Don't shoot me but... what exactly is so hard about having a baby?

[Naivenewbie]

Ok, I know that sounds like I'm be deliberately provocative. I'm not really. But I'm expecting my first baby in 10 weeks (eek!) and am just wondering what specifically it is that turns your world upside down? Don't they just eat and sleep at the beginning? Seriously, don't think I'm taking the piss. I am just genuinely wondering why my house has to turn into a pig-sty, why I apparently won't be able to get out of my pyjamas before bedtime, cook a meal, wash my clothes etc. People keep implying these things to me and, whilst I am open to them (rather like my PJs actually), Im just wondering why it's the case...

I said to my friend recently about her new-born, can't you try to sleep when he does? And she said it's not that easy, you find so many things to do. And I'm wondering - WHAT?

Not that hard, no, as long as you have internet access on a mobile phone so you can read mumsnet at 1am, 3am, 5am whilst feeding . DC3 is now 2 weeks old and I had forgotten what it was like (DC2 is 5) and was kind of expecting it would all be much easier this time and that I would get housework done etc. He is now asleep in the pram following the school run and I should have about 15 minutes clear - but I don't feel like hoovering due to massively painful breast but I can sit at the computer.

Oh, and your definition of quality "me" time changes dramatically - forget a long soak in the bath, 5 minutes on your own to go to the toilet feels like such a luxury.

But I am still on a high and have another lovely son - it can be terrible, but of course it's all worth it. Crying now started bang on cue!

I remember thinking when pregnant with my dd that same thing as the op. I used to picture the baby waking in the night for a feed like this: get baby up, feed, put back to bed to sleep. How hard can it be right?

Ha ha ha ha

It never occured to me that it can take hours and hours to get baby back to sleep again!

Luckily with ds he was a quiet, content little baby who did go straight back down again after his night feeds. With dd though i remember getting that sick to the stomach feeling as evening drew to an end the night bagan.

A great post there from yayitstheweekend. There are certain things you can't control/plan for - you can't MAKE the baby sleep/stop crying. However, you CAN do lots of things in advance of its arrival that will help when its born, to ease you through the first few weeks. It did used to slightly urk me that people expected my house to be a tip/life to be a drama when it wasn't (well, not all the time!) Because I had planned ahead and not just drifted into such a major life event without thinking about what would alleviate some of the difficulties.

How hard a baby is or isn't depends on the baby IMO (I have 4)

DS4 was by far the hardest, never would be out down for (well he's 20months and counting.....)

ds2 / ds3 were OK ds1 very hard, no compromises or sleep.

It's not physical graft- although the tiredness is - it's the constancy of it. You know how when you do a job it is done? not so babies! you feed them change them, put to sleep.... on repeat for months, possibly every 1.5 hours.

Every time you try to have a coffee /eat / bath / pick up mess the baby will cry, guaranteed.

It gets better and in truth I like the baby stage an awfullot, they're exceptionally great at 3.6months IMO (ie before they get mobile)

agree - organisation is the key!!

you basically dont have the time on your own to do what you want when you want.
he baby is always there and relys on you bto feed it which is frequently to start with.
they do sleep alot to begin with may need cuddling alot. like people have mentioned may take along time to feed.
it is the sleep deprivation @ the start as they wake alot in the night.
the time will fly by and soon be forgotten you will luv your baby so much

Some babies are easier going than others and some are lucky to have an easier birth with good recovery.

You just cannot tell until it has happened. You can only hope for the best.

I am proud mummy to 4 month old DD. I am lucky she's an easy-going happy soul. Birth and recovery difficult though.

I feel like I am just coming up for some air now 18 weeks later!

You have no concept beforehand of how the feeding changing sleeping thing will work: By the time you've fed them, they'll have peed and pooped and in early days that means a full change of clothes (sometimes for you too particularly if your LO is prone to possetting) and by the time they're clean and redressed, its either time for a feed again or they'll have pooped everywhere again.

This is why you get no sleep! If you have constant help on hand for the changing and all you had to do was put baby on the boob, then yes you'll get some good rest. Otherwise get used to serious sleep deprivation.

BTW husbands like to think they're useful but generally they're not as they think changing 1 nappy per 24hrs is a huuuuge help...

Anyway, you asked the question - hope we've not scared you too much.

All the best!

Agree with yayitstheweekends post, absolutely.

ANd you know- yes its bloody hard but unlike every hard task I face usually, it comes with enough love to be fine. Tiring but fine.

The first smile comes as tiredness gets too much; you wake after a bad night to find baby gazing lovingly at you....

