What are the best bits about having a baby?

[Lemondrop99]

Ok so the "what's so hard about having a newborn" thread has scared/depressed me. I know it'll be hard but there must be reasons why people do it all over again with second, third children etc.

So I thought we should have a thread to balance it. Those of you who have already had a baby, what were the best bits of that first year? Anything you found surprisingly easy when you thought it would be hard? Perhaps solutions you found to turn a tough phase into something enjoyable?

For me it was love, I had this huge great rush of love of a depth I had never felt before, had never felt anything like it. Sometimes it still startles me how much I love my kids!

The best things are that you're no longer pregnant so can sleep comfortably, you don't wake up in the middle of the night with heartburn.

Agree with PP they fill a hole in your life that you didn't even know was there, I now wonder what I did with all my free time!

Cuddles with a baby are the best and love having naps with them, I still nap sometimes during the day with my 16 month old - no wonder my house is a mess!

It's great and your child will be the most important thing in your life, everything you previosuly used to worry about will seem insignificant!

Soppy stuff:
Them falling asleep on your shoulder or chest. I could sit there for hours and hours like that.

Being a family

First smile

Practical stuff that wasn't as hard / to make life easier:
I found it much much easier to get out and about than I imagined, everyone told me I wouldn't leave the house for a couple of months / get dressed / showered before noon. I went out nearly every day, it was easy to have a shower and get ready as I just brought DD into the bathroom in the bouncy chair.

Freedom from work: we took advantage of shared parental leave to spend lots of time together as a family and we did some travelling at the same time.

People told me I wouldn't have time to cook so I filled the freezer full of pasta sauces etc. it made life so much easier, never had to worry about dinner.

Lemon, you will understand this best of all from the HG thread - the very very best thing about a newborn is no longer being pregnant. Being able to eat whatever you want, whenever you want and having energy again after pregnancy - even with sleepless nights will make you feel like a new woman, I promise!

Look! This is the best bit :) look at the peaceful face, the smooth cheeks, the roly poly thighs! Then they wake up and give you a huge gummy grin, and old ladies stop to coo over them, and you get a warm squashy feeling all over :)

For the soppy stuff: When they laugh for the first time (to Dr Suess in our case).

More practically: When they vomit on someone you actively dislike but happen to be related to. Hitting dh in the face with my fearsome letdown (I loathed breastfeeding for reasons I won't get into but seeing it drip down his face at that specific point in time did more for my PnD than anything else I'd tried).

Easy: Recovery - I had an emcs after a long labour. As soon as the anesthetic wore off, I got up, got dressed and started packing (hate hospitals). Ok they made me unpack again but 24 hours later I was wandering around the hospital absolutely fine. Didn't need any pain relief at all.

Breastfeeding - physically very easy and I had an excellent supply.

Most importantly though, he filled a gap in our lives we didn't know was there. Suddenly we're back seeing everything through his eyes, Christmas is amazing again, as is Halloween. Everything is new and shiny and fun again.

My DD is 8 months and reaches out for cuddles now

When I hold my DD, I feel like I have the whole world in my arms. I have a love for her like I've never experienced before.

Almost everything practical (c-section recovery, feeding, sleep) was much easier than I expected (had doomful expectations and an easy baby) and really not that bad at all.

The best bit is seeing how much my partner loves his little daughter.

People being nice to you, eg strangers in the supermarket or a neighbour who usually doesn't say hello calling in with a card and a baby outfit.

When they're a little bit older, the excitement of Christmas, their birthday, day trips etc (and that's my excitement I mean)

Addressing your comments:
I tore and had stiches - I had a bit of pain for a week but they healed well and no further issues
I bled for about 2 weeks - lightly towards the end and that was much less time than I expected
I wanted to have sex within 3ish weeks of giving birth - it wasn't often in the beginning but my sex drive wasn't zero
You get used to minimal sleep surprisingly quickly. Ok you have harder days but on 3/4 hours broken sleep you function at some level and when you get that first 5 hour block you fell fabulous!
And the love - it's indescribable

Lemon thank you for starting this thread. I was having a panic attack after reading the other thread about the hardest bits of having a newborn, but now reading here I feel a bit more optimistic that getting pregnant hasn't totally ruined my life?!

