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We all look back on our first pregnancies and have definitely thought this at one point or other: “I WISH I knew about this!” or “That’s not what I was told…”.
If I could travel back into the past, here’re some little pearls of wisdom that I’d like to give the me from back then, and maybe I’d be a bit more prepared:
1. Getting Pregnant Isn’t That Easy
Making a baby isn’t as easy as you’d think; yes lots of sex will be involved, but it’s not a guaranteed bun in the oven. The couples who have it easy in conceiving usually won’t understand the pain of trying over and over to get pregnant.
Give yourselves extra time and try not to stress out over it. Give a healthier and more active lifestyle a go, as being over or underweight makes it more difficult to conceive as well. Head to a fertility clinic only after you’ve been trying to conceive for 6 to 12 months.
2. The Forgetfulness
You’ll be pretty forgetful during your pregnancy, and that’s natural – no, you’re not losing your mind! Pregnancy brain is real, and you’ll realise that you get lapses of memory or focus from time to time.
Researchers aren’t quite able to pinpoint why this happens to pregnant women, but they believe it has something to do with the amount of hormones that are released during pregnancy.
To combat forgetfulness, write your schedule in a planner or your phone, keep your important things (phone, wallet, keys) in a specific area like a bowl, use your phone’s alerts for meetings, and get plenty of sleep.
Keeping active and exercising can help you strengthen your memory in addition to giving you better sleep at night.
3. Can’t Do Much About Stretch Marks
Stretch marks are a thing – whether you get them, and their intensity are purely dependent on genetics. Getting rid of them is impossible, short of getting surgery to remove them, and using products that claim to reduce or remove stretch marks are mostly useless.
Stretch marks happen when your skin expands for a period of time – like during pregnancy, and weight gain and loss. Learn to accept your body for the changes that it’s going through, and see stretch marks as battle scars.
4. Leaky Breasts Even Before Baby Comes
Leakage from breasts in your 3rd trimester – colostrum might start leaking from your breasts, which could result in some embarrassing situations if you’re unprepared for it. The easiest ways to soak up the flow would be to switch to a thicker bra, one that’s for maternity or nursing, and using nursing pads. Nursing pads will fit snugly inside pretty much any bra, and are nigh unnoticeable.
5. Wanted: Sleep
Sleep? What’s that? You’ll be missing sleep like a long lost lover the first few months after baby’s born, and it get slightly better as they get older. Not that much better, but it doesn’t get any worse that’s for sure.
You’ll probably have to give them night time feedings and diaper changes (more on diapers in a bit). When they’re toddlers, they might get nightmares or feel lonely, which means you’ll have to be up at night and there for them. It all pays off in the future though, trust me.
Conitnue reading on page 2 for the next 5 things you wish you knew...
6. Raising A Child Is EXPENSIVE
Kids are expensive, a lot more expensive than you’d think. TODAY has an article that states raising a child in Singapore can range from S$200,000 to S$1 million, with about S$360,000 as the middle. In Australia, the average cost of raising a child there is A$537,000!
Some of the biggest money sinks when raising baby are: formula powder which, as every parent in Singapore knows, are extremely expensive with an average cost of $56 for a 900g tin; and diapers – this site estimates that a baby uses around 4,380 diapers in their first year.
Once they’re toddlers, we’ll need to consider the childcare and enrichment classes that we want to send them for. All these costs stack up over time, and you’ll be surprised at how much you’ve spent on your child after they’ve finished with university!
7. Mood Swinging Babies
We might forget this from time to time but our babies are tiny humans. Tiny humans who are also subject to a whole range of mood swings and emotions that we’re subjected to as well.
Babies aren’t able to verbalise their needs and wants (some adults aren’t able to either, but that’s because of a lack of communication skills on their part), though we’ll eventually learn to read their body language due to the time that we spend with them.
They’ll have a ton of mood swings and sometimes they won’t even eat their favourite food just because they don’t want to. Here’s a tip for cooking solid meals when baby is able to eat them: contrasting food textures – if you’re giving them something mushy, add something that’s crunchy and easy to chew. The different textures of food will make it interesting for them to eat.
8. Nobody’s Perfect
Somewhat related to the previous point, we need to realise that kids aren’t perfect (like us), no matter how hard we try as parents. We’ll need a lot of understanding and patience when we’re up at 1, 2, 3, and 3:30am feeding them, changing their diapers, and soothing them back to sleep.
We’re not doing anything wrong, we’re not bad parents. It happens to all of us, even those picture perfect mums with laughing babies that you see on Instagram – they’ve been covered in projectile vomit and baby poop, but they just don’t show it. Which leads us to…
9. No Matter What You Do, Someone Will Say You’re Doing It Wrong
I swear, being a parent is a constant exercise in patience. For our children, we have unconditional love for them, and we’ll forgive them for the food they throw and the stuff they destroy.
For others though, it’s more like unconditional tolerance (sometimes). Everyone will have something to say about your parenting style and what you’re doing wrong; so how about you do it this way, the right way (which is their way, by the way)?
Prepare yourself for critiques from your closest relatives and friends on your choice of formula or breastfeeding, the clothes you bought for baby, baby’s vaccination schedules, the wheels on your stroller, how early and what you should be teaching baby, etc.
Best way to deal with this is to nod and smile, and literally let it go. They’ve got good intentions and are just trying to help you out; they aren’t doing this to irritate you on purpose. To be honest, I’ve been on the giving end of unsolicited advice too, and I’m pretty sure that you’ll be doing this somewhere down the line!
10. Hovering Around Hubby
It’s a natural instinct to be protective around baby, but try not to do so much of that around your partner. They may not do it your way, but you’ll be surprised at their creativity in doing things a different way that gets them to the same goal. The more they interact and take care of baby, the better they’ll get.
Treat them as an equal, let them have their own special ‘thing’ with baby! It not only helps build their confidence and bonds with baby, it’ll also improve the relationship between the two of you.
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