Expect graft, but also good times. You may be unlucky enough to get pndetc but you may well not, and you may (like me) look back on those baby days with incredible nostalgia. Idon't ewant any more kids (we seem to have a genetic disability which makes it a double no no) but if things were different I'dgladly take in newborns for foster care as it really is something I adore.

It's important to prepare yourself,to be aware that some babies are a slog, but that doesn't negate the good side at all. And it will all go so bloody fast anyway that you'll be sat here in three years time thinking 'blimey,what happened?'

Good luck, am in a wish-I-Had-Time-travel-but_dont-want-any-more sorta way

Aw Ski, my Dh was a great help- did all the night nappies as I BF and it meant I didn't have to actually get out of bed.

He worked nights with ds4 and I really missed that help.

In case no-one's mentioned it, just to warn you that you might not get the instant unconditional love that several people have mentioned... but if you don't, don't panic.

I was told I would and I didn't, and felt like a complete freak of nature. For some people it comes instantly, for others it comes more as you get to know each other as people, as yes, your baby will be its own person when he/she arrives, and for me anyway, it was like inviting a stranger into your home only to find they are the world's least reasonable and most demanding lodger, 24/7. I hope you get a chilled out one!!

One of my earliest posts on MN was about 6 weeks in saying I felt terrible as I hadn't got that bond at all, I just felt like I was a babysitter for DD, like someone was going to come and take her off my hands at some point (and in the early days I may have let them! And I feel awful now typing that but it was true at the time!! Now of course I would rip anyone to shreds that tried to take her away. ). I was probably borderline PND, (poor DD wouldn't feed, wouldn't sleep, and when she was asleep I was terrified about cot death and couldn't sleep as I was intently listening to her breathe... oh yes, I remember auditory hallucinations too) but 10 months on I am fiercely in love with her, proper mama tiger style. (Someone on here did describe it as Stockholm syndrome, which may well be true. )

Good luck! And remember - this too will pass...

I totally agree with the person who said going from I to we was the hardest. So so true. And that's why second time round is not remotely as hard, ime, because you are already a we and already have no time for anything so not big shock.

I feel for you.

One last thing. I bet you are reading this and thinking "naaaaa". If you believe us and brace yourself it might not be so bad. Go in it gingerly at your peril .

You don't have to turn into a complete slob, let the house go and not get dressed etc. but i think should be prepared for the eventually that that might happen and not give yourself a hard time. All babies are different, some sleep loads at the beginning but some just nap for 5 mins here and 5 mins there and its pretty hard to get anything done. The thing i found hardest was dealing with raging hormones - crying for no reason when everything was meant to be wonderful - wasting time worrying about the house being a state when i knew that the newborn bit lasts a very short time. Frankly, i was in denial with my first, I got 'my' life back quickly and was on a work-related long distance flight when she was 3.5 months old... i now have two more (both boys) and wish that i had spent more time looking at and cuddling my first baby girl and less time worrying about everything else.

Enjoy it - even though i already have 3 kids I'm envious (no i'm not going for 4!) - a new baby is the most precious thing in the world

I am a big fan of denial. I didn't even really admit I was having a baby until I was about 38 weeks pregnant. I guarantee it will be a HUGE shock regardless though.

My DC1 (for a good few months) fed for 45 mins, cried off and on for 45 mins, slept for an hour; fed for 45 mins, cried off and on for 45 mins, slept for an hour; fed for 45 mins, cried off and on for 45 mins, slept for an hour etc etc. And that was once I got into a routine. Before that I actually had one day when I fed for 16 hours out of 24. Once you factor in the nappy changes, and the wandering round with them trying to settle them, then you don't end up with much time at all. I always thought that I could function (kind of) as human being it I had 4+ hours sleep, any less than that and it was zombie time!
The one thing you can't possibly grasp until you have the baby, is the sheer repetitiveness and routine. Groundhog Day, only every 2/3 hours (day AND night), is the best description.

BUT saying that, a lot of it comes down to not actually knowing what your doing, and not going with the flow. With my 2nd DC I managed to get DC1 to playgroup every morning, clean the house, make dinner etc pretty much from the word go. Now I sometimes look back at when I had just had DC1 and wonder what the hell I was doing!!!!

Good luck though - you will work it all out and it will be fine, just don't expect any rest for the first 3 years months! BUT IT'S SO WORTH IT!

I second all of the other posts that talk about the sleep deprivation, but also the wonder and love.

Every morning it felt as if I'd got off an overnight flight from a different time zone during which I hadn't slept, but I knew that instead of being able to catch up on the lost sleep, I'd be losing a bit more each day. I remember looking at all the lovely congratulations cards people had sent us and wondering why they didn't make new baby cards saying 'good luck' instead.

But it does get easier with time.

