Please can you tell me your positive parenting stories?

[Oysterbabe]

DH and I have a wonderful relationship, home and life. There's really nothing that I would change. We respect and appreciate each other and have a great mix of our own hobbies while also making time for date nights, theatre trips and generally nurturing our relationship.

I'm currently 23 weeks pregnant with our planned and much wanted first. I keep reading story after story about relationships struggling and deteriorating after the birth of a child. I also worry about whether I'll be any good at being a mum, I'm not maternal at all and love my own space.

I would love to hear from people who had doubts and worries about become a parent and love it. I'd also love to hear from people whose relationships thrived.

It can't all be doom and gloom can it? Surely it's possible to have children without abandoning our old selves entirely?

No answer but I started a similar thread yesterday as I'm in a similar boat! Trying to think positively

I cannot help with a thriving relationship but I can tell you that before I had my daughter people used to laugh at the idea of me having children. I was hard nosed and stubborn and very very picky. I regularly used to hear how it was a good job I did not want children and how my sister would be the worlds best parent as she was so kind and caring. I found out I was pregnant at nearly 6 months gone and it was such a shock. More than anything I panicked that I would be a terrible mum and a bad role model. Giving birth and seeing her ... something just clicked in me. I definitely softened personality wise but otherwise I realised my personaility fit being a parent in my own way. I could hold my own in the colicky times and not sleeping stages because I was stubborn and like you I need a lot of quiet times but I could do it with dd around. When she napped, when I breastfed, post baths, they were all lovely gentle quiet times. She is nearly 8 now and she loves quiet time too. We have a great relationship and I could not love her more. I still worry I am not a good parent ( like everyone!!) From time to time but ultimately we are both healthy and supremely happy. I would not change it for the world. I am sure you will be a great mum too. The main thing to rememeber is to trust yourself to parent.

My husband and I have had our troubles over the years (I'm 31, we've been together since I was 19), but even with a VERY, VERY difficult baby/now toddler (think a kid that is never happy, is up from 4.30am til 7pm then comes in the room at night etc, is running around ALL day and never ever stops!), we've worked as a team, he's been really understanding about exhaustion etc, not being able to share a bed together and so forth, and our relationship has grown stronger. It all depends on who you both are as a couple, and how determined you are to see things through. Always communicate with each other, work together, compromise where compromise is fair/due, and importantly allow each other to have "time off" from being a parent ie a couple of hours just sitting in a cafe, or whatever. And TALK NOW about how you plan to parent - who will help with night feeds/have lie ins/help cook meals etc? We found loosely pre-planning like that has really helped us.

Our second born is a GEM of a baby - she is eeeeasy to look after, a real ray of happy sunshine. I can even go to an actual coffee shop with her and have actual sit down time! (I never could with my DS, he would scream and thrash within a minute). You will never knwo what kind of a kid you end up with, lol, but just stay positive. I'm sure it'll all be ok, even through the tricky times, just talk things through with each other x

Parenting is the nicest thing we've done together. I am not a person who 'wanted children'. I wanted his children and he wanted mine. I have two boys and I look at them all together and feel really proud and amazed at what we've done. He has been as good a father as he is man.

There have been hard time when we;ve been very tired and a bit irritable, but you just have to talk and listen. Having children puts a strain on you, and the relationship, and some do falter.

I would say that you do depart from your old self, but you don't have to depart from your old relationship. I was determined to regularly go away with him without children right from when mine were really small (you might find you don't want or need to - but I did). Luckily I have parents who have babysat for us.

Parenting brings to the surface unconscious assumptions and patterns from our own childhood- that is why it can be so difficult for many

I was crippled with self doubt before my son was born - it wasn't easy, but it GETS easier.

