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Parental competitiveness
Do you come across it much? I don't have many friends with children so am blessedly free of this at the moment. The only time I get it is when we see friends of H's whose wives are always asking if S is waking yet. When I say no, they immediately say "oh blah blah was walking confidently at 10 months etc". The worst one was when one of them moaned about the changes pregnancy had on her body because she used to be a size 8 but childbirth did "something weird" to her hips and now she's stuck as a size 6! Boo hoo! Needless to say I avoid these women. So, anyone else want to vent about this with me?! I'm in a ranty mood today, clearly!
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Not had any of this yet, but I don't have many friends with children L's age they are mainly much older. I try to avoid this kind of thing.
I have one friend who is a bit like this, but she doesn't mean it in a harsh way. As it happens her kid is geniunly quite advanced, so its not fake iyswim. Alhough it was fun to see her squirm a bit when my LO got first teeth at 5 months and her kid was 13 months before any appeared lol
What a load of gash! there is no way a pregnancy could possibly make you a size smaller. *Not showing off* I was a size 6 prior to falling pg with W, but after slimming as much as possible, i only ever got back to an 8 (was just about into a 6 when i fell pg with #2), which is good enough for me!
I don't have any friends who are parents, so i don't really see any competitiveness as such. W did things in a normal time frame in my mind, but according to others, he was doing things earlier... but he has always been a big solid boy, so it's not surprising that he would pick things like walking up quicker than 'normal' - but you can't make that kind of sweeping assumption that all children should be doing things at a certain time. they learn in their own time.
Just really one at Lucas' post natal group who was obsessed with weight. Her child was almost 9lb born whereas Lucas was 7lb1 and she was always always on about how underweight he was, she'd say about the other children too but because L was the smallest then she would act very sympathetically and say don't worry he will catch up (I wasn't worried at all), L and 3 of his post natal group are in the same class and this mum still asks us all what they all weigh
almost 6 years on!!!! Iv no idea why she's obsessed with it. We all still get on well and meet up but everyone's just a bit confused re the weight questions all the time.
Isaac was always the last out of his post natal group to do anything at all, but the group were/are lovely and never seemed to say anything at all.
O I often found at playgroup a there was the competitive sleep chat, my baby slept x amount of hours whilst you were sat with match sticks keeping your eyes open. Thankfully in Ls postnatal group only 2 of them slept so we could all sympathise with each other it's just playgroups were hard, out of isaacs group he was the only one who slept snd I never ever spoke about it as everyone else was exhausted and would have likely punched me lol
With my NCT friends I never experience any competition at all which is lovely. None of them have been particularly early at anything so we've never had anything to be competitive about! I am probably a little over sensitive about the walking thing as S has physiotherapy for issues with his feet and he's likely to be a late walker so I'm a little touchy!
Definitely and baby hasn't even arrived! Namely I can't believe you're spending that much on X, Y and Z! You're much bigger, smaller etc than I was.. Driving me nuts already.
There was a bit of competiveness at the baby groups I went to when L was younger about things like sleep, weight, how much milk they were on etc but it wasn't horrible, I think it was just something to talk about iyswim. L wasn't a great sleeper and was breast fed so I had no idea how much milk he was on so I didn't get too involved in that but I do remember feeling embarrassed during the weight conversations as L was the youngest yet biggest baby there. Whenever someone asked what he weighed I always felt like I was being that competitive mum even though I really wasn't! I did stop going to a toddler group because they divided rooms based on whether the child was walking or not and both L (who started walking at 16 months) and I hated sitting with the babies while the ten and eleven month olds ran around and the mums made patronising comments to us along the lines of 'dont worry, its not as though he'll still be crawling when he goes to school, ha ha.'
Just on the size thing, my cousin is one of these freaks who is slimmer that pre-pregnancy. Pregnancy actually changed her shape and made her smaller. I'm not sure how it works but having known her all my life, I watched her whole frame shrink during pregnancy. It doesn't seem to run in the family
I'm slimmer than pre pregnancy too. Currently 2 stone lighter than my starting weight.
I blame loss of appetite whilst pregnant and producing excessive amounts of milk for two hungry babies. Each week I lose another 1-2lb. I may express for the rest of my life! Haha!
I haven't met many parents of older babies and all our NCT lot are too little to have met many milestones yet. So we shall see! Mine will always be behind for theo age so I'll just get used to it.
I don't really get a lot of competitiveness comments as R has down most things earlyish so I usually just get she looks too small to be doing that.
I do get plenty of comments from people without children & those who have children that are now adults .. these comments are usually about R not having a dummy, not napping at the same time everyday & sometimes on me & about R still being in my room & that I should take her off breastfeeding ... but I now just say to them me, H & R are happy it has nothing to do with anyone else.
Oh & when R was younger & she was gaining weight slowly ooshhh the comments I got from that ... don't get me started haha
I'm like every baby is different, I do what I feel is right for my baby not yours.
There are lots of babies J's age around me but anyone who goes into these kind of conversations with me will be shot down as I DESPISE sh!te like that.
None of my friends have kids, and I don't go to play groups so have avoided it.
As for the size thing. I was a lot smaller after having J, than I was pre pregnancy. Pregnancy and childbirth was the best weight loss method I have ever tried.