Thank you everyone for sharing your stories (especially the soppy ones )

Your baby's smell, there's nothing like it. The warm feeling of having made a family. For me, the joy of fully breastfeeding. Their little fingers and toes. Their soft downy heads. The surge of love you feel for them. The fact that you know where they are and what they're up to make the most of it.

"Lemon, you will understand this best of all from the HG thread - the very very best thing about a newborn is no longer being pregnant. Being able to eat whatever you want, whenever you want and having energy again after pregnancy - even with sleepless nights will make you feel like a new woman, I promise!"

This is reason I'm panicking! I've had such a bloody awful pregnancy and my due date is like this magical point of relief on the horizon. And yet all I'm hearing of about how hard everything is. I feel like I'm going to move from 9 months of feeling horrendous and throwing up, to an agonising labour to a year of misery with no sleep and shredded nipples! It's beyond despressing.

Thank you for the lovely stories. I have to believe that, whatever a newborn throws at me, it's still going to be better than pregnancy!

Babies smell really, really good, and once I got over the initial grim bits of getting breastfeeding established, I found breastfeeding very enjoyable and calming - it reduced my anxiety so much that I permanently got over a phobia.

It's great to watch a little person growing and changing and finding out more about who they are and knowing that you made them.
Playing with a happy, laughing baby or toddler is one of the most joyful experiences ever.

I was filled with overwhelming love.for the baby, for my partner and for myself as well - for us as a family.
You get to do fun Kidd's stuff, even though you are grown up.
I made some great friends.

It's hard work, but it's the sort of work where you work really hard because you love it and find it worthwhile.

All of it!! DD is 9 months old and it's been the best 9 months of my life. Everyone has said she's an easy baby though - she's my 1st, so I have no point of reference. I expect she'll turn into a nightmare toddler just to even it out a bit.

Best bits:
The night feeds, when I had no idea what I was doing, but it all just felt amazing
Waking up to her smiley face every morning
Every time she does something new
Her sleeping on my chest

I'm a bit of a saddo though and even enjoyed the pooey nappies (until she started weaning!)

You mention earlier "solutions to make a tough enjoyable" but I think that in many ways it's enjoyable because it's tough. You discover how tough and resourceful and capable and loving you are, and the work you put in is rewarded with pride and love and confidence and self-knowledge. And snuggles.

Lemon I worried about the same thing, was thinking to myself 'everyone says it's the most tiring thing they've ever done....but I'm already going into it so exhausted/fed up/unwell, how will I cope'. Honestly, there are definitely hard bits, recovery from birth, weird emotions, painful nipples, lack of sleep etc... but even with all of that I found it so, so much better than pregnancy!

Sorry lemondrop if my thread upset you....i just wanted to get to grips with what to expect. I get really conflicting advice/experiences.

Broomstick I was just coming to say something similar.

Sometimes you'll cry because it's tiring/difficult/ relentless, other times you'll watch your baby sleep/fart/wriggle/ smile/play and cry at how much you love them.

Ooh there are so many good bits. And I had a horror of a first year! Even if it's the toughest year of your life there is still lots of happiness and amazement to be found. I loved:

• The sleepy cuddles and contented snuffling
• Watching DD sleep and holding her tiny hand through the bars of her crib next to me (sounds creepy watching someone sleep, not when it's your pfb!)
• Being totally pfb (within reason!) Don't try to fight it, we all do it. Embrace it for a bit, it'll soon wear off
• Seeing DD learn something new, to start with something as small as focusing eyes properly to as big as learning to clap, walk and wave later on
• Hearing her say mama for the first time
• Being ridiculously proud to show her off
• Seeing what a wonderful father my OH is, and feeling my heart just melt when I see them playing or snuggling together
• How fab you feel when you manage your first trip into the outside world and all get home in one piece. Ditto when you do your first day home alone just you and the baby after Dad goes back to work and here are no visitors

Be prepared, don't expect it to be a piece of cake or like it is in the books. Take your birth recovery as slowly as you need to and be kind to yourself. Early days are all about recovering, getting to know your baby and forming your new family. And for all the well meaning advice from everyone who sees you, remember they are only expert in their own children. You are the expert in your own baby - or you will be pretty quickly anyway.

