for it. My 18 month old is a hilarious little boy. Good luck. Remember, nothing is permanent with babies, they change almost on a daily basis when they're tiny.

Feeding, changing and calming a newborn is a huge learning curve and you'll probably be doing it exhausted and in pain from the birth. Some babies are better than others but tbh for me the first month of baby number 1 was hell on earth!

Babies need a lot of attention, closeness and cleaning up! They also need a lot of comfort and physical touch/affection. After 6months, there's a ton of cleaning up and housework too!

The hardest thing is the sleep deprivation and having very few breaks.

I found the birth difficult and was in pain afterwards, but instead of just recovering I had a newborn to look after!

I was lucky in that my DH took a month off work but I imagine it would be hard if your partner takes 2 weeks or less.

I'm breastfeeding and I'm very happy with my choice but it does mean I don't get a break unless I get time to express some milk. And my DS takes a bottle atm (touch wood!) but he went through a phase of refusing it.

I don't imagine formula is much easier as you have to prepare, wash and sterilise bottles.

You are constantly thinking about and prioritising the baby and what they need. It's physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting.

If you're alone with the baby it's hard to do simple but essential things like go to the toilet, shower and get dressed, prepare and eat food, unless the baby is asleep or happy to be put down. On that note - get a bouncer chair if you don't have one yet!

Doing laundry and keeping the house to a minimum level of tidiness and cleanliness (and I mean minimum!) is an achievement.

I have also struggling with feeling lonely and missing adult company, I try to get out of the house and see people or go to baby groups, but that's hard work and tiring with a baby so I can't overdo it.

Worth it though. Love DS more than words can say.

Depends on your baby. Past the first few weeks I found having toddler DD and baby DS far easier than when DD was a baby and my only. She fed constantly, only napped on me and after a battle, screamed in the buggy, screamed in the car seat, screamed if I tried to give her a dummy or bottle. But at 3 she's delightful and my 5 month old is a breeze - feeds every 2 - 3 hours, nods off in the buggy, full of smiles. Entirely luck of the draw. Good luck

First baby was loads harder than ds2. He had undiagnosed reflux which meant he didnt really sleep and wanted to feed constantly for comfort and pain relief. I had no idea. No2 had the same issues but we knew what was going on and introduced a dummy at 1day old and a feeding and winding routine. 3hrly. The dummy was for comfort inbetween. So i got loads more sleep until weaning at 6months started his indigestion problems again.
Even with a 2yo to look after.
But other friends had babies that slept through from very early on.

I didn't find any particular part that hard, it's just the relentlessness.
For example my toddler is going through a phase of only being happy when she is walking around holding my fingers. She cries if you refuse or try and do anything else. My spine is about to snap in half. It's like seeing me sit down offends her.

Sleep deprivation.
Bf is bloody hard work too.
Your whole life for the first 6 weeks revolves around this tiny little bundle.
It does get easier though and then just when you think you're winning along comes toddlerhood and all the joys that brings.
Seriously though the good outweighs the bad by miles. Just try and enjoy it and don't put too much pressure on yourself.
It can't have been that bad because me and many others have done it more than once

Very good question.

Newborns feed every 2 hours for a long time and can't tell between night and day until they're about 3 months (all babies are different with some better sleepers or better eaters than others of course).

This means your sleep is completely broken (and you feel like you're permanently jetlagged) and you don't get more than 1 hour at a time maybe (count 1 hour to change, feed, wind and settle baby before you can get back to sleep).

Get as much support as you can with people helping with making you food, help with laundry or get everything ready if you want to have a walk with buggy.
Commonly things get a little better after 3 months (although as others said your baby might have other ideas) because baby sleeps longer and feeds less often.

Good luck

Trying to get organised when you have other children/ toddlers. Never getting a spare second and tiredness

When people say they can't get things done it's mostly because a lot of babies scream the house down when they're put down. My first slept constantly for the first couple of weeks - but only on me. I'm not sure it's possible until you've had one to fully get how much the crying stops you doing things. Slings are a godsend but don't help you shower.
Throw in sleep deprivation and constant feeding and nappies and it's harder work than it initially seems. If they breastfeed every 2 hours for 30 minutes then have a poos afterwards every single time then take 30 minutes to go to sleep (on your chest) you're almost at next feed before you know it.

All that being said now I have a newborn and a toddler I don't know why I found one newborn so hard

Sleep is huge too my first woke up all the time and was still waking 2 hourly at 18 months. My second is 6 weeks old and last night woke up once which makes so much difference I think I'd have dropped dead already if he slept like my first

They're all different.

Ds1 would only sleep on me or dh for the first 6 weeks. It was ok when dh was on paternity leave. He got me drinks and food, held ds1 so I could have a shower or chuck a load of washing in the machine. The first 2 weeks were tiring but lovely.

Then dh went back to work and it was harder. Ds1 was feeding every 3 hours, would scream if he was put down, I was exhausted and it seemed to take forever to get us both ready to go out, plus it was the middle of winter, cold and wet. He never napped for more than half an hour and was a nightmare to settle at night until he was about 3.

However, he was a placid toddler who only ever had one tantrum.

Ds2 was born slotting into a feed/nap schedule - I didn't do anything different, he was just happy to feed, nap in his moses basket while I got on with things or had a nap myself, and then wake up to feed again. It was really, really easy.

Ds2 however was a nightmare toddler!

