What do you wish you had known before you had your DC? Tell us for your chance to win a copy of Why Did Nobody Tell Me?: Home Truths Every Parent Needs to Know.

[RebeccaMumsnet]

Hello. This week we published Why Did Nobody Tell Me?: Home Truths Every Parent Needs to Know, which is the paperback version of The Mumsnet Rules.

And we wanted to mark its publication and nudge you towards a bookstore with a small but perfectly formed competition-ette.

For those who don't already know, Why Did Nobody Tell Me? is full of common sense and good cheer to steady you during the trickier patches of child-wrangling - told from the perspective of those who've been there, worn the (puree-splattered) T-shirt, and more or less emerged in a fit enough state to boggle at the PFB madnesses of their early parenting days.

So, what we're asking you wise folks now, in a competition-y way, is to tell us what you wish you'd known before you had children.

Please post your "in hindsight" confessions/admissions/witticisms here. We'll pick out ten winners from all who post - and send each of them a spanking new copy of Why Did Nobody Tell Me?

Good luck!

Make sure you have lots of parental / family support for babysitting, childcare and people to ask for bf advice or experiences e holidaying, where to bf when shopping etc v helpful;

Sometimes things are really hard and have to plan things to look forward to but good communication with partner gets u thru it;

Only have children with a non-alcoholic man who is tidy and will do 50% of everything when not working and support your career - otherwise you'll separate like lots of people I know who have kids under 3, sadly'

That the sleepless nights, terrible twos,temper tantrums etc won't last forever! It's hard to see past the immediate future when you are smack bang in the middle of it NOW

Don't throw the full nappies down the stairs. Nappy bags are not as robust as they should be.

That when you first start breastfeeding it feels like you'll never leave the sofa, let alone the house. It's unbelievably time consuming in the early days and by the time you finished on the 2nd side and winded its time to start again... you both get quicker all of a sudden, seriously quicker, and love the fact you can just whip them out!

wind, wind, wind.

You will say and do all the things you said you wouldn't, you won't care - whatever gets you through!

That whatever your high hopes for the perfect labour, when the time comes, you just want that baby out in the safest way....sod that birth plan.

That you can't assume breast feeding is straightforward either, my milk simply never came in with any of my DCs, and beating myself up about it didn't help, especially when friends found it so easy....formula hasn't made them fat/less intelligent/less close etc etc ...so up yours Daily Mail.

That sex would go from being the main event of a weekend, to a ten minute quickie snatched before the children come and poke their noses through the door ;-(

Holidays will never be the same again...

Whilst its great watching 9 month old DD discover the sea, the beach, how much fun there's to be had taking a Sunhat off a trillion times a day, there will be a nagging voice in the back of your head saying 'this is like being at home except I'm in a more inconvenient place without all the useful things i need with me' and after you've packed all the toys, spare clothes, nappies etc there'll only be room for you to take 1 dress and if you are lucky a spare pair of pants.

Do not waste this paltry allowance with a book you imagine you will read on a sun lounger whilst DD naps, you won't even get near the sun lounger or pick up the book until you are putting it back in the case to come home

Now DD is a toddler holidays are getting to be more fun and less stressful but still don't think you can pack that book

That I would feel inordinately proud that for 6 months after they were born my body was the only thing they needed to keep them alive.
That and there is no pain greater than standing on Lego.

That other parents lie about their children sleeping through all night. Or their "all night" is from 11-5 or something which bloody well isn't all night to me.

That I would miss night feeds when they did finally sleep through.

That other parents love to taunt the soon-to-be parents about the "sleepless nights" to come. Well it's true that you may have a lot less sleep some nights than you'd like, especially at the start. But unless you have twins, or sick children, you're unlikely to have a night that is truly sleepless. They are just trying to scare you.

Agree Jcee - holidays are just "Washing up with a different view."

I explain my lack of enthusiasm for holidays to DH thus: "How would you like it if you were told that your holiday this year was to not have time off work. You would still have to do your job, but not in your nice office . . . in a grey poky one which smells of damp with no phone, no computer, no pens, and no backup. And your boss will shout at you if everything is not up to scratch. Oh and you have to pay £800 for this."

