Hellobee Boards

I don't think I had big expectations either way. But I did not expect mommy guilt. That is a real thing!

I've been a mom for 2.5 years now and my mom-dar only recently kicked in.

OMG YES to this: <<the wanting to be with her and also not wanting to be with her. Like I want a break sometimes. But then I miss her when I have it.>>

It's so true. Because I'm in school FT and work, I spend a good deal of time away from him, and miss him SO much. But it seems like whenever I get time with him - he's a cranky mess and we don't even have fun together.

What's harder/ what I didn't even expect is all the judgment/criticism that comes with every.single.decision I make simply because I'm a mother. It gets really tiring sometimes.

Also what's way harder is dealing with childcare. I guess I thought almost any good daycare in the area would work, and that's not true. We seem to hit bumps no matter where we are and it's so frustrating. In that respect it'd be so much easier to just stay home until he's in school but I can't quit now.

@Mae: @Mrs. Pen: exactly what you said about the wanting to be there/not wanting to be there! I could never have understood that before i had a baby.

Also, the sleep deprivation. I could never have prepared myself.

What's better than expected? just about everything else. Watching things click for her for the first time. hearing her say words. watching her personality develop every single day. hearing her laugh. I wasn't prepared to love being her mom as much as i do.

I'm there with you all about the wanting/not wanting to be with your baby!

Ohhh.....let's see:

Better:

-All the "behavior stuff". It's still early days at 20 months, but I just don't have a lot of stress/angst over LOs behavior. Could be a combination of maybe she's an "easy" kid as far as behavior goes, and maybe I'm just not bothered by a lot of stuff ("defiance", not doing what I ask, tantrumming).
-poopy diapers--I thought they would be so disgusting and that DH and I would fight over doing them, but outside of my pregnancy nausea, neither of us minds changing diapers
-stress about development and stimulating baby--I just don't stress about it, haha
-dealing with our families. We just haven't had a lot of drama regarding our families after having LO, and I know we are lucky in that area.

Worse:

-hands down, all the feeding issues of LOs first year. The BFing problems, the tongue and lip ties, the therapy needed for her jaw issues, the MSPI, the breast and bottle refusal, the losing weight, the not eating solids. Awful, Awful, Awful

-the sleep. I knew having a baby = a period of no sleep, but I didn't know that I would one day have a 20 month old that still has shitty sleep. =/

-the sleep. I'm putting it twice because having a baby with bad sleep problems really magnified my own bad sleep problems. I had sleep issues as a child (insomnia) that I felt pretty in control of as an adult. I am just used to it taking an hour to fall asleep most nights, and needing a total quiet and dark room. But having a baby that wakes up every 2-3 hours, and needing an hour of quiet each time to fall back asleep meant that I was averaging 4ish hours of broken sleep a night and I literally thought I was going to have a mental breakdown at one point, just from lack of sleep. Now that LO is back to "only" having 1-2 wakeups in a 10 hours period, I am much better rested and fairly normal. But I worry about having this second infant, when my toddler still doesn't sleep great and with my own sleep problems.