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Parenting: what wasn't as easy as you thought it would be?


Darryl

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The fact you never mentally switch off, ds went to his grandparents quite a bit but I still thought about him (in a nice way this bit) but the practical parent things all the time

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What a loaded question!!! Hmmm where do I start? Firstly, the sleep deprivation - really stuffed me up mentally. Not being on the same page as DH regarding parenting. Constantly analysing my parenting because I grew up in an abusive and toxic family so trying to make sure I don't subconsciously leak any of those traits/habits.

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I found nappy changes to surprisingly unproblematic. I always imagined I'd have a problem with it.


However I do NOT have a high tolerance for snot - neither the nose nor ear variety.

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StillFreddiesMum

All of it.


Pre-kids other parents - esp mothers - who told me "oh the baby just fits into your routine - you must still make time for the gym / your hobbies / your interests or the baby will rule the roost". I felt so much guilt that the baby didn't just "slot easily into my life". It was just another yardstick to measure how much I was failing as a mother that I couldn't just carry on with my own hobbies / interests because looking after the baby 24/7 totally destroyed me, mind, body and soul.

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The worry. OMG, if they are not with me (or at school) I do, even on a tiny level, worry that they will get kidnapped, injured etc. I think I always will. DS wants to go overseas when he finishes school. He is a seasoned traveller, a sensible kid, I did the same (at 22years) and backpacked for 2 years. I will (silently) make myself sick with worry the whole time he is away. Did my parents not worry????

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I don’t think I thought any of it would be easy, but I had no concept of how hard it would actually be if that makes sense? What really blindsided me was how much my own crappy childhood impacts my parenting - I had thought I’d done the work to move past it and I didn’t really think it would have a huge effect, but holy crap did it get me. I still struggle regularly to try and figure out what’s realistic in my expectations of myself and what’s messed up because of how I grew up

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Since I've pretty much been an insomniac my whole life I was very unprepared for the sleep deprivation of babies. I sort of thought it couldn't be that much worse than how I already am. Boy was I wrong. And all the stuff around kids, I'd be fine if I slept enough, but without it, I often lose my cool. I was not prepared to be so angry so often..

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Breastfeeding.


Even though I knew my mother tried, and couldn't times 3 kids, I believed some of the rhetoric that with the right support and information and determination nearly everyone can do it.


Then, to my son's detriment, I continued on despite overwhelming objective evidence it wasn't really coming off.


Second baby was many years later. Mix fed from birth to the start of solids when she gave up the bottle. No guilt.


Since time immemorial, some women have either been unable to breastfeed, or unable to completely breastfeed. In different times and places this has been addressed in different ways, but it has always been true.


Having DS at the height of the "everyone can do it if they try hard enough" (well, that's how it felt!) rhetoric was bad for both of us.


I am sure some women give up when they might have managed with better support and encouragement. I am equally sure some women, for whatever reason, do not manage, just as many other biological functions that come naturally to the many, are impossible for the few.

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rewritethestars

The lack of sleep.

The sheer mental load

The amount I hurt for them when the kids are hurting, especially if I can’t make it better (happens more and more as they get older)

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Breastfeeding was more difficult


I come from a long line of avid breastfeeding women. I expressed breast milk for 11 weeks until DD had grown sufficiently to latch on. I told the nurse that I thought her mouth was too small and was shot down in flames. It was only the orthodontist when DD was 15 who commented that DD has a much smaller than 'average' mouth opening - the interior is fine, it's the 'circumference' of her lips that's the problem and she can't open her mouth as wide as everyone else. It made getting braces on quite difficult and really banged her up when she had her wisdom teeth removed (when she was 20).


Tantrums - DD really didn't have them.

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Everything!


Sleep deprivation, anxiety, culture shock, being responsible for a tiny person around the clock, breastfeeding (including trying to suction inverted nipples WTF and large boobs which meant sitting down with the football hold), labour (although the drugs were totes sweet), dealing with poo and vomit, the endless washing, my muscle separation, finding time for myself, finding time for DH, eating a hot meal, drinking a hot cup of coffee, cutting my toenails etc etc.


DS is lovely though and gives great cuddles.

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It's all a million times harder than I ever thought possible even though I knew it would be hard and wanted it more than anything in the world. The constancy. The no down time. Just craving rest. Trying to make a marriage work when you are struggling to get on the same page to parent well together.

