Looking for raw, unfiltered truths about motherhood and parenting a human?
You must have discerned there is more to the cute and rosy stories on motherhood that those magazines and baby books tell. Being a mother, raising a child, is a lot!
Which is why we highly recommend a bottle of your favourite wine, as you will need it to digest these shocking motherhood/parenting truths that they intentionally forget to tell you.
1. Breastfeeding Is Tough
You’ve seen some of your friends, other mums, do it a number of times before and you think that breastfeeding is going to be easy breezy.
But not until you hop unto the ship of motherhood that you will learn that in reality, it can take up to six weeks to learn how to breastfeed your baby.
If you are lucky, good friends will warn you, but you can’t understand how difficult nursing can be for some new mommies until you’ve been through it yourself.
Bleeding, infections, poor latch, cluster feedings—in truth, it really isn’t as cool as it seems.
2. Every Baby Is Different
What works for one baby doesn’t work for another baby, so you need to find out by trial and error what works best for your baby.
For example, your friend’s child might be one who sleeps best in his cradle during the day whereas your baby, you’ll learn only sleeps when there’s human contact.
3. You Will Have No ‘Me’ Time Again
As soon as your baby wakes up in the morning, your working hours starts, and it finishes when he goes to sleep at night.
Even if you wake up before he does or he naps during the day, you will have baby-related tasks all day, ranging from sterilising milk bottles and pacifiers to laundry, planning the next bath/diaper change, just staring at him; and no, your other mummy tasks as cooking, shopping, and cleaning after everyone else do not go away either.
4. You Will Be Extremely Fagged Out
During the first 12 months of your baby’s life you can expect to be extremely worn out on a daily.
For the first few months of their life, they don’t have any concept of day and night, so they might get up to play or worse, cry for hours in the night, and you can expect to be woken up in the night for the first six months when they get hungry.
At around six months, they can start to sleep during the night, but then they start teething and tend to wake up during the night again.
This interrupted sleep plays havoc with your energy levels, considering the fa.
5. You Constantly Worry
Maybe hormones are to blame for this, but another truth about motherhood that nobody tells you is that you imagine the worst situations and worry your baby is going to be affected by them.
You feel extremely protective of this little angel, worry that you are not doing enough,and often freak out when your brain reminds you that they are completely dependent on you for everything.
6. Sex Will Become, At Times, Most Times, A Chore
Between recovering from the soreness to manning. Just another thing on the long list of to do things that never ever ends.
Sex will be arraigned on the list with things like “run to the market to shop for soup, stew, and porridge ingredients” and “sweep the floor, dust furniture, fix laundry, and clear out the dishes in the sink”.
So, the thing is: you cannot say “NO” for too long- for obvious reasons, and because, yeah, it’s important to reconnect with your partner.
It might help to remember that the film of dust on that table will still return the next day, and the day after that, but your relationship will not resemble itself very quickly if it’s not tended to.
7. Your Priorities Completely Change
You might be surprised how much your priorities change once your little one arrives.
If you are planning to go back to work quickly after your baby is born, you might change your mind as you realise that there is more to life than a pay check. Just like that.
8. You Can’t Imagine Life Before They Came
I’m guessing they didn’t tell you this one.
Becoming a parent utterly changes your entire life as you become focused on your family’s needs rather than your own.
Once this is your new reality, the picture of your old life before they came, becomes a little blurry.
9. You’ll Become A Song And Dance Woman
The first reason for this is that babies love rhythm and melody.
You’ll easily find yourself breaking into song giving her a bath or feeding her pureed peas because you can’t get enough of those smiles that come as your reward.
Also, (that’s if you haven’t already started), you’ll start rewriting the lyrics of countless songs to include your baby’s name.
And your rock and roll baby dance, chicken hops, mini frog jumps, to help your baby relax, they didn’t tell you, right?
10. Sick Leave Is Not Part Of The Plan
There will be days you don’t feel like leaving the bed, and then you make up your mind to, and then your body will refuse to cooperate.
But you will find a way to get up anyways, because clothes drenched is pee and vomit do not wash themselves.
Doped up on pain killers and racking your brain for the lunch that will be quickest to make, is probably the time that your husband pleads with you to help him get his clothes from the dry cleaner.
It is your responsibility and yours alone, to try and figure out how to take care of your health in all this.
11. You Must Kiss Your Clean Living Room Goodbye
This new reality, surprisingly will be on the blame list for this new reality.
Depending on how spacious your home is, you’ll soon realise how comfortably accessible it is to have the stroller, bouncy seat and what not, in the corner of your living room.
Then comes the attack of the brightly colored toys, big, medium, small, everywhere! All with so little time to always clean up, your former everything-in-its-place living room will probably never be it again, but you will be fine.
12. You Gain A New Respect For Other Mums And Their Babies
Before your baby is born you probably didn’t notice babies as much as you now do; and you have once or twice felt irritated by babies who cried on the bus, that you shot their mothers a dirty look.
Now when a child cries on the bus, you think it is so cute.
You find yourself having a conversation with a stranger on the bus about your baby’s sleeping patterns. Other mums are a great source of inspiration and advice in motherhood journey.
13. You Get Secretly Competitive
Even if you are a completely non-competitive person you still try and figure out how your baby is doing in comparison to other babies of the same age.
And you stylishly avoid the new mums who are very competitive and want to prove their babies are superior to yours.
14. You’ll Bond Better With Your Mother-in-Law, Or Not
If you and your mother-in-law didn’t have such smooth relationship, you may be surprised to discover that a baby provides new common ground.
You both find him adorable!
She may shock you with her nonjudgmental advice and appreciation of your mothering.
And even if she’s not your biggest fan, she may hold her tongue because she knows you have the power to grant her access to her grandchild.
On the other hand, if you and your mother-in-law have always been super close, a baby could create unexpected tension.
She may barrage you with unsolicited advice.
You may also love our article on How To Have The Sex Talk With A Child
If you’re experiencing baby-related conflicts with your husband, she may side with him.
Restrain your tongue, trust your instincts, and your relationship with her will see the light of day.
15. You’ll Throw Caution To The Wind
If it will keep your baby happy and comfortable, you’ll do it, no matter how foolish you look. That includes making bird sounds, doing the chicken dance, speaking in baby tone, or unbuttoning your shirt in public to breastfeed your baby.
16. You’ll Have A New Idea Of “Vacation”
Being a mom is a full-time job and some “me time” would be nice every once in a while, but handed the opportunity, you’ll see that a salon pedicure will become the emotional and spiritual equivalent of a trip to Cape Verde.
Anything to not spend 24 hours away from your little one.
17. Your Idea Of Friendship Will Change
You will make friends with people you never thought you could be friends with, and some of your age-long friends will distance themselves from you, thanks to your new status.
Also, you may no longer have the energy to make longstanding, relationships work.
Motherhood makes strange things and alliances happen.
You connect with a random woman at the Bus stop about your shared nursing difficulties or about the anguish of letting your child cry it out at night.
Suddenly, you’re besties for life.
Be prepared for friendships to fall by the wayside after you have kids.
Find more on motherhood here.