Good luck.

The way their neck smells.
When they're drunk and floppy after a feed.
When they stretch.
DS used to fling his arms up in a very dramatic fashion and wake himself up, it was very funny and very cute.
When they're all snuggled up in a towel after a bath.
The little squeaky snuffly noises they make.
When you put them down on their playmate for a stretch and they go crazy kicking their little legs about with such a serious look on their face - I can see DS doing it now in my mind's eye

Can you tell I'm just a little bit excited for DD to get here now?!

Labour was surprisingly easy for me. I had a great short labour and it bloody hurt but not as much as I thought and i didn't once think I couldn't do it.

Breastfeeding after the first couple of days was relatively easy for me too.

To be fair the only thing I wasn't expecting was how tired I'd be for the first few weeks.

Im suprised at how nothing matters now but Ds, before i had him we had lots of money but I was always stressed about having none now we are super skint but it doesn't matter because Ds is well.

And pregnancy was so much harder for me, I struggled with anti natal depression which disappeared the day after my Ds was born.

Baby skin is so, so, so soft. And they smell really good (even when they should be stinky). And they look at you like you are their whole world and they can see right into your soul. And they concentrate so hard when you stick out your tongue at them...and then they copy you. And when they first work out how to smile and you smile back and they are so pleased with themselves. And the weight of them, completely relaxed, curled up on your chest, trusting you to be the safest place in the world. And when they discover something new (their feet, splashing water etc.) and they are so surprised they have to try and do it again at once.

I posted on the other thread and I feel a bit guilty so I'm posting on this one as well to alleviate my guilt!

On the subject of difficult pregnancies... in the early days I decided that early motherhood is the hardest triathlon ever: pregnancy, birth and looking after a newborn while recovering from the first two! However, not being pregnant any more is definitely a plus point I was so relieved to see my calves go back to their usual size, to see my bump shrink down, to be able to walk and stand without pain for the first time in months, to be able to take ibuprofen (which I needed... but we won't go into that on the positive thread!) and drink alcohol, although it's taken me longer than I thought to feel like drinking it again, due to the exhaustion and having become even more of a lightweight than I was before!

Anyway. The best bits:

YOU MADE A HUMAN. Seriously. Looking at your baby and thinking "I made you" is an amazing thing and makes me feel overwhelmed by pride and love.

Also call me shallow but if your baby is cute and gets lots of attention and compliments that's pretty pride-inducing too

Seeing your baby develop and interact with you, others and the world. DS hasn't done much yet (he's only 5 months) but I adore his smiles, laugh and the little noises he makes (apart from maybe his loud screech ) It's so exciting when he does something for the first time and when he gets excited by things.

Seeing your partner being a dad (my DH is wonderful with DS and I've shed many a loved-up tear which I can only partly blame on the hormones!!)

The cuddles. You get to cuddle your baby AS MUCH AS YOU WANT (unlike other babies which you have to give back!) And the smell of course.

I have also surprised myself by how much I enjoy breastfeeding. It was difficult at first, as DS had tongue tie, his latch was very painful, he fed constantly and I got mastitis (!) but luckily we got the TT diagnosed and divided very quickly, and it's been easy and lovely since then.

Other things that have been easier than I expected... I think we do have instincts. Obviously you spend most of the time wondering if you're doing the right thing (at least I do!) but actually I have found that my instincts are usually pretty good.

Lastly my DS sleeps pretty well at night (touch wood!) so it's not always terrible from that POV... although I am still exhausted for all the reasons given on the other thread it could be worse, right?!

Oh and DH has been doing lots of the household chores while I breastfeed and look after DS, I think I got the better deal

OMG I can't believe I forgot milk drunk face!
I think that is actually the single best thing.