I have a young coworker who is having her first baby next week. C. is very dear to me. She is honestly the most sincerely sweet person I’ve ever known. Anyway, today we had her baby shower luncheon and all of us other moms, old and young, were remembering how scary it was to have the first, how we had no idea what we were doing…“they’re letting me leave the hospital with this infant, are they crazy?”, laying the baby down at home and bursting into tears… discussion. Had a good laugh, but…did y’all feel that way? I was so relaxed and happy and confident with son # 2 that it was pitiful to look back on what a challenge it was “learning” with the first one.
You?
Oh yes ! I remember not really wanting to leave the hospital. I was also having some hormonal swings and it was Christmastime…I recall weeping while watching " Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer " and those darn Hallmark commercials. When my baby woke in the night to eat, I made such an unnecessary commotion…flipping on the lights, changing her diaper BEFORE feeding her . By the time I finally gave her what she wanted, she was darn near hysterical. It did seem so overwhelming at the time, but I made a vow to not share those parts of becoming a new mother to other pregnant women. I didn’t find it helpful or encouraging when people told me that I would never sleep again 
I look back and laugh a lot about the mistakes I made
I was just euphoric (but tired), with each of my kids. Older sis kept predicting it would wear off and I’d get post parting depression but never happened, happily.
OMG yes. I suffered from Postpartum depression with my first. I knew something wasn’t right with me when I left the hospital. The sleep deprivation just about did me in. I used to feel such loneliness and despair when DH left for work. I would cry and think I had ruined our lives. I wasn’t a mess like that all the time, but I didn’t feel joy. I really felt so guilty as I was the one that pushed to have kids. My doctor put me on Prozac after 6 weeks and after 3 pills I was experiencing panic attacks…talk about a frightening experience that was.i decided I would rather be depressed. Those were scary pills for my body makeup. Anyway, it eventually stopped after 2 months…mostly after I went back to work.
Three years later Ds2 came along. Totally different. I was happy as a clam from Day 1. I’m so glad I had the opportunity to experience that. However, the silver lining is that I have such sympathy and understanding for those who battle chronic depression. My attitude used to be that they could just suck it up, and deal with life. You can’t. Depression is debilitating.
With my first I must have called my mother 4 or 5 times a day with some question or other. I vividly remember telling her I’d woken S to feed him since he “slept through” his supposed “required” need to be fed about ever 4 hours. She started laughing and said, “he will let you know he is hungry, trust me! Let both of you sleep!” And he did. Baby #2 was a lot easier in some ways since I already knew the basics, but I still had to call my mom sometimes since she has always had a completely different attitude and personality than her brother, Sleep all night? HA! My mother had passed away by the time I had my last at 40, and boy, there weren’t too many surprises left. I’m just glad all the silly “mommy wars” online didn’t scare me like they do with some new moms. I was so much more confident with myself at that point I didn’t really care if anyone thought I was putting my kid in “baby jail” or feeding her “poison” aka formula.
Oh gawd . . . I don’t want to remember. It was horrible.
My mom came over literally EVERY day for the 1st 30 days after each baby was born and brought me lunch and ate with me at my apartment. It was so sweet of her but SO tiring (didn’t feel I could nap while she was visiting). Still, I feel very fortunate. I know of other women who had postpartum depression with each child–must be so tough.
What an idiot I was…I never gave one second of thought to the fact that my Mountain Dew habit would work it’s way into my breast milk. Dumb, dumb, dumb
sseamom, I had a kooky sister in law that was very critical of all of us in the family that were having babies around the same time. We were all making the wrong choices in her eyes. I can’t imagine being a new parent today with all of the " experts " online
My first was in the hospital for 8 weeks ( coming home before her due date).
It horrifies me now how young and inexperienced we were, without a support system other than the visiting nurse that came for the first few months.
I really was not nervous at all. Didn’t want anyone other than my husband home helping me. I’m not saying it was perfect - it wasn’t - had to work through breastfeeding and she wasn’t the best sleeper but I had no qualms, nervousness or feelings of incompetence. I was 29 at the time and pretty familiar with kids and child development.
My 3rd one came 5 years after S, the 2nd child. I worried a bit that it was going to be a challenge to work in a newborn into our already active lifestyle with an 8 and 5 year old but it worked out. 
I love my D to death, I really do, but she was a crazy baby - she NEVER slept. She mixed up her days and nights for the first few weeks, and then she never ever took a nap that lasted longer than 20-30 minutes. When someone asked me when she eventually slept through the night, I told them “ten years old.”
I was so exhausted all the time (very little local support). I can remember standing over her bassinet wondering what I was doing wrong and then understanding why some depressed, bewildered, sleep-deprived mothers shook their babies to death. Don’t get me wrong - I never ever shook or harmed my D and I certainly don’t condone such behavior - but in those awful exhausted moments I could certainly see how such crimes occur.
