Expectations of a first time parent



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Whilst I am sat at my desk in this glorious sunshine, I am coping by counting down the days until my Maternity leave begins in 6.5 weeks time (or 23 days to be exact, I have a week off next week and when I come back I go down to 4 day weeks- happy me) I day dream of long lunches at Cafe Rouge with a glass of red, sophisticated coffee mornings at Starbucks and peaceful play dates with friends on holiday –Maternity leave. This is of course all a day dream, when I come crashing back down to the reality of having new baby I am slightly more realistic about what is in store. I decided to write this blog post so when I am sat at home covered in baby sick and wearing joggers all day I can compare it to what I thought it would be like.

Here is what I imagine life to be post baby...

1. Goodbye sleep- My friends babies have all been amazing sleepers, waking usually once during the night and sleeping through by 12 weeks. This, I think I could cope with, however I am fully prepared for it not being this easy. I know a lot of babies will wake every couple of hours (or more often eek.) I have never been one for daytime napping, whether this will change I don’t know, it usually takes me a while to fall asleep so I think as soon as I ‘sleep when baby sleeps’ I’ll be up again before I have even closed my eyes. 

2. My post-baby body will depress me! I don’t think I am going to be one of the lucky few whose bodies ping back into shape by the time their baby is 2 months old. I haven’t really gained much weight apart from my bump (so far)  Hopefully it won’t be too difficult to tone up. Although I have never been overweight, I can’t get away with eating what I want and have always been naturally curvy, I am quite looking forward to exercising though, I have forgotten what it is like to be comfortable and not pregnant. I wasn’t totally happy with my pre-pregnancy body but if I could look like that again, I would be happy and a lot more grateful for it !!

3. Telling Baby C that he will be an only child (at least until the trauma of child birth is well and truly forgotten)

4. Reminding Mr C more than once a day what I went through in Labour, even to just get a cuppa out of him.

5. Getting Peed on – a lot, watching the dog get peed on a lot.

6. Constantly watching the baby sleep- checking he is ok, even if we do have one of the movement sensor monitors

7. Mr C banning me from entering into any shop that sells baby clothes or items.

8. Using the washing machine a hell of a lot more – I usually leave all the washing until the weekend (bad me) I know this will soon change and I’ll be lucky to get away with one wash a day!

9. Arguing with Mr C over who Baby C looks like- to be fair Mr C was a much cuter baby than me so I would be happy to let him have this one.

10. Knowing that we would do anything for our new baby- we will be totally in love with him and won’t mind when he wakes us up screaming at ridiculous hours (at least for the first 2 weeks)

How did you feel once your baby was here, did it compare with what you thought it would be like?