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What is it about being pregnant that attracts a stream of scaremongering comments? Last night, when hubby, LB and I were having dinner, a waiter saw my bump and oh-so-helpfully pointed out that we “must be gluttons for punishment” in having another baby as well as a toddler. I took offence. And left him no tip. But it got me thinking…
On an almost daily basis I get comments from family and friends like “just wait until you’ve got two, you won’t have a second to yourself then” and “you won’t get another one that’s as good as LB”.
It is not helpful, and not nice to try and make a pregnant woman worry.
It was the same in my first pregnancy, with a friend (who had a baby a few months before me) telling me to ‘get ready the worst pain you’ll ever experience’ and to ‘just wait for the ring of fire’. Now I won’t sugar coat it, we all know that labour hurts, but its over so quickly and was no where near as bad as I had built it up to be and I was left really annoyed that I’d spent so much of my pregnancy and labour panicking about what was to come next.
More pregnancy scaremongering classics were warning me to “catch up on sleep now, you’ll need it when the baby is born” and “make the most of time to yourselves now because you won’t get any when the baby is born”. My friend even told me not to bother buying a dress I was looking at because I’d “only be able to wear sweatpants after the baby was born anyway”. What a way to make an expecting mum feel great!
It didn’t stop when my daughter was born, it just changed to the next thing to worry us on, ‘just wait til they’re crawling you won’t be able to sit down then’ and now we get, ‘just wait for the terrible twos’. How is it helpful to warn us of things like this? What do people expect us to do, say “oh really, I didn’t realise raising a child would have its challenges, I’ll return them for a refund”.
We obviously knew when we decided to start a family that life would be different and that labour etc wouldn’t be a walk in the park, but the stream of negativity around it baffles me. Yes, there have been hard days, sleepless nights and countless times I’ve had to hose myself down after being pooped or sicked on, but I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world and have loved having my toddler and I’ll also love having my second, and any future children. I really wish people would stick to the rule of “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”.
So to all the scaremongers out there: please keep it positive or keep it shut!
L x
This is a great post, and I understand exactly what you mean! I think the parent’s attitude makes a difference as well – we try to stay quite relaxed with our little girl and she is quite relaxed too.. but we still get the never ending warnings of tough times ahead.
“Just because she sleeps well doesn’t mean she always will” or “she might not be a fussy eater at the moment but you JUST WAIT” etc. Can’t we just take it as it comes and face the challenges of the future when they’re here, instead of working ourselves up about things that might never happen?
Exactly! I thought that too, we are the same I definitely think your attitude passes on. I think because we try and always be positive about our daughters sleeping / eating etc people almost will it on you that they will become difficult! Mostly comes from one set of family members who had a baby 6 mths before us (so are always like “just wait for X” cos they’ll always be 6 bloody mths older) and they constantly moan about what a nightmare their baby is so I think it drives them mad that we have had a good sleeper and eater etc! I might eat my words when number two arrives haha but sure we’ll be fine. L x