That when you have a child you will experience a kind of love for another different to anything else. Your heart will feel so big and positively fit to burst. But there will also be times when that child will test your patience so much you would happily donate them to the circus just to get two minutes peace, but this passes. The love doesn't

You may have plans to only feed your child homemade, organic, free range, low salt and sugar delicacies, but frozen chicken buggers and chips won't harm your child. And watching a 12 month old demolish a chunk of chocolate cake is very cute.

Your mother knows everything that it's possible to know about parenting, what she doesn't know she will make up. You will do everything wrong if it's different to what she does and she will tell you this. It is ok to ignore your mother, muttering 'shut the fuck up' under your breath helps.

Buggers? *nuggets!

That I'd you ff for whatever reason it's not poison and there is no use feeling guilty about it.

And you never realise how much you can love someone and swim with pride every time they do something new.

It's spot on that description Balloonslayer - DP doesnt understand my lack of enthusiasm for holidays but I might try explaining it to him that way and see if he gets it then!

I agree with you on night feeds - I never expected to miss them but there was something nice about just me and DD snuggling up at 3am with mn on my iPhone knowing everyone else was asleep

I'd -if

That when you have a baby, you become the person other people hand it back to when it cries/smells/throws up.

That it doesn't matter if you've done NCT, pregnancy yoga and refused an epidural if the little person also involved in birth is sick and their heart rate is plummeting they are going to be dragged out any which way immediately and you won't be having a water birth. Cling to this when someone smug tells you that perhaps you just didn't try hard enough to be active. wow, that's cathartic to admit that instead of blaming myself again

That not all babies nap. I honestly believed that I would look at the clock, put DD in her cot, give her a little pat and get on with housework, lunch, catching up from night wakings. I experienced real shock when this wasn't the case and I spent months reading every book on infant sleep and working so hard to just get a child to sleep.

I have a post graduate degree and my biggest achievement to date is getting a little person to sleep, in their cot, in the day.

That there will always be someone who breastfed for longer than you and when you can't take anymore after 9 months of it you are not a bad mum to introduce a few bottles of formula.

That a wettish week in Wales with your 10 month old pfb knocks the socks off the fortnights you used to spend in Mexico.

That one day, when you are feeling a little old and tired, you will be listening to this lovely young woman who is taller (and slimmer and prettier) than you as she tells you excitedly about hopes, dreams and plans and just think 'Wow - it was all worth it'

That the everyday routine of feeding & nappy changing, however grinding it seems, will feel like a distant happy golden dream when you have your first experience of diarrhoea & it's a dirty nappy every 30 minutes .

Having a baby that sleeps through at 4 months is WONDERFUL but if you have insomnia your sleep is just as broken as ever...trapped between a DH and a baby who both snore!

You will look at the giant boxes of nappies and think "it would take months to use up that many nappies". It does not. Buy 5 times the nappies you think you'll need.
Bring at least 10 nappies out on any journey as you will forget most times sometimes to replace ones you've used.

As soon as the baby develops a liking for a comfort object, buy another 2 ASAP, and keep swapping them so none get more special than the others. The time they will need their comfort object the most is when they have just been sick all over it, then just when you feel smug at producing a second comfort object, they will be sick on the second one.
You think you will be able to find an answer to your toddler's questions, they will quiz that out of you. DS was a champion of this, even my physics degree was useless against:
Why is a beetle?
What holds the sky up?
Has that man been to B&Q? (nowhere near a B&Q)

That the baby hasn't read any of the manuals.
That it's okay to do whatever it takes to get them to sleep in the first year.
That there is no such thing as a rod for your own back.
That it's like having a car crash into your old life but you wouldn't change it for anything.
Your childless friends won't get it til they have kids but they still love you.

That you will spend ages deliberating on the right outfit combination for birth but when the time comes you will strip naked without a second thought

That despite being the hardest, most tiring, draining thing you'll ever do, being a mother is also the most rewarding, amazing, wonderful job in the world. And that it really is true - to have a child is to forever have a little piece of your heart walking around outside your body.

Storminabuttercup - still laughing at chicken buggers!

That it doesn't matter how you give birth, all that matters is that you and the baby are healthy. I spent the first year feeling bad about not having had a natural birth. Madness. Who cares?

what ncfornow said about showing off a lovely flat midriff while i had one. The physio lied about me getting it back picks up packets biscuits. That breastfeeding can take 27 hours a day regardless of how well it goes. Toddlers are the most infuriatingly amazing people. Picking your battles requires the patience of a saint.

[wuss emotion]