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

Toddlers are harder than newborns IME.

I think with your first it's the sleep deprivation and sudden lack of freedom that shocks you most. With subsequent children it's the relentlessness if it. You don't get a chance to put your feet up or feel ill, you have to get on with it. Then trying to breast feed with an older child interfering or getting upset is tricky. I can understand why people might just formula feed as it's more practical.

The lack of sleep. It's no coincidence that sleep deprivation is also used as a form of torture. There were times when I would have sold my soul for a good night's sleep.

Dunno if I was just lucky but an older midwife said to me watch you don't hold her too much, she will never settle away from you if you do. I didn't, she always went down to sleep and as such, sleep deprivation was not an issue for us. She woke up once during the night for a feed till 11 weeks then she went through the night. We also formula fed so took it in turns to do the feeding and night feeds so I was never tied or felt it was all on me.

I also never carried her round in a sling, it wouldn't have been physically possible at first as I had a c section and she soon got in the habit of being in her little baby rocking chair beside us where ever we were,

The birth was the hardest bit for me, I was very ill with a multitude of complications and spent the full month after I gave birth in hospital. My husband had to take her home and care for her himself, on his own, with no family, plus come up and visit me with her twice a day. That was very hard. The rest was a breeze in comparison. Fortunately his job was very good about it and he was given six weeks paternal leave due to the circumstances,

The first two weeks of paternity leave - easy. My son just breastfed and breastfed and breastfed and needed to be held to sleep if not feeding. But when there's two of you, you can find some time to sleep and shower and make yourself look normal.
Then my DP went back to work and it all went to shit. In some ways it was lovely, all I did was watch Netflix and breastfeed (which despite a refluxy, TTed baby never hurt thankfully) but you'd be trapped on the sofa and desperate for food or a glass of water or to use the loo... and before you know it is five hours gone and the baby has fed and slept and fed and slept but you're absolutely bursting. Try and put baby down for 2 mins so you can have a quick shower and they scream and you then feel just so horrible and guilty that you just give up on showering.

I actually found it got easier and easier and I find a walking, kind of talking toddler waayyyy easier than a newborn. For one, breastfeeding takes a few minutes not hours and also he's just generally happy in himself whereas as a baby he crying seemed constant.

I think I'd find it slightly easier next time actually. I found the "sleep when the baby sleeps" advice useless because the baby just slept on me and if I tried to put him down in a crib he'd wake up instantly and I'd have to feed for an hour again. But then I got better and more confident with co-sleeping and feeding on my side so then I got some really epic naps in from when he was a few months old and that was amazing.

They poo constantly at the newborn age too and probably cry when you change their nappy (because they just cry when you do everything) so you're just up to your arms in shit too. Although honestly I don't know why I found that stressful because nappies are a doddle now.

Oh and lastly, mine never went in the pram because he just screamed and screamed so we went everywhere with a sling. Again, great except that you're so tired you could die and you are terrified of just collapsing in the street.

For me it was my time not being my own.

I couldn't put my dd down for the first 9 months. I felt totally overwhelmed by life at it's most basic ( feeding, pooing, dressing, repeat), plus not being able to walk out the door, or do anything I fancied.
Second one ( even with a 2 year old) was a breeze, as I'd got used to being "on call " 24/7. I was quite immature I think, and had managed to wriggle out of most responsibilities up to that point. Actually I had a very responsible job, but I was used to only being a proper grown up for to 8 hours a day.

I didn't mind the baby stage, I quite enjoyed it. It was ages 3-5 which I found tough.

A recent book I really liked the look of is Elizabeth Pantley's no cry sleep solution for newborns - it's about how to build helpful sleep habits but isn't quite as full on as some of the "Don't hold them too much" thinking, which I think is such a shame - they are so lovely when they are tiny!

IMO the best things you can learn about in advance are safe co-sleeping and slings. You might decide not to use them, and fair enough, but if you do, the knowledge is there. And being prepared for a baby who wants to be held all the time will make it easier if that's what you get.

You'll be ok. For me the hardest part about the newborn stage was adjusting to motherhood in the sense of not being able to just decide to go do something and then do it. That freedom of not having a baby or child. I found the unrelentingness of it difficult. The lack of sleep, the crying, the leaky boobs and hours spent trying to get baby to sleep were ok. I just felt a bit like I'd landed on the moon for a while and walked around amazed that this was how most of the adult people in the world lived - as parents - and what most adult women had gone through at some point.

I have two dc now and the actual childcare and parenting is harder now they're no longer babies, as now we have to deal with social issues, activities, homework, their own opinions on what to do at weekends etc, but I no longer feel like I'm on another planet - it's just normal life now.

The hardest thing for me was watching all the other mothers who seemed to be so organised and knew exactly what they were doing...always well dressed, baby was calm and content etc.
Apparently it was just a good cover up but I never saw that and felt I was failing.
Both my kids were (and still are) extremely hard work...both have multiple diagnoses which also didn't help in the comparisons of how wonderful life seemingly was.

