Things I've learnt since becoming a new parent

viking

Since becoming a parent 4 weeks ago, these are some of the things I've learnt or discovered:

The quieter you try to be the louder you actually are.
- You spent a while feeding, changing and settle her and finally she is asleep. You really don't want her to wake up so you tip-toe around and try to do things quietly so as not to disturb her and what happens? You find every creaking floorboard, you drop things that you try to pickup gently, knock things over that you try to avoid or your mobile in your back pocket rings! Gah!!

Bottle tops are invisible in dim light.
- You are doing an evening/night feed and the lights are dim, you put the bottle on the bedside locker to free up your hands so you can wind her but knock the bottle top that you had left there on the ground. "Nothing I can do now as my hands are full" you think, I'll pick it up later when she's settled in her crib. Of course, you forget about the bottle top until you get out of bed during the night and step on an upturned one with your bare feet and then try to stiffle your pain by biting your wrist so that you don't wake baby!

Don't assume baby is fully asleep.
- You've had a successfull feeding and winding session and baby is like a ragdoll in your arms and you pop her into her crib and she doesn't move an inch, she's out cold, brilliant! You leave the room to go and wash bottles or something like that (or get back into bed if its nighttime) and then a few moments later you say to yourself "thats grand now, she'll be asleep for a good few hours" and BANG! Waaa, Waaaa, Waaaaaaaaa.... Its like a sixth sense they have, quite remarkable really.

'Wind' is a fecker to get up sometimes.
- Patience is required. Wind cannot be forced out of the baby, it has to be coaxed and sometimes it just doesn't want to come up. However, failure to get wind up during a feed will result in baby not finishing bottle and suffering from wind pain when you put them down afterwards.

Them feckin' hiccups.
- You've spent an hour or two feeding, winding, settling and then resettling them several times and when you pop them back down into the crib and you get past the "Don't assume baby is fully asleep" item above when next thing you hear what resembles a dog's squeaky toy... "heek, heek, heek..." (Thats what my little darling sounds like with the hiccups anyway...). There's nothing you can do to get rid of them and, of course, she's wide awake with these jolts that are hitting her every few seconds and her frustration with them builds and she starts getting annoyed and then the tears arrive.... sometimes you just can't win!

Anyone else got any similar things that they've learnt as a result of parenthood?

chilli_pepper

LOL , Poor Viking !

Its tough at the start but once you reach three months hopefully things will start to settle for you and you will be getting nearly a full nights kip if you are lucky.. Wait until he/she gets into the terrible 2's/3's...4's....:eek:

Wishbone Ash

viking wrote:

The quieter you try to be the louder you actually are.
- You spent a while feeding, changing and settle her and finally she is asleep. You really don't want her to wake up so you tip-toe around and try to do things quietly so as not to disturb her and what happens? You find every creaking floorboard, you drop things that you try to pickup gently, knock things over that you try to avoid or your mobile in your back pocket rings! Gah!!

It is better to get the child accustomed to normal household/exterior noise. It makes thing much easier in the long term.

chilli_pepper

Wishbone Ash wrote:

It is better to get the child accustomed to normal household/exterior noise. It makes thing much easier in the long term.

Good Point , a Friend used to play the TV extra loud while preggers so the baby was used to a bit of racket , and that baby would sleep for Ireland

viking

I have to say that since she went on the lactose-free grub and infant gaviscon she's been much, much better. 2 weeks ago was the worst, 4-5 hours of inconsolable screaming during the night was horrible and you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy.

She's getting bigger and more alert now and we're certainly able to enjoy her more and more each day which is really great.

Another one for my list above (one which I'm actually not currently adhering to...):

Sleep when she sleeps
-Especially in the evenings. Forget about that program you wanted to watch (get Sky+ instead and watch it tomorrow during the day ) and get yourself to bed so that you can handle the night feeds.

Right, time to follow my own advice and off to my bed I go, "Podge and Rodge" can wait until tommorow

viking

Wishbone Ash wrote:

It is better to get the child accustomed to normal household/exterior noise. It makes thing much easier in the long term.

I agree, I should've said "during the night" when things are quieter anyway.

We are as loud as we normally would be during the day and try to avoid tip-toeing around. At night she seems a little more sensitive to noise especially shortly after she has gone down and is not in a really "deep sleep".

crosstownk

Wishbone Ash wrote:

It is better to get the child accustomed to normal household/exterior noise. It makes thing much easier in the long term.

So true - I play piano in the house while my daughter is asleep (or going to sleep). She doesn't question it has its always been there.

When she's up and about she has habit of adding 'bum' notes to the tune:D

run_Forrest_run

Sleep is always taken for Granted before Baby #1 arrives! I look back on times when I used to wake on a Saturday morning to the comforting fact that it's the weekend before rolling back over for another few hours!

littlebug

You never knew real tiredness before.