Every baby is different. And every family set up and support network is different. I was a SAHM with no family living within a 2 hour drive from me and DH travelled abroad for work most weeks and even when he was home he was never really hands on. And not having any 'mum friends' at the time meant I was very much alone.

I found both of mine really difficult as newborns. First one was a premi and stayed in SCBU for 4 weeks, had silent reflux and would scream the house down for 3 hours every single evening until they were 6 months old. Second baby was marginally easier but both newborns fed on demand (usually every 1 and a half hours 😭) and I couldn't breastfeed so when the baby was sleeping I was washing and sterilising bottles and getting the next feed ready. There were times where I'd go days without the chance to take a shower 😷. I think this is the part that got me down the most. Being sleep deprived and exhausted is one thing but actually looking like crap on top of all that made motherhood suck. Especially when I used to FaceTime my SIL who had babies at the same time as me and had the entire family living within a few minutes walk and seemed to just be getting on with all the things she did pre-kids and looked groomed always. And her babies slept for hours on end.

Apart from that I loved having a newborn in the house

There's a book called "What Mothers Do, Even When It Looks Like Nothing" which explains it really well.

With a first baby, in particular, it's a bit like walking up in just your clothes in a foreign country where you don't speak the language or understand the customs.

Your baby is born (and you are probably at least a bit injured and exhausted from that) and is utterly dependent on you for everything. You are printed by your hormones to look after your baby. For many people what this means in practice is that you are hyper-alert to the baby. You will hear the tiniest noise the baby makes even if you are in a noisy room. You will panic if apart from the baby for too long. When the baby cries, it triggers a sense of panic strong enough to be physically painful.

You don't know how to communicate with the baby at first. You have to learn what the baby likes and doesn't like, how they express pleasure and discomfort and hunger and tiredness, what soothes them and what upsets them. You get it wrong, a lot, and they cry, and that makes you panic. The panic fades a bit but doesn't go away if you hold the baby. Learning your baby takes up most of your thinking capacity, and it's pretty tiring.

If you breastfeed, you might be lucky and find it easy, but most people have trouble at first, and that involves pain, stress, and worry.

The baby feeds all the bloody time, especially in your sacred adult time between around 5-9pm. When you are learning to breastfeed you can't move out eat during this time, and your hands are full of baby. You might well be in pain.

As you start to understand your baby, you gain more freedom and time, but you are not in charge of how you spend your time. You are constantly interruptible, and every thing you do, you do on the understanding that you will stop at once if the baby needs you.

Most babies start off wanting to be held constantly, day and night, which limits time to do stuff without a baby in your arms.

Many babies cry a lot, even when you you all you can to look after them.

You will sleep in short interrupted bursts. It won't be enough.

People (or books or websites) will make you think that you are doing great it wrong. Normally, you wouldn't give a shit, but you are tired and hormonal and way more vulnerable to criticism than usual.

So basically, the time is spent feeding and holding and soothing and changing nappies and being trapped under a baby who is asleep because if you love s/he will start crying. And it's spent recovering from childbirth. But it's also spent learning a huge amount in a short time, and dealing with an enormous change in your life and not being able to start any activity with the knowledge that you will have time to finish it.

Doing everything one handed because the baby won't be put down, whilst it screams in your face on 4 hours of broken sleep.

Oh and doing the school run with a newborn in tow was the biggest ball ache in my experience. Fitting in feeds with getting a pre reception child up, fed and ready for a 15 minute commute, parking, putting baby in a sling to walk the toddler into the classroom and then back into car seat... all to the sound of blood curdling screams from newborn.

Excellent explanation, Broomstick.

I bought the book "What Mothers Do" a few weeks ago but of course I haven't had chance to read it! Because I've been mothering!

I thought this too. What could be so hard?!

Sleep deprivation
Pain from birth
Breastfeeding (more painful than labour for me)
Baby that would never be put down
Feed, change, burp, repeat. All day. 24 hours no relief.
When he did finally go down to sleep, I was anxious about leaving him to sleep. Too knackered to do housework, darent leave him to get a shower.

It was bloody horrible to be honest. I was miserable for about a year.
My second baby was easier and slept in 4/5 hour blocks from day one, and I was a lot less anxious.

Having a toddler and a three year old however is something else and that was harder than any newborn!

I found my first exceptionally tough, although with lots of lovely bits thrown in.

Sleep deprivation was the worst bit, for me - and my DS was a terrible sleeper for his first two years, which I hadn't anticipated.

I ended up having an emergency c-section, and it was very hard recovering from major surgery while sleep deprived and having full caring responsibilities for a litre person.

I found it very hard to have so little 'me time'. I really missed lazy weekend lie-ins, reading a good book in peace, getting drunk on a Saturday night .

And I felt very socially isolated. I'd been very career-oriented and worked in an industry that was highly social - lots of nights out etc - so it was a shock to suddenly be at home all day and looking forward to going to Sainsbury's for an outing .

And as superficial as it sounds, it really took me a long time to come to terms with the changes in my body. I was model-shaped before DS - tall, slim, lovely flat tummy - and my first pregnancy really ravaged my body .

However...having said all that, I had another baby 3 years later and it all felt much, much easier. Better birth, she slept like a dream and I was so relaxed I was practically horizontal. I would have had a third straight away if DH had agreed .

Ok thanks ladies looks like theres no real way to prepare, it will just hit me and off i go. Scary really!

As i say, really happy to be preg but i am now a little anxious how i am going to feel/cope. On paper it doesnt sound so bad but everyone tells me how damn difficult it is.....