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is it how u thought...

.....it would be?

Obviously you can read and be told what to expect when you have a baby but its never the same as when your baby is here. Is it what you expected or did it take you a little by surprise? Im lucky my first was textbook. He slept through from 8 wks, never knew he teethed, weaned fine but when I had my second he had reflux and I honestly didnt know what hit me! He was unsettled almost all the time and with a 1yr old to look after too it was a BIG learning curve for me. Baby 3 wasnt so bad but has never been a good sleeper and now baby 4 seems to be following her biggest bro (fingers tightly crossed) and slept 9hrs last night.

Elaine & Emily 6wks

xx

Replies

  • No!

    Sleep deprivation was the hardest thing for me at the beginning. I thought I would be fine with the lack of sleep as I have never needed much.Gosh, how wrong was I! My lo also had shocking colic which was awful.

    On the other hand I now have an adorable 14 week little boy who hardly cries, smiles and laughs alot and sleeps well (always hate mentioning the sleep in case I jinx it!)

    I never realised it would be so rewarding.

    H x
  • In a fashion yes.
    Sleep deprevation was a biggy that i strugggled with and up until 4 months he was a grumpy little man with i believe silent reflux and a milk protein intolerance however from 5 months he grew out of this, started sleeping through and i have the happiest baby mostly in the world now IMO.
    People say it gets easier and at the time you think yeah whatever and dont think you can see the light but it does get easier.
    Sx
  • In a fashion yes.
    Sleep deprevation was a biggy that i strugggled with and up until 4 months he was a grumpy little man with i believe silent reflux and a milk protein intolerance however from 5 months he grew out of this, started sleeping through and i have the happiest baby mostly in the world now IMO.
    People say it gets easier and at the time you think yeah whatever and dont think you can see the light but it does get easier.
    Sx
  • People say it gets easier and at the time you think yeah whatever and dont think you can see the light but it does get easier.
    Sx

    So true!
  • My lo is 9 months and to the outside world she is perfect, slept through from 8 weeks, weaned brilliantly and always smiles for people who she sees, however, they didnt get to see the awful colic and the bad reflux which we are still dealing with, they don't see the tantrums that dd throws constantly at home. I thought I might get lucky, sil had a daughter 7 months before me and she is lovely and quiet and when I was pregnant I had her a few times and she was so easy so i thought I might get it like that, how wrong I was.
    Part of me thinks that I would love another baby and then the realistic part of me thinks we may have to do the reflux and colic all over again and that puts me right off again!
  • NO in a word!!!!!!!!!

    I didn't realise how strong the love you have for them would be. I love Toby more than ANYTHING in the world and would do anything for him to keep him safe, well and happy. I could LITERALLY squeeze him I love him so much! :lol:

    I knew I would be tired but never expected to be this tired. Toby is super energetic though - he has masses of energy. Thankfully he is a fairly good sleeper. Gets his energy from his Daddy but his love of sleep from his Mummy.

    I never knew how hard feeding a baby would be!!! We formula / bottle fed Toby and he had silent reflux so that was a nightmare. He didn't take well to weaning and has always been up and down with food. He's now 14-months and we're only just starting to turn a corner now we've realised he wants to feed himself. We've gone back to BLW basics! LOL

    I didn't realise how strong poop smells I could cope with!!!

    I had no idea the Dr's surgery would become our 2nd home!

    We have been lucky - he IS a good baby - he is just often a nightmare with food and has been ill a lot due to catching bugs from nursery.

    Mostly, I just hate feeling exhausted all of the time - sometimes by 8pm I am asleep on the sofa!

    Joo xxx
  • Im the opposite this time... i prepared myself for the worst ! DD was a really hard baby (silent reflux, extreme colic etc) she use to scream all day until she was about 3 months old and then she decided to be very clingy and didn't grow out of that till she was 16/17 months. VERY hard.. even now she is a hard little girl to please at 22 months and has a god awful temper.

    So yeh i prepared myself for the worst and out pops this laid back little baby boy who i think in 4 1/2 weeks i have only heard scream once :lol: He settles himself to sleep and literally only has a little cry when he is hungry. I mean i guess colic etc could still hit us but so far he has been so easy! He does have Reflux but it isn't acid Reflux so it doesn't bother him and Gaviscon helps keep 9/10 feeds down .

    xx
  • My lo is 9 months and to the outside world she is perfect, slept through from 8 weeks, weaned brilliantly and always smiles for people who she sees, however, they didnt get to see the awful colic and the bad reflux which we are still dealing with, they don't see the tantrums that dd throws constantly at home. I thought I might get lucky, sil had a daughter 7 months before me and she is lovely and quiet and when I was pregnant I had her a few times and she was so easy so i thought I might get it like that, how wrong I was.
    Part of me thinks that I would love another baby and then the realistic part of me thinks we may have to do the reflux and colic all over again and that puts me right off again!