I’ll never forget the look on my H’s face when came home from work and I was sitting on the couch with S1 facedown on a pillow with a thermometer in my hand, a jar of Vaseline open at my side and the “What to Expect When you are Expecting” book open to the page about how to take a rectal temp.
Well, here it is – the bad, the worse, and the ugly.
S1 was born six weeks early. Obviously we were not prepared – we hadn’t even bought a crib – but DH took care of all that while I was in the hospital. I couldn’t sleep in the hospital – people kept coming in to look between my legs, wake me up to see if I was sleeping, and so forth. My mother was dying at the time – in fact, she died when S1 was five weeks old, in CA, so I couldn’t see her, and she never met S1. My sister, who might of been of help, was living in Hawaii, so except for my dysfunctional MIL*, I had no help. I had one not-close friend who had a baby, and I remember asking her how she structured her day, since I didn’t have a clue. I had serious postpartum depression (although I didn’t recognize it at the time). Because S1 was waking up every two to three hours, I could never fall asleep. I would just lie awake anxious and scared, listening for him to stir. Finally, when S1 was 11 weeks old, I realized I had a huge goiter in my neck and freaked – my mother had just died of thyroid cancer. I couldn’t get an appointment with the specialist for three weeks, at which point my TSH – which should be between 0.4 and 4.0 – was 179. It’s amazing I was even functioning at all. Then, of course, because it was so out of whack, it took about six months until it was finally back to normal.
It was not a good time.
*Definition of a dysfunctional MIL: One who says she’ll come to your apartment at 2:00 PM to mind the baby so you can get out for a while, then shows up at 3:30 PM so you’ve missed your doctor’s appointment, and doesn’t see any problem. Also, one who tells her son (your husband) how sorry she is that your mother passed away and Yes, she’ll inform the rest of the family, and then never does so, so you think (through your post partum depression haze) that when no one is sending condolences that they really don’t like you very much, and that you’re going to be home alone with a screaming baby for the rest of your life.
Did I mention it was not a good time?
I was so clueless. No matter how many books you read or how much advice you hear, you have to experience it firsthand to understand it.
I’m amazed that firstborns survive.
@marian, i was incredulous that in our utter cluelessness that we were allowed to leave the hospital w vulnerable baby.
Our first were twins which in some ways made it easier. I kind of went into auto mode and didn’t have time to think about it. I do remember being exhausted at night when they woke up at different times to eat, which was often since they were on the small side. Once I started waking up the second one to feed at the same time as the first it got better. It doesn’t seem like it was bad 30 years later, but, I’m sure I’ve blocked out the hard parts.
@scout59, it is very true what you said. DH and I have commented how we never understood child abuse until we had kids. We never abused our children, but could understand how people do it. Parents with no support, sleep deprived, depressed, young and immature, impatient…all sorts of things. Not only did I have PPD, but DS didn’t see sleep well. I think he was borderline colic. I remember on evening DH got home from work and I was rocking the baby…still in my pajamas. He asked how I was and I glared at him and said, I could throw this baby right threw that glass window. I mean , I was really picturing myself doing it although I wouldn’t ever do that. I think sleep deprived people do go a little crazy…it is a form of torture.
I have a co worker who is a very quiet, gentle man and we’ve known each other 30 years…had our kids at the same time. When the kids were a little older we confessed how we felt at times, or things they did to drive us to the brink. He said one night his oldest wouldn’t stop when he was an infant and he said he remembers holding him up to his face yelling at him to Shut Up.
Wow, VeryHappy, that was a lot to go through for you 
When my second daughter was born, she was early because it was a planned C-section. We were living in Staten Island , NY with no family nearby. Thank goodness my parents came to help out with my then 2.5 year old and help us transition . What I didn’t know at the time of her birth was my SIL had a simultaneous nervous breakdown, complete with an attempted suicide while I was in the hospital that was really bad at dealing with a jaundiced newborn and an RH factor that made nursing her worse…I felt very alone since my then husband was dealing with his sister’s issues and a newborn with issues…and also, we had to move three weeks after she was born because of a work transfer. I didn’t understand why none of his family sent so much as a card or flowers while I was in the hospital or when we got home.
Number two was in many ways a more difficult time that my first and third.
My third was also a C-section , but the recovery was a breeze and I was in my pre-pregnancy jeans shortly after
I quit my old job and knew I was starting a new one when S was a month old. I was a nervous wreck about starting a new job and having a newborn. Didn’t enjoy that first month nearly as much as I wish I could’ve. I was lucky my mom lived very close. I try very hard not to share pregnancy or labor horror stories with new/young moms. They are stressed enough. I’m also glad we only had to feel inadequate from articles in “Parenting” and not from the internet. I’m sure that would not have been good for me.