4 Parenting Challenges I Wasn't Expecting!

What a week it's been! If you don't follow me on twitter you might have been wondering why it's been so quiet on the blog front. If you do follow me on twitter you will know that Rhodri & I have both been poorly and it has been  a rough week! 

Thankfully we are both on the road to recovery, but it got me thinking about the aspects of parenting I didn't expect. There are plenty of challenges, hurdles and even rewards we expect when we sign up to parenting.

Being Mamma to my gorgeous little man is without doubt the best thing that has ever happened to me. I went in to parenthood with my eyes wide open, expecting pretty much what I got. One loving little man, who is very curious and in to absolutely everything. He requires endless nappy changes, constant feeding and prefers mummy to eat & drink cold/luke warm meals. 

But there are some things I didn't expect when preparing for motherhood, things that didn't even cross my mind and yet are quite possibly the most difficult parts of parenting, in my opinion, so far! Here's a few I have encountered!

1) Loneliness. I love Rhodri to the moon and back, I can't and won't imagine life without him, but it has undeniably been the loneliest experience of my life. More so when he was a new born, the older he gets the more interactive he is. Plus with his reflux sorted it's easier to get out and socialise.

I thought, rather naively, that I would be far too busy as a new Mum to experience loneliness. How wrong was I? I went from going in to work in a office every single day and chatting away to my colleagues, to sitting at home alone with a baby that couldn't communicate other than by crying. I constantly spoke to Rhodri as I felt it helped me feel a bit less mute and alone but I definitely missed adult conversation and I especially missed getting a response of any sort.

It's incredibly difficult to go from being surrounded by people all day everyday to just being you and a baby, it was even more difficult because I felt very guilty for feeling lonely. I had this gorgeous son who I adored, how dare I feel lonely!! After conversations with other mums I realised this isn't at all unusual and I just wish I'd known to expect it so I wouldn't have given myself half the guilt trip I did!

I was incredibly lucky to have a mother who arranged for weekly coffee dates and a cousin who provided a friendly face, a listening ear, weekly playdates and the added bonus of Rhodri getting to spend time with his family which is important to me. 

2) Being ill is so much more difficult. Gone are the days where I could call in sick to housework and responsibilities, instead opting to go back to bed and rest. Good bye vegging out on the sofa, watching trash TV and waiting for my immune system to remember it has a job to do. 

Hello to the days of powering through! Dose yourself up, suck it up and get on with looking after the baby! Hope its one of those 24 hour things, if it's not then we revert to the plan of powering through. Being ill is never fun, but with an 8 month old it's virtually impossible!

3) Your baby being ill. Never crossed my mind how difficult having an ill child would be. Emotionally it is gut wrenching, heart breaking and quite possibly the most over whelming sense of uselessness I've ever experienced.

On top of them not being able to tell you what is wrong they also don't understand the concept of medicine. Holding your child down to give them antibiotics, put eye drops in their eyes and make them endure many other drops, sprays & creams is traumatic. You know they need the medicine, but don't want to traumatise them. 

You worry if you are doing the right thing for them. Should you try and get them to eat more, drink more? Should you give them any more calpol? Will the Dr think I'm a paranoid mother? Is he so ill the Dr will wonder why I didn't bring him in sooner?

Seeing Rhodri so miserable and hearing him whimper in pain while sleeping on my chest was without doubt the saddest moment of being a Mum to date. Rhodri isn't a particularly cuddly child, he likes to play and explore. But while ill he wanted cuddles galore, and how bittersweet those cuddles were!

 If you are unlucky enough for 2&3 to happen at the same time, which I experienced this week, then don't be afraid to ask for help. Don't go it alone. It is awful feeling poorly, seeing your child poorly and not really having the energy to look after your child let alone yourself.

4) Criticism. I started exploring this in 5 Things You Don't Need To Tell Pregnant Women. It really is a very tough pill to swallow when people offer their opinions or criticise your parenting. No parent wants to hear their decisions or parenting skills are wrong. But since becoming Mummy I have found myself biting my tongue as all manner of my choices have been scoffed at and questioned. It doesn't bother me as much as it did, but certainly as a new mum it was ... character building shall we say?

What are some of the unexpected hurdles you faced? What has been your toughest hurdle to date? Let me know in the comments below. As always thanks for reading xoxo

5 Things You Don't Need To Tell Pregnant Women

Having had my first baby 7 months ago, something has really been playing on my mind. I'm sure I'm not the only woman or even blogger who has noticed or discussed this topic. But here goes.

I don't know what happened to the sisterhood but when it comes to having babies this sisterhood seems to be replaced with competitiveness, a need to terrify and give advice whether it's wanted or not. This doesn't apply to all women of course, but enough women to get on your nerves when you're pregnant and hormonal or a new mum still adjusting to all the changes your little one has brought with them.