I have days of feeling like I'm just a disposable vessel to safely get a person from conception to adulthood, like cardboard packaging that gets destroyed along the way! But yes I wanted it and wouldn't ever not have done it unless I couldn't and I feel immense grief for those who wanted to be parents and couldn't, even if I have days of feeling irresponsible for subjecting a whole new person to this world we're collectively messing up. That's hard too!


Easier than expected - working full time. I thought I'd never want to go back but it's the only break I get... And I work hard!!;;

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Jersey Caramel

Labour was so much harder than I expected. I know that sounds silly, because labour is obviously well known to be painful, but it was just beyond anything I could have ever imagined or fathomed. My first labour was so long (36 hours+) it was physically and emotionally awful and I literally asked the midwife for a gun. The second was long and hard as well but at least I didn't have the shock - I knew how painful it would be. My third on the other hand was straightforward - only about 2 hours - it was still painful but it was over so quickly that I finally understood the "yes it's painful but you forget as soon as it's over!" type women. That is NOT how I felt after the first two - I think it took me a good 12 months to get over the first one, and I had flashbacks and was quite traumatised for a long time.


But in parenting lotto, I got lucky with breastfeeding, and it was easier for me than I expected. Ouchy for the first few weeks but then they all fed to around 2yo with no dramas.

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How I was a different person when I had PND. I felt like I was moving at twice the speed but time also seemed very slow. How much panic I had and the crazy ideas rolling through my head at double time. How I wanted to give DS away but only to another family member. I thought the nurses were going to take DS away forever.

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Hardest -Sleep. I'd just assumed I would do a sleep school or baby whisperer or something if she slept poorly. But turns out the more I read about it, the less on-board I was. And so we struggle through shitty sleep and I know one day we will come out the other side


Easiest - breastfeeding. I honestly had no clue and assumed I wouldn't be able to. My mum didn't try (early 80s) so I had no hang-ups about it. But turns out my child was a breastfeeding extraordinaire and taught me what to do. I joke that if she got lost in the jungle she would find an orangutan to latch onto and would be fine. Oh and it's 16 months and still breastfeeding

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StillFreddiesMum

Greenbean - Brooke Shields started her family a couple of years before I had kids and I remember reading her book and really enjoying it because she talked about how she had awful PND and the one thing she could do successfully was breastfeed her baby. She felt like she was doing everything else 'wrong' but she could breastfeed and she enjoyed it.


I tried so hard to breastfeed when my 2 were babies - DD#1 just wasn't interested and DD#2 used me as a dummy and comfort - she would often just snuggle next to me and go to sleep and forget about the actual feeding part ! It was good for me to read that another Mum had successfully breastfed but still got PND - I thought maybe if I had breastfeed I woudn't have got PND (I hope that makes sense).

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A few things. Breastfeeding the first time. Toilet training the first time. Parenting an asd child. The lack of sleep which is permanent. The always worrying about something.

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Oh I missed the what was easier bit. Toilet training I found fairly easy because I just waited for ages with my kids. They were both over 3 when they started but between the two of them we had about five accidents. DS took until about 7 to be night dry, but I always looked at that different to day dry so it just meant buying drynites for ages

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Pigeonpairplusone

Definitely breastfeeding. I imagined I would be a natural but it was so hard, especially for number 3. Also post partum depression with my son, unexpected & so so hard. I was very lucky i had great support.

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The crying. With babies, I thought there was generally a reason why they cried that could be fixed - like by feeding them, changing them, cuddling them. Wrong! I actually decided that my Toddler who screamed for an hour for years at bedtime was probably over stimulated. And you can be as consistent, firm and apply consequences every time and some kids just do not easily change behaviour (thanks ADHD). I used to want to throttle those people who would dish out little words of parenting wisdom that worked for them thinking I had no idea. My best was those who said along the lines of ‘I only need to threaten X and they would do the right thing. For years (and this is with my non ADHD, highly independent and stubborn child) not only would I threaten x, but have to follow through with the consequence x100 and resulting tantrums over the consequences until I finally saw some improvement.


I also did not realise how much pressure I would put myself under to try and do everything ‘right’. Nor how much conflicting information is out there.

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