    See my post above... my dd was exactly the same as yours... chances are you wont get 2 babys the same image xx
  • I thought DD1 was an easy baby she was so happy and content, easy to wean, no problems even with teething I wouldn't have known she had teeth popping through tbh, she slept relatively well we only have problems sometimes getting her to sleep on her own but that is entirely our fault because until earlier this year we cuddled her to sleep but we are getting there and this last week she has stopped the getting out of her bed each night and just talks herself to sleep which is fine she is a clever, joyous spirited 2 year old now who will happily play on her own albeit until Daddy comes home and everything is about Daddy!lol

    Now DD2 I realise I must be very lucky because she is equally as easy! First 3 weeks were hard she screamed but we worked out what she wanted and soothed her reflux and since then she has just slotted into our family as if she was here all along! She sleeps alot which helps with an active toddler and goes through the night 8pm-7am and has been doing so since 3.5 weeks. She hardly cries only for milk or if she is uncomfortable.Having said all that she is only 12 weeks old so I could be saying very different things soon!lol I guess 2nd time round I wasn't totally stepping into the unknown so I feel much more relaxed about leaving her to self settle and I don't have the time to sit and dwell on things to much!x
  • Newborn stage was easier than I ever could have imagined. I never read any books or tried to implement a routine but DS made his own and slept through at 7 weeks (10 hours). Hardly ever cried or moaned.

    Now he's 2 and it's a LOT LOT harder than I thought it would be!

    He doesn't sleep brilliantly anymore and I often end up sleeping on his bedroom floor but I'm 22 and can't say I ever feel tired in the day which is a plus....the only time I feel tired is ironically just after waking up as I HATE that ds gets up so early, but I'm OK once I'm up, it's just the getting up process lol!

    It's not just the sleep though it's that he's such his own person, which is lovely, but also very difficult. He's also going through that stage where he cant make up his mind about anything "I want this apple/ice cream.. No this one. No this one."(I end up making the choice for him and he has a screaming tantrum!)

    I'd planned a 3 year gap between children so supposedly TTC soon but I don't think I can take anymore!!! LOL

    I find it all goes in stages though so he'll probably change again soon!

    xx
  • He's also going through that stage where he cant make up his mind about anything "I want this apple/ice cream.. No this one. No this one."(I end up making the choice for him and he has a screaming tantrum!)

    Lily is exactly the same huni it drives me mad sometimes...and she'll finally decide and then sits down to eat and completely changes her mind grrr! That's 2 year olds for you gotta love them!xxx
  • The thing i wasnt prepared for was the baby blues, i struggled with this for the first two weeks really badly and thought i'd never have a day when i didnt cry, but now just a week later that seems like a distant memory!!!!
    I also thought i'd be a really laid back mum and the the grandparents have him all the time, but i actually cant bare to leave him!!!
  • ILMG....I have known Gabe throw a tantrum because we both have EXACTLY the same ice cream but he wants mine instead so he throws his on the floor! ARGH
  • No I never ever knew how completely and utterly I would love him. How fun I would find being a mummy or how much of a good baby I would get. I expected a lot of crying and far less sleep.

  • I don't think I had many expectations. It was all too unimaginable. But I certainly hadn't anticipated how hard breast feeding would be. I actually found the sleep deprivation reasonably bearable. Because I was breast feeding, I fell asleep after night time feeds very easily, which was a huge improvement on the insomnia I suffered from before he was born!

    I don't know whether he was a difficult baby or not, but I did surprise myself with how well I took to motherhood. I thought I would struggle to balance my intellectual interests with caring for a non-communicative individual entirely dependent on me but mostly I really enjoy it. Yes, there are frustrations, but there are huge rewards as well, the reality of which I couldn't have imagined before he was born. And I have discovered that I have far more patience than I ever imagined, although I expect that is about to be sorely tested now that he is heading rapidly for the terrible twos!

    A colleague asked me this weekend whether I was enjoying motherhood and I was able to honestly say yes which felt wonderful. I don't think that I would have predicted that two years ago but I am so glad that it is absolutely and completely true.
  • no when i had my ds 3 yrs ago at 20 i went into it thinking it would be easy. but ds was a very difficult baby he had colic and cried non stop for 12 weeks it was so hard because i left home for the first time just before i had him so also had to deal with that change. but once i found my feet and ds got over the colic it became the most wonderful and rewarding thing i would ever do i will definetly say it was the making of me.
    so when i got pregnant again i prepared myself for it to be even harder this time cause i had 2 but actually my dd is an angel she doesn't cry she sleeps really well basically she is a textbook baby and has slotted into our lifes like she has always been here
    so both times i expected totally different thing and both times i was proven wrong lol
    leanne, leighton (3yrs) and phoebe (7wks)
  • No no no! No amount of reading can prepare you. I felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to my life and I had to rebuild it from scratch, incorporating the new addition. However ,having my daughter is by far the best thing that I have ever done. It's just that I couldn't prepare for the intensity of it all... the lows were much lower and the highs are far, far higher than I could have ever imagined ... and I just can't wait to do it all again!

    Helen and Roisin (11 months)
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