I remember in the pre baby days we used to stay in on Friday nights because we thought we were tired

oh to have some of that energy back now!

Kashkai

I suppose it would sound arrogant of me to state that I fully expect to enter the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest period without a full five hours sleep a night since my twins were born 10 1/2 months ago.

They have no problem going to sleep - its staying asleep that they can't get to grips with.

Can't wait until they are of school going age when I'll walk into their bedrooms in the morning with a ghetto blaster playing "Flight of the Valkeries" (the tune from Apocalypse Now) at full blast.

I'm off home soon on the train. Don't worry if there is a drooling slackjawed zombie lying asleep on your shoulder - its just little oul me:D

Nevyn

"The Ride of the Valkyries" is the popular term for the beginning of Act III of Die Walküre by Richard Wagner. Sorry could not resist that

Happy children are more important then a tidy house.

brown*eyed*girl

I remember those zombie days. 3:06pm, baby cries, me falls out of bed, plugs in bottle warmer, puts in bottle, changes babies nappy, gives baby bottle, gets wind up, hopefully baby goes asleep. 4:57pm repeat, 5:48, repeat. Viking the sleepless nights go & then you'll have other stuff like the terrible 2's, 4's & 13's.

What I've learned most since becoming a parent is THERE IS NEVER A DULL MOMENT and what my Mam/Nanny used to say about a Mother's love being so special - now I know what they were talking about.

Prosperous Dave that day will come all too soon enjoy them when they're young. My 13yr old daughter is a nightmare to get out of bed for school. I go into her room, pull off her duvet, turn on her TV full blast & still she's snoring when I go back up 10mins later. I literally have to drag her out of bed. She's such a deep sleeper now its hard to believe a fart would wake her up when she was a baby!!

viking

I'l take what we have to go through during the night over what poor old Dave has to put up with...

A couple more that came to mind during a night feed last night:

Always make sure *you* are comfortable before beginning a feed
- Make sure you feed in a comfortable chair, prop up the pillows/cushions to support your "holding arm".

Baby poo doesn't smell as bad as I thought it would
- Perhaps I am desensitised because its my own flesh and blood that is producing the poo. I can't recall having personally changed a dirty nappy belonging to my friends babies but I do recall being nearby and remembering the stink that eminated from their tiny bums. I was fully expecting my reactions to my own child's dirty nappy to be something along the lines of these dads (3MB, wmv), but I'm surprised at how little it does actually smell

Ickle Magoo

Wishbone Ash wrote:

It is better to get the child accustomed to normal household/exterior noise. It makes thing much easier in the long term.

Very true - I used to hoover around mine & sit them next to the washing machine when babies & now they would sleep through anything, lol!

For the biggest thing I've learnt: I would say that when I was pregnant I didn't know how much I would fall in love with my little bundle & sometimes when I look at them & think about how much I love them, it actually hurts....*sob*

littlebug

Prosperous Dave wrote:

I suppose it would sound arrogant of me to state that I fully expect to enter the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest period without a full five hours sleep a night since my twins were born 10 1/2 months ago.

Nope I'm afraid not. I am that title holder. You've got at least another year to catch up!

I suspect Deisemum comes close to my record but until it is proven I am holding on firmly to that title.

deisemum

littlebug you've a good memory. DS2 was a nightmare at nightime. No wonder I didn't go for a third child. He was 9 last week and my own sleep pattern has never recovered.

If you thought you could multi-task before you had a child well you really excel at it once you have a child and even more so when siblings arrive.

If you have more than one you get plenty of opportunity to improve your refereeing skills. Also a better sense of when someone's being economical with the truth.:rolleyes:

One thing that makes you feel good is that young children think you're the best mum or dad and and can hero worship you, well until they get older anyway then you're just stupid and don't understand anything. I'm not at that later stage yet but a couple of more years will tell.

I think you don't really appreciate how much children absorb especially if adults are discussing something. A child may appear to be engrossed in something but yet they know just when to drop a clanger and repeat something you've said at the worst possible moment. I work as a childminder (childfree this morning) and find that with young children especially once they're talking repeat everything that goes on at home and I get to hear most of it.:D

Snowbie

To be very patient when doing homework
Now this is also a tough one.As we are both working parents,i would drop the childrern off to school in the mornings and collect them from their child minder later in the day(AS we work different times).

My two older children are attending a Gael Scoil and the amount of homework my older daughter gets in Rang 2 gets is unbelievable.Irish English reading,maths,spellings,pictures to do and more in both languages but is very beneficial to her. Now thisis not a complaint as i do enjoy doing it as she is very good at it(Irish pre school also helped)it takes a lot of time.

