Hands down the isolation. R wanted to nurse all the time, and I was not comfortable nursing in public (and she hated the cover). But she hated the car seat so going anywhere was a hassle. Going from hardly ever being home to being home with a crying baby was really hard for DH and I. So much better now that we can leave the house!
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Nursing.
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Sleeping! We still struggle with it at 3 years old.
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Patience
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I didn't think I would be such a control freak, lo is 14.5 months and I'm the only one to ever bathe him or put him to bed. I have 2 months worth of weekends to show DH how to do it for when I give birth to #2!
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Sleep, and subsequently, patience. And dealing with family....I turned into a mama bear.
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Nursing and dealing with the emotional rollercoaster. I just had no idea how emotional I would be after having a baby or how long it would take for me to bond with him. And nursing being hard just made everything so much harder. I remember not being able to get any sleep because I was so stressed just at the idea of having to bring Xander to the pediatrician's office. Or after 3 weeks home, I'd still cry at the thought of my husband returning to work and leaving me home with the baby. Or how awful I felt for regretting wanting to have children and ruining our lives.
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@Smurfette: I was going to say breast feeding hands down but isolation is a good contender.
#1 would be ppd. I never saw it coming! By since that isn't necessarily a parenting issue and a self/mental health thing I'm going to choose another...
So breast feeding. I never thought I would *fail.* I thought maye it wouldn't work out like I wouldn't prefer to continue but I didn't see not being able to get LO to bf. I didn't foresee the conflicting advice from people at the hospital. I thought I would sort of just know what to do and I had taken the class. I really believe that if I try again it will be easier though.. I have learned a lot through all of you since then!
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@Adira: I cried so many times for feeling bad cause I kept thinking why did we have a baby. I want our old life back.
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@Smurfette: I was the same way. And I felt so guilty because Hubs didn't want a baby as badly as I did and I was so scared he was going to resent me for really pressuring him into it. I'm so thankful to not feel that way anymore!
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The newborn phase + pumping. I had a feeling that with my history I would deal with some PPD, but I had no idea how bad it would be. Pumping was also way more of a PITA than I expected.
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Breastfeeding (we weren't successful in EBF) and prioritizing my independent hobbies and identity.
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Pumping. I hated it and EP'ed for a year. It limited my ability to leave the house. I had to pump, clean up, pack, fill bottles, and get the baby ready. By the time I left the house, I would need to pump again by the time we reached our destination. It was stressful worrying about my supply. I had a limited diet due to sensitivities and allergies. I was an emotional mess.
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Everything!
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SLEEP. Everyone asks "Is he sleeping through the night yet?" which implies that once they do, they do. But not so. He did from 2-3.5 months and then never again.
I'm so very sleep deprived. Also, breastfeeding is easy now but in the beginning, I've never experienced anything harder.
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Recovery from labor and delivery. I didn't have a c-section, just a regular old vaginal delivery (w/2nd degree tear), so I really expected to be up and about immediately.
And cluster feeding. I'd been warned about it, but man - that was rough. I would sit in his nursery and just sob, thinking I wasn't able to feed my baby.
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multi-tasking. I found it so hard to get anything done with a newborn.
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Naps & sleep. She was not interested from day one. I remember eyeing LO the first day I brought her home from the hospital thinking that she must have that 16 hours of sleep a day thing reversed.
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Sleep! Everyone warns us about sleep deprivation, but DS was a champion sleeper the first month. Then it went down hill from there.
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@JoJoGirl: same!
Pumping. Lack of sleep. Isolation. Pretty much everything.
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breastfeeding and finding a route that gets me to work on time <---this still hasn't been accomplished due to our horrible sleep.
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Toddler tantrums! Sleep issues were as bad as expected but still hard to deal with. But toddler tantrums start just when you think things are getting easier....
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The newborn stage as a whole!! I hated the lack of interaction and the constant fussiness. Plus, my LO wasn't a sleepy newborn. He 'woke up' after 10 days and daytime sleep was a huge source of stress for awhile.
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Breastfeeding was harder. And the sleep deprivation. Like, I knew theoretically that I wouldn't get a lot of sleep but I didn't realize it would be for months and months on end.
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Getting baby to SLEEP. I expected there to be some challenges but I didn't expect it to consume so much of my mental energy. I'm still working on not obsessing.
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@Revel: There with ya, sister.
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Lack of sleep
Sleep deprivation in the beginning on top of my hormones made me feel crazy. Breastfeeding didn't work out, but I think I couldn't deal with trying longer because I felt so crazy.
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Breast feeding, the isolation, losing the baby weight...everything!
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@Revel: Yes! This. The first six months of her life life all I thought about and read about was $#@* baby sleep.
In addition to sleep...pretty much everything about the first four or five months. Ahhh, colic.
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Guilt.. the guilt of having to leave LO in daycare or the guilt of not advancing my career.
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DS is only 2 weeks but so far I would say breastfeeding. I knew it wasn't going to be easy but I had no idea it would be so difficult!
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Post partum hormones. I didn't even have ppd and I was a mess!
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Aside from nursing/newborn phase...the anxiety I have. I am in a constant state of fear that something will happen to one of the three of us.
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The isolation. Definitely. Especially learning how to breastfeed and people would come over in the early days and I had to lock myself in the bedroom so I could get her to latch.
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The fear of germs! I have a great immune system, so I was surprised how icked out I got about exposing LO to anything!
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The transition to being a parent - it felt like a crash landing. No one can prepare you for how much your life changes.
Nursing has been harder than I expected, too. I expected sleep deprivation so while that has really sucked, I wouldn't say it was harder.
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Breastfeeding. I ended up pumping and supplementing.
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Sleep. We are at a tolerable place now but for a while I really never thought we'd make it. I expected that right away but got lulled into a false sense of security when she was doing OK early one, then it all hit the fan at 2.5 months. That's when I truly wondered what we were thinking, and how on earth anyone in their right mind would have a second.
Luckily C was a pretty good, discreet breastfeeder early on, when she was eating all the time. I could just throw a blanket over my shoulder, tuck her under there with a boob, and eat an entire meal one handed, so that helped so much with the isolation.
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Feeding. We were committed to keeping them on the same schedule, which meant feeding them (more-or-less) simultaneously. I stopped breastfeeding at 3 weeks and was by myself 10-11 hours/day, so figuring out the mechanics (without resorting to backbreaking measures) was tricky. Thank goodness DS figured out how to hold a bottle very early, and in the meantime, we invented some very clever techniques!
Sleep. We especially struggled with the crib transition, naps, and swaddle weaning. It wasn't so much the how-to...but the emotional stress was tough on each of us and our marriage. I knew that DH needed a good night of sleep to be able to function at work, and I felt that I should do the MOTN wakeups as the SAH parent. But with twins, that was nearly impossible. I secretly felt a lot of pressure to get them to STTN because I knew how much of a toll the wakeups had on DH. We got them there at about 5 months and have never looked back, but I think it's 50% stubbornness (mine, especially), and 50% luck.
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Naps! Almost three months in and it's the one thing that frustrates me. Every day I spend so much time hoping for and trying to coax a nap out of him!
I'm so very sleep deprived. Also, breastfeeding is easy now but in the beginning, I've never experienced anything harder.
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