Oh and for me our days went like this:
Try to put down so you can have a bath - baby screams so you abandon plans
Try again - baby screams
Try again - baby screams
Try again - baby is calm and sleeps but by this point you're so on edge and have read so much about babies needing constant warmth and affection and human touch to develop that you feel too guilty to have a bath and worry that your baby will now have attachment issues, so you cry.

I think it's just the Overwhelming feeling you get of Being this tiny beings Parent, the one that provides, cares , Guards them, and then the emotional stress when you can't settle them/won't feed etc.
You take it personally, well I did, when you can't soothe them!
Then the Lack of sleep is draining, piled together with normal day to day life, just makes it all more difficult. But Worth it! I love every minute,
Good luck with everything x

You definetly become neurotic about safety. I was convinced I would fall down the stairs holding the baby, I became very very anxious. That has eased now thank god.

The hardest part for me was the crying/screaming when he was windy. It's just so sad seeing them like that and just trying to settle them for ages. Gripe water became my best friend. We went through gallons of the stuff.

Just thought of one more thing. Arguments with DH. On the whole having a baby has brought us closer together, but we've also had some horrible arguments since DS was born. I think it's because we're both so exhausted that we are more irritable and less patient. It's horrible when DS is crying and then we end up arguing But we do usually talk about and resolve things pretty quickly - we don't have time or energy for sulking!

This might not happen to everyone but just thought it was worth saying in case it happens to you - you won't be alone.

First timer bookmarking my place to read later!

It’s ducking relentless are you having a laugh

5 years later I can confirm it’s utterly relentless if you have a healthy normal kid, if they have health issues or disabilities like mine then it is truly life changing

OP any one moment isn't very hard, its the endless nature of it all. Its like working in a really mundane, repetitive job yearning for the weekend...but the weekend never comes...and you're on call all night.

Agree with pp that it is the initial shock and adjustment that is the hardest and going from 1 to 2 is a breeze in comparison because you have already made that mental leap.

Saying all this, i like you read all the horror storys before giving birth so i was well prepared and so expected to be utterly broken by it all. it turned out to be Ok, knackering yes, boring, painful yes but perfectly doable and although there were set backs each week tends to be better then the last.

Mine are 2 and 4 now and it finally feels like we are coming out the other end.

Be patient with yourself and your partner (easy to be very snappy when tired) prioritise sleep (yours and babys) over all else. Work in shifts if you can, accept help from others, get out of the house if you can, try to talk to an adult about adult things sometimes. Give yourself the first 3-6 months with no expectations beyond looking after yourself and baby, anything else is a bonus.

You will find you will look back after the first 4 weeks or 6 months or so and go fuuuuuuck that was difficult, how on earth did i do that!!!

What part on paper doesn’t sound too bad?

the worry and the guilt that will be with you 24/7 for the rest of your life is indescribable.
the sleep deprivation, the monotony of feed, burp, change, repeat.
the fact you can’t just leave the house, it’s takes ages to get organised to just go to the shop. The crying for no reason.
When they start crawling and trying to kill themselves at every opportunity.
the amount of noise, squealing, crying, shouting, screaming over anything and everything.

best job ever but you’re in for a shock 🤣

It really, really, depends on what kind of baby you make. The newborn stage was the easiest for me, I basically spent the first 5 months sitting in a chair watching tv, while baby breastfed non-stop. It was awesome, although I did put on weight 😬 Baby did not have colic and woke/slept every 3 hrs.

But, many of my friends had babies who had colic and they screamed for hours (with pain) as a newborn, so the parents had to walk up and down with them etc trying to help. One baby would scream for up to 5 hrs non stop! So very different experience from mine.

Then around 4/5 months my baby’s sleep went mad and she woke every hour for the next two years. That was very tough, I felt like my brain was drifting into pieces, but I was still having a fab time meeting new friends at toddler groups, hanging around sunny parks and most importantly not working for boring asses like I used to. Some mums hate that bit and find it boring but I adored it. I also loved breastfeeding and never got sore (used preventative lasinoh a lot) but my friend hated breastfeeding, so 🤷‍♀️

So depends on your baby and also on what you enjoy doing.

Sleep deprivation. 2 hourly feeds, baby takes 20 minutes to feed, by the time you’ve settled them down and got yourself back into bed you only have 1.5 hours sleep before you are up again. Try setting an alarm clock to go off every 2 hours and see what it’s like waking up for half an hour each time. Even worse if the labour has been 3 days and you haven’t slept the whole time, so you already begin sleep deprived. Then throw in hormones. Arghh.

Can anybody tell us why they bother having babies then? What's the positives?

The baby phase is short. Mine are 4 and 6 now and generally lovely children, it's a pleasure not a chore spending time with them.

That's great as an expecting FTM I get really concerned with all of the below - I know it's gonna happen, but you can't help but wonder what's the motivation to do it if so!

None of it is particularly difficult if you have an easy baby and no health or feeding issues.

It’s more the pure relentlessness of it all that makes it difficult.