Yayitstheweekend - I wish I had read your post a little earlier - like 16 years earlier!! I could have been a lot more organised than I was, and I'm sure it would have helped. Mind you - it would probably help if I was more organised now.....

I hope that the OP is enjoying a lovely lie-in and leisurely breakfast, not hiding in a corner, rocking backwards and forwards after reading this thread.

Looking back, I think the hardest thing about having a baby was that I had to do things on the baby's schedule, not mine - perhaps that's what the OP isn't really appreciating. But actually, it can be no bad thing if you relax and go with the flow.

For me, the biggest bit of advice I wished I'd had before the birth of ds1 was to sit down and rest whenever he slept, rather than rushing around doing stuff. And he slept better and longer on my shoulder, but I thought I ought to put him down in his basket, where he only slept for 10-15 minutes at a stretch. Like a total numpty, I didn't settle down on the sofa with the baby asleep on my shoulder, and the remote control and a book to hand!

Oh - another bit of advice, if you don't have Sky+ or freeview+, it's worth the investment. Our DS had a sensor for CSI - we only ever saw the first 5 mins, then he would wake screaming, always as we were eating dinner (at 9pm!). We'd just settle him in time to catch the last 5 mins.

We have freeview plus now, but it would have made such a difference to have something you WANT to watch recorded when you're sat there feeding/expressing/rocking etc, rather than having to watch 2 pints and a packet of crips at 2am (argh!)

Hobsnob...I cracked up at the 'world's most unreasonable lodger' bit...so very true!!

I can identify with you completely. I did not have any maternal gush of love when either of my babies were born. I wanted to take care of them, but I wasn't in love with them. I felt weird, too, until I told a dear friend this, and she replied "what's to love? They eat, poop and cry! Not much personality there..." Very reassuring! Once they got a bit more interactive, I became increasingly more besotted...

Sleeping when the baby sleeps is not as easy as it sounds.

Even if you don't try to fit in any house work or other essentials, sleeping 'on the clock' is almost impossible.

You might have little or no warning that your baby is about to drop off, so you don;t have time to wind yourself down to sleep yourself.

Trying to get to sleep at the drop of a hat is hard, and made even harder by not knowing how long you've got before LO wakes up again.

Remember the days of trying to get to sleepthe night before a big event, then the closer you get to the alarm going off, the more difficult it becomes because you know you have very little time left?

Not so easy to fit it into 1-2 hours...

OP, I'm afraid it is not easy being a new mum. I had the worst 6 weeks of my life. Didn't help being barely mobile to begin with from a c-section. Then recurring bouts of mastitis made me feel constantly ill. The agony of bf with cracked nips has to be experienced to be believed. And I never got a good night's sleep for 7 months. I'm afraid the cleaning was the last thing on my mind.

Oh, and to begin with, the endless effing visitors and the humiliation of having to show your tits off to everyone you've ever met as they come at feeding time when you're not proficient at bf yet. Either that or you exile yourself to the bedroom for hours.

Am hoping I'll have learned some lessons with number 2 if I have another.

agree. I never slept when baby slept. mostly because I wanted to cram the most me-time I could while I could but also because I'd hate it more to manage to nod off only to be awaked after 5 minute.
Luckily my babies both slept in the nights reasonably. Still very much sleep deprived and grumpy and fed up etc etc etc

My beautiful two week old daughter is getting baptised this Sunday.
Do you think I should bother with a Christening Piece, and if so, what should it contain?
Thanks

Good point, TheMightyToosh - perhaps it's more realistic to say sit down, relax and have a rest when the baby sleeps.

Ooops sorry, posted in the wrong place.

I think the advice: "If you expect it to be a nightmare it will be" and the "Calm baby: calm mother!" is just bollocks

I'm a v. chilled out person but I gave birth to two babies who screamed blue murder if I wasn't STARING INTO THEIR EYES AND COOING for the first year

It was fucking exhausting - AND I felt it was all my fault becasue my friends who had easy-going babies were always being told that it was because they were so 'calm' and 'relaxed'

I was looking through some old photos yesterday of the girls as babies and I was thinking 'OMG THEY WERE SO LOVELY' but then I saw a photo that DH had taken of ME then, and I looked like something that Amnesty would send you in the post in order to garner your sympathy

I would LOVE to have those weeks after Ds was born again, and again, and again!

They are so special when they are newborns, the feeling of nesting, of newness, the excitment of taking them out for the first walk, feeling like 'proper parents'. Hours on the sofa watching his little jaw going in and out, lying in bed with him between us, just gazing at him, and going 'aaaah' at every sound and movement,time to meet up with other new Mums and socialise, for me, it was absolutely magical!