Tell Asda what you wish you knew before becoming a parent - £300 voucher to be won NOW CLOSED

[PoppyMumsnet]

Sometimes, we wish we had the benefit of hindsight– knowing what to have said, what to have done would have made the situation a whole lot easier. Asda would like you to tell them about the things you wish you’d known about before being a parent to a baby/toddler. Would being a new parent have run more smoothly had you known certain things before? What sort of things would you have liked to have known?

Here is what Asda has to say: “Here at Little Angels, we understand how daunting it can be waiting for the arrival of your long awaited little one. That’s why we’d love you to share your top tips on anything from being a parent for the first time or what’s different when you have your second.”

So what do you wish you’d known before becoming a parent? Time flies by so quickly - maybe you wish you’d known to take more videos or photos. Perhaps you wish you’d known that children are much more expensive than you originally thought, so you could have planned better. Maybe you wished you’d known about a support network that you could have spoken to from the very beginning. Or maybe you simply wish you’d known how hard it would be so you could have mentally prepared yourself?

Whatever your story is, Asda would like to hear about it. All those who post below will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 Asda voucher.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Standard T&Cs apply

Not to be too hard on myself - it's okay if you can't or don't want to breast feed.
Sleep when they sleep if you can - the chores can wait.
Try not to worry about everything.

I wish id knew that i didnt need all the latest baby gadgets

I wish someone had told me not to remove price tags out of any new clothing! So many cute outfits etc that were never worn but also not able to exchange them in the shop either! I wish I'd known that babies don't actually need that many clothes! I always thought I'd be changing baby's clothes few times a day that didn't happen...

That one tiny smile could melt my heart and momentarily nothing else in the world matters.

I wish I'd known how to get a baby to sleep. I still wish I knew.

How hard each stage of parenting is.

Conversely how I only have to look at my boys and know that I can never love anything or anyone more.

I honestly wish I had known that I should have bought a plastic cot bed for my daughter as her teething has bought with it a mass destruction of her wooden cot bed.

I wish I'd known that it's actually ok to try to make life easier for yourself and that anybody that judges you probably isn't worth worrying about.

There's no need to attend baby massage/swimming/singing/signing/origami every day, a jar of baby food won't affect their changes of getting a degree, a night without a bath won't cause dysentery and a babygro is a perfectly acceptable 'outfit' for a baby.

Trying to be the perfect parent is a route to disaster!

That each of the challenges really is just a phase, even if it seems like it will go on for ever at the time. It will then be replaced by different challenges, but all of them can be dealt with.

I wish I'd known about vests being able to be pulled down! Never discovered this till DC3 and it made nappy explosions much less stressful to deal with!

*I wish I had known that I would never again venture alone to the bathroom and that I'd have an audience for so many years.
*I wish I'd known with my firstborn that he was ok when asleep and I didn't have to stroke his face to startle him and check he was breathing.
*I wish I had been able to relax with my first born as I could with my later children.

That everyone will have an opinion from what to do to how they think you should do things...even if you have only just met them. I Wish I had known this before that everyone would want to interfere help. After some time I just did it my way and asked when I needed help...parenting became much simpler.

I've spent most of my life being generally pretty successful at everything I do. Until I had a baby. And the pressure I put upon myself to be an A+ parent as well- to meet my own high expectations- was ridiculous. I felt like a failure because I wasn't 'acing' motherhood; I gave up breastfeeding after 4 weeks, I had PND and was genuinely afraid for my own sanity and my son's safety at several points. I never actually admitted this to anyone at the time as I was afraid that I'd be seen as a failure. The advice I wish I'd had before having my baby is that you might not bond naturally and instinctively with your baby. You might look at that little tiny bundle and not anything more than a massive inconvenience and resent it for the chaos it has wrought on your previously contented, stable life. And this will immediately wrong foot you and throw you off centre. But THAT'S OK. And it's much more normal than you think. And it WILL be hard, but you'll cope. And things will gradually get better. And you'll learn, for the first time in your life, instead of coasting and having things 'easy', for the first time you'll really have to fight. Hard. Just to maintain sense of self and the thing that you're fighting for will eventually turn out to be the most incredible, rewarding, beautiful thing in your life. That's what I wish I'd known.

That it would get harder in some ways as they get older, because that's when they start getting feelings hurt, and there's nothing you can do to protect them (bar trying to make them confident etc).

I wish I knew that babies come whenever they want and not when you expect. My son had decided to pull a joke on me by coming six week earlier on Friday 13 instead of his due date, Christmas Day.

How hard it would be and how much I would worry all the time.
How wonderful it is, and the best thing that I would ever do.

That just because something worked for the first one doesn't mean it will work for the second.

Just how tired you would be during the first few years.

That everything is a stage. Colic, teething, sleepless nights. It all passes. When you are in it you think that this is what life is going to be forever but these stages pass and you start to get a lot back from the child which melts your heart and makes all the hard work totally worth it :-)

However old and independent they are you still worry about them!

I wish I knew what a challenge it would be! I thought it would be so easy after reading so many books, but in reality, not all kids grow and develop, behave etc by the book!

I wish I had fully appreciated how quickly time flies and learnt to savour each moment more!

Children don't come with instructions!
I bought loads of books.....what a waste of time, kids wake when they want, eat when they want and you have to fit in somewhere. About 3 months into it I realised I was not going to be sitting down with tea and toast at 10:30 everyday!

I wish I had known that all phases last only a few weeks. So even when you're exhausted you know it won't last forever.

I wish I knew how expensive children are when they are older I would have saved more money for their teenage years :)