"Things I wish I'd known before having a baby"

Today I went to the NCT group in Rugby, and the topic for discussion was as above. At first I thought there wasn't a lot, but after a few minutes realised there were loads of things.

I wish I had known:

• Breastfeeding is hard. For the vast majority of people it isn't as easy as shove a baby on your boob and it's fed.
• All those things you say there's no way you'll do (co-sleep - too dangerous! Sniff their bum to see if they've pooed - too gross!) you will. 
• You realise when you give birth you will have to show off your nether regions. You will show them to lots of people who don't seem to realise it might be a bit embarassing for you.

Things I did "know" but hadn't really thought through.

• I had illusions of my lovely, relaxed birth where I'd be wandering around, employing various massage techniques and it'd all go OK. In reality it was flipping painful, my "wandering around" was limited to walking back and forth to the toilet repeatedly, then having to have a little lie down on the floor, or being stuck on the walk back. I couldn't stand being touched, so massage was out!
• Everything is a contest.

There are more for both lists - I'll get back to you.

Orn had her first run-in with a bully. She was lying next to one of her little boyfriends, and I turned my back to get a mini brownie when all of a sudden there was an almighty Orn cry. A big baby had crawled up and smacked her in the head. Poor little Orn, at least it didn't bruise. I bought her a play gym on the way home which she absoutely loves (though this "surprised eyes" photo might say different!). She spent quite a while staring at the star thingy and cooing. Her favourite bit of music that it does seems to be "Eine Kleine Nachtmusic", it gets the most smiles. Later, in un-cute news she did whine and whinge for an hour while Daddy retreated to the bath. Maybe she was remembering the bully.

Crazy Hippy Club

Or not, as it turned out. A couple of days ago (Monday, I think) I was having a search online for a local nappy library. I don't really know why, I think I have enough nappies and I know what I like, but when she's bigger and sleeps through I will need to try out some other options for night nappies. But I digress; I happened upon Coventry & Warwickshire Attached Parents, who meet weekly in a library in one of the posher bits of town. Attachment parenting is something I've had a bit of a read up on, and although in its full form it seems a bit OTT, I think it's far more the style of parent that I want to be than something like Gina Ford.

Dr Sears appears to have been the person that coined the term (thought might not be, I'll admit I've not read that much), and there's something about the principals of it on Wikipedia. I didn't prepare for pregnancy, it's a bit hard to do that when you didn't really get to the trying stage, but we certainly prepared for birth and, as much as you can when you have no idea what is coming, for parenting. I'd like to think we're doing all the nurtring, respond with love and so on. I'll fully admit to being frustrated when there's a session of crying for no apparant reason (dry, right temp, fed, cuddled) but we still plod on trying to comfort and sort her out - she's a baby, it's not her fault. Luckily, we've ended up with a little person who is almost always happy, in some ways though that makes inconsolable crying harder - we're still learning how to deal with it at 9 weeks, and because it's out of character the need to stop it is enormous and the stress when you can't is a bit much.

I've gone off the point again, anyway, I decided I'd go along to the group. As I explained to one of the Mums later, I'd been worried they were going to be breastfeeding teenagers and wearing hemp dresses hand dyed with woad. They weren't, it was all OK, they were normal. They listened to the nightmare I'm having with breastfeeding, joined in with horror when I recounted our hospital experience and the NG tube threat - something others seem to have seen as "normal", and didn't think I was nuts with my insistance to make sure I could express milk for every feed and stay away from formula. They think co-sleeping is normal (we don't do it full time, but if she's upset and won't settle I don't hesitate in popping her in the big bed (if it were a proper big bed there'd be no reason not to do it full time!)), and best of all, none of their babies had pierced ears - a big improvement on the last local baby group I went to!