We start when we get home at about 5.45 takes to about 7 meanwhile tryin to entertain the baby in the meantime too.
Now the little fella has started "big school" it will get very interesting next year when he gets homework too,i would need to leave work earlier to accomodate this:D and also No.4 is due next April/May:eek:

Ah the enjoys of it all though.:)

loyatemu

viking wrote:

Baby poo doesn't smell as bad as I thought it would
- Perhaps I am desensitised because its my own flesh and blood that is producing the poo. I can't recall having personally changed a dirty nappy belonging to my friends babies but I do recall being nearby and remembering the stink that eminated from their tiny bums. I was fully expecting my reactions to my own child's dirty nappy to be something along the lines of these dads (3MB, wmv), but I'm surprised at how little it does actually smell

that's because she's only 4 weeks old and still on milk. Breast-fed babies poo barely smells at all, formula milk is a bit smellier but still tolerable

wait til she's on solids and you'll know all about it....

mountainyman

3 hours sleep is plenty.

MM

viking

loyatemu wrote:

that's because she's only 4 weeks old and still on milk. Breast-fed babies poo barely smells at all, formula milk is a bit smellier but still tolerable

wait til she's on solids and you'll know all about it....

Thanks for the heads-up! I knew it was too good to be true....

I'll "enjoy" the semi-smelly nappies for now but I'll try to be prepared for the first of the solid food nappies in a few months time. :eek:

You'll always get an itch you can't reach as soon as you start feeding
- Baby is starving and REALLY letting you know about it too. You heat the bottle, get yourself comfortable and give her the bottle which she latches onto immediately. Then you feel 'it' right behind your ear, or on the top of your head. You don't want to disturb her and remove the bottle as she's just taken a few gulps and even if you wanted to, you don't think you'd physically be able to remove it as she's latched on so tight. You try to reach the itch by lifting your shoulder to your ear or doing some other type of contorsion maneuver but to no avail. Its mind over matter time now... "I can't feel the itch, there is no itch, all is fine...."

deisemum

loyatemu wrote:

that's because she's only 4 weeks old and still on milk. Breast-fed babies poo barely smells at all, formula milk is a bit smellier but still tolerable

wait til she's on solids and you'll know all about it....

Or how one of the advantages of breastfeeding is that "Breastfed babies nappies are less offensive". :rolleyes:

As a childminder who has been changing nappies for over 11 years with very limited nappy free days I can assure you changing nappies is not a perk of the job and I know plenty of people who think nothing of changing their own child's nappy but balk at the idea of changing someone elses child's soiled nappy :eek:

In all those years I've only come across one nappy that was so bad I was retching into the clean nappy bag. I don't know what that little girl had been eating but it was stomach turning

Kashkai

littlebug wrote:

Nope I'm afraid not. I am that title holder. You've got at least another year to catch up!

I suspect Deisemum comes close to my record but until it is proven I am holding on firmly to that title.

Hold on a minutes there Littlebug, surely having TWO BABIES waking me up AT DIFFERENT TIMES OF COURSE, would make me a contender for slack jawed zombie of the year. If we were to add up the total number of hours of sleep, I think it would be a close run thing:D

On a another point, I used to be a complete neatness freak before my three kids came along. However, I soon copped on to the fact that there are more important things in life such as playing on the floor with my kids than walking around picking up after them. If people come to my house, then they either accept it the way it is or they can leave. Our house is fairly small and so there's no room that hasn't got toys, blankets, biscuit crumbs lying around but what the hell, my kids are happy.

Finally, with regard to the smellyness of your baby's nappy, be afraid, be very afraid because as other posters have stated, when your child starts on solids, your nose is going to rebel big time. Its amazing how someone so small, so cute and so cuddly can smell so bad. Ah, well I'm sure they'll look after us when we're old, grey and incontinent (now that would be sweet revenge:D )

Snowbie

dave wrote:

Ah, well I'm sure they'll look after us when we're old, grey and incontinent

Now thats just around the corner for yea.:D

Out havin a meal and baby decides to fill her nappy in the buggy/high chair and fumes waft to the nice couple next to you is what we all should fear.Oh it has happened several times alright.:o

deisemum

Prosperous Dave wrote:

Ah, well I'm sure they'll look after us when we're old, grey and incontinent (now that would be sweet revenge:D )

Don't bank on it, after all they say be nice to your children because they'll be chosing your nursing home.

Wishbone Ash

crosstownk wrote:

So true - I play piano in the house while my daughter is asleep

crosstownk - you never struck me as the piano type. I'd say it's fairly unique over among us Motors regulars.

simu

Hmmm, my breastfed son's nappy is already pretty offensive-smelling to me, I must say! (He squirted some on the carpet yesterday while he was being changed-any idea how to clean it thoroughly without using expensive equipment???)