It seems there are a few common things that people like to say to pregnant women and new/1st time mums. Here are 5 of my favourites and why they got under my skin so very much.

• Enjoy your sleep while you can, you won't sleep for a long time once baby comes. This used to annoy me as I felt like it was only ever said if I expressed excitement of Baby R being born. It seemed to be used as a bubble burster. I didn't go in to pregnancy thinking having a baby would be easy, and one of the things I assumed would be difficult was the lack of sleep. That being said I had less sleep while pregnant while making those 1am and 4am dashes to the bathroom. I know I'm lucky, Baby R is a good sleeper. But why tell someone they'll never sleep when all babies are different. Your experience isn't necessarily going to be the same as mine. Not all babies wake up during the night. Of course it's not just sleep you are warned to enjoy. Enjoy 'you time', enjoy dates, enjoy eating out. So apparently your life ends when you have children. You can't do anything except change nappies and feed the baby. You MUST sleep when baby sleeps, although they will never sleep so good luck sleeping... Urgh utter nonsense. Yes I've only had a handful of child free days and even fewer child free nights, but mainly by choice. Baby R's grandparents would take him if I wanted some time out. But realistically I want to be with my baby, I miss him when he's not around. Despite numerous hints from his grandparents it took me a while to leave Baby R and go for a day out without him. I just didn't want to. Life doesn't end when baby comes, it changes, and along with those changes you will have a whole new idea of whats fun and important.

• MY PERSONAL BUG-BEAR - you're going to gain all that weight you lost and more now you're pregnant. There's no pleasant or nice way to take that. I was lucky that I didn't gain baby weight. I remained the same weight through my entire pregnancy and about 3 weeks after he was born I was 1 stone 9lb lighter than my pre-pregnancy/during pregnancy weight. But even if I had gained weight, what would have been the problem with that? I don't see the need to make a woman feel any more uncomfortable with her constantly changing body that already feels alien. Weight gain isn't a bad thing during pregnancy, it's plain nasty to use the weight gain knowing she will already feel pretty insecure.

• Oh so he's not (insert some sort of activity or milestone) yet? Not a pregnancy one, more of a new mum/first time mum. You get a constant barrage of 'oh he's not crawling then?' Yet when you ask about their children it turns out theirs weren't crawling at two weeks old either... funny that!? I exaggerate, but you get the picture. What irritates me more is the next time you see that person you preempt their questions and say 'He's still not...' they come back with the reply 'Well he is only 7 months, don't rush him'!!!

• My labour was horrific (insert worst story imaginable) - To a first time Mum this is the worst kind of cruelty. I had no idea what to expect. I was hoping for a baby at the end and that I would manage the pain in whatever way worked for me. At any stage in my pregnancy I did not want to be thinking about all the worst things that could happen. I get that you want to share your story, but if your story involves telling a heavily pregnant woman about forceps and an episiotomy it's probably not the right time to share. If people ask or start the conversation on labour, then by all means tell them, otherwise just no. Also if you end your story with 'But once they are in your arms it's all forgotten' please know that this doesn't undo the horror story you just told, it won't remove the look of disgust and fear from my face. It just makes me wonder how you told this incredibly detailed story if it was all forgotten.

• You have to breastfeed/bottle feed, use a dummy/not use a dummy, give them organic/give them what they want, (basically do what someone else thinks is best) - I get it. You had a child, you think your way was the best way and that's awesome! This baby, however, is my baby and I will do what I think is best for him. Please don't take me the wrong way, advice is always welcomed, but usually I will ask for it if I need it. I don't understand the need to give advice on every aspect of child rearing. Especially from those who have never even had children! I genuinely do not judge anyone for having different opinions and making different choices to me. My school of thought is that every child and every mother is different. So long as your child is happy and healthy DO WHAT WORKS FOR YOU. Yet as a new mum, I am getting used to the constant 'Oh so he doesn't....' 'Oh so you let him...'. That's right, he's happy and healthy. Tell me, why should I change how I look after him?

I could go on with the 'advice' I was given, the comments of my weight that soon became 'Oh that's not healthy, why haven't you gained anything?'. What I ultimately learnt from being pregnant and subsequently becoming a mum is that you can't please everyone all of the time. So I do what works for me, Baby R and our little family.  I really have lost count of the things I was told during pregnancy and the unsolicited advice I get as a mother. So I thought I'd share that with you, let me know down below if any of this sounds familiar to you. How did you deal with unwanted advice, birth horror stories etc?

As always thanks for reading my bit of a rant, but it feels good to have gotten it off my chest! xoxo