They do make it sound as if the new born stage is something to be endured, don't they? I only had a baby because it seemed so important to my DH. Convinced I didn't have a maternal bone in my body; but I loved it. I'd have had a football team if we could have afforded it!
Before I had my first child, I was sure it was sll going to be a disaster - I would have a traumatic birth, post natal depression, the baby wouldn't sleep, DH and I wouldn't have sex until the baby was at least 3....
This sounds bizarre but I LOVED giving birth - hated all the contractions, and not knowing how long it was going to last, but as soon as it got to second stage labour, the bit I'd been terrified about, I felt like superwoman. After the baby was born, I got a rush of what I can only describe as the opposite of post natal depression - it was wonderful! Kept me going ll through the first week.
I'll admit I was very lucky - my daughter slept 6 hours in a row from the off, I didn't realise you could have problems breastfeeding, so I floated through it on a little pink cloud. And you get very inventive about where and when you can fit quickies in...
I'm not a perfect mother, and I think one of the important things is not to try to be. Trust your instincts. i always thought routines are important, so we tried to get into one, but don't sweat it when it goes wrong.
As for being your old self - of course you are, but it's just what you are interested in changes a bit.
Best bits of advice I ever had were; sleep when the baby sleeps and sod the washing up.
PS thesecond baby made up for DDperfect start - he was a bugger!!

Like you, we had a great relationship and home/work/social life so was reluctant to change and concerned that my lack of any real maternal desire was a sign.

But as someone has already said, I wanted my husbands children and vice versa. We've been together since teens and are both fiercely stubborn so that was a concern that we would turn on each other during the difficult times.

We can still lock horns at times, but not over any major parenting decisions. Our child has brought us closer and brought calm that I never knew I had. You just both need to remember that it's scary/tiring/emotional for both of you. Appreciate that the other has feelings too. (Can be hard on 2 hours sleep!)

I'm pregnant again now so definitely not doom and gloom!

Good luck and enjoy the future

The thing is that people who don't have problems have no real reason to post on the internet, do they?

In my experience, both on mn and in rl, the relationships that go wrong after children are the ones where it's suddenly back to the 1950s and the mum does all the childcare and housework and the dad's life carries on pretty much as before. If you approach parenting as a team then I don't think you need to worry about your relationship.

Re the newborn stage. I found it beyond awful, but the good thing is that it ends and then it just gets better and better.

Terrified

I agree with that. The problem is that some relationships morph into this almost unconsciously, without warning. That's why talking (and women being really clear from the beginning) is really vital.

I/we had three in just over 3.5 years. I loved the baby bit, my youngest is 18 months and I am longing for a newborn again Me and DP are equal parents and partners and get on fine (though a lot less sex than before kids! A lot less). I love parenting but I'm not a martyr about it which helps.

I've been amazed by how much being a parent has deepened my love for my husband - watching him grow into a brilliant dad has touched and delighted me. It hasn't always been easy but we've faced it as a team, mostly managing to keep a sense of being in this together, both trying to deal with the challenges of a new situation to the best of our abilities, learning on the job and from each other. There's a big difference between saying "you're doing that wrong" and "I found that it really helps if I do it this way.". It's really important to watch out for your own stress triggers and ask for help rather than being a martyr or taking it out on your other half. Don't forget to tell them what you like about the way they parent.

As for the newborn stage, I'd say prepare for a marathon rather than a sprint - DS slept worse from 4-11 months than as a newborn and it was exhausting! So try to make sure you both have time for self care and fun as soon as possible.

It's worth talking about parenting styles beforehand and at least getting an idea of how you want to approach things - while you may choose to change things later it helps to establish a bit of a common philosophy when you're not exhausted. Plus it helps to fortify you against unsought advice!

If possible, I'd thoroughly recommend using shared parental leave to give you both time alone with your child - really helps to build a strong relationship as well as distributing responsibilities fairly.

Anyway, good luck, it's an amazing journey!

We did fine. If anything I'd say our relationship was stronger than it was before our DC was born.

I would plan on things looking different - odds are pretty good you won't have time/energy/money for regular date nights and theatre trips any more, and your hobby time is probably going to get severely curtailed as well. But that doesn't mean your relationship will be weaker. I used to love love love long evenings out with my husband and trips away with just the two of us on short notice... But we're working on something important, we're raising our wonderful and dearly loved child together, we're growing and changing as people, we're learning to appreciate each other on new and deeper levels, and that's worth a few years of a much less exciting social life.

I think what caused friction in lots of friends' relationships was that the woman's life changed much more than the man's - she was on mat leave so the parenting and housework became pretty much her job, with him 'helping'. We didn't do that, partly because I'd had a really shit pregnancy where my husband did most of everything for nine months so the newborn phase was a breath of fresh air anyway, and partly because he always saw himself as equally responsible for caring for our daughter the second he got home from work.

I wouldn't worry about not being maternal. I thought that too, but I have learned since that how you feel about other people's babies and kids has very little to do with how good a mother you are to your own.