So, things you learn:

You have way more energy and endurance than you might think.

Mothers should get way more spoiled on mother's day - pain of childbirth is exreeeeeeme!

You can never have too much info on feeding, sleeping etc. And every aspect of child development becomes so interesting- before, I couldn't concentrate on such info at all.

All the hard work is worth it!

kelle

viking wrote:

Since becoming a parent 4 weeks ago, these are some of the things I've learnt or discovered:

The quieter you try to be the louder you actually are.
- You spent a while feeding, changing and settle her and finally she is asleep. You really don't want her to wake up so you tip-toe around and try to do things quietly so as not to disturb her and what happens? You find every creaking floorboard, you drop things that you try to pickup gently, knock things over that you try to avoid or your mobile in your back pocket rings! Gah!!

Bottle tops are invisible in dim light.
- You are doing an evening/night feed and the lights are dim, you put the bottle on the bedside locker to free up your hands so you can wind her but knock the bottle top that you had left there on the ground. "Nothing I can do now as my hands are full" you think, I'll pick it up later when she's settled in her crib. Of course, you forget about the bottle top until you get out of bed during the night and step on an upturned one with your bare feet and then try to stiffle your pain by biting your wrist so that you don't wake baby!

Don't assume baby is fully asleep.
- You've had a successfull feeding and winding session and baby is like a ragdoll in your arms and you pop her into her crib and she doesn't move an inch, she's out cold, brilliant! You leave the room to go and wash bottles or something like that (or get back into bed if its nighttime) and then a few moments later you say to yourself "thats grand now, she'll be asleep for a good few hours" and BANG! Waaa, Waaaa, Waaaaaaaaa.... Its like a sixth sense they have, quite remarkable really.

'Wind' is a fecker to get up sometimes.
- Patience is required. Wind cannot be forced out of the baby, it has to be coaxed and sometimes it just doesn't want to come up. However, failure to get wind up during a feed will result in baby not finishing bottle and suffering from wind pain when you put them down afterwards.

Them feckin' hiccups.
- You've spent an hour or two feeding, winding, settling and then resettling them several times and when you pop them back down into the crib and you get past the "Don't assume baby is fully asleep" item above when next thing you hear what resembles a dog's squeaky toy... "heek, heek, heek..." (Thats what my little darling sounds like with the hiccups anyway...). There's nothing you can do to get rid of them and, of course, she's wide awake with these jolts that are hitting her every few seconds and her frustration with them builds and she starts getting annoyed and then the tears arrive.... sometimes you just can't win!

Anyone else got any similar things that they've learnt as a result of parenthood?

Aargh! I'm about to have my third baby and this post brings back all the horrible memories of my first two! I'm dreading the first few weeks (you do become wised-up when it comes to your third), but it gets a bit easier and you forget the hard (correction: brutal!) times!
I laugh to myself when I remember a friend nearly forcing me to do a post-graduate course after my first baby was born, that it was a good way to make use of my maternity leave and be able to get a promotion im my workplace afterwards! I was gonna apply, but when baby arrived, I never had a moment to myself 24/7, never mind attend lectures and do exams. I'll never get a promotion in my job, but I realise I prefer being involved with patients rather than going into teaching or Admin!

Oryx

Things Ive learned:

• Sleeping till 8am is a lie in
• Kids are telepathic. They know when youve finally nodded off..so they wake up
• I can survive on 2 hours sleep a night
• In the middle of the night, I can sleep standing up, waiting for a kettle to boil
• If the house is quiet, chances are theyre up to something
• If Im wearing something nice, baby will puke
• If Im ready to leave the house, baby will need changing
• Toddlers think toilets are specially for putting things down...like car keys..
• Diarrhoea always leaks
• It is impossible to remove the smell of child vomit completely from a car
• If you do remove the smell, child will be sick in the car next day
• Even when you think you cant cope, you always do
• Having kids is the best thing ive ever done

Dcully

The thing I always remember thinking after having baby number 1 is what did I do with my time before baby. I must have done nothing compared to post baby. Like others said "you taught you were tired before "
Reading all your posts brings it all back and my second is only one in two weeks time.
I feel what makes night feeds harder is in the winter even with heating on during night the cold while sitting up feeding. Also just when you have settled baby back after feeding at night and you are drifting back to sleep and then baby starts stirring
Saying all that we all would not change things for the world

jaggiebunnet

Showering can be done in 30 seconds

You can wash your hands and hold a baby at the same time

Baby will not poo until you have cleaned them up, disposed of the previous nappy and are reaching for the new nappy.

Singing everything you do actually isn't annoying - at least not to you !