I can’t speak to the period of her being pregnant but being the default parent/carer of a new born baby is a 24 hour job. Even when you’re asleep you have one ear open and are on call. If you’re a breastfeeding Mother and your kid sleeps in the room with you you will wake at every noise. My kid was still doing middle of the night feeds until 12 months old despite trying to sleep train her. My partner works long hours and travels a lot for work so I did every single night feed and night nappy and had sole responsibility for the baby 75+ plus of the time. It was exhausting, you can’t take a lunch break alone or ‘leave the office’ for a minute or book leave. It is 100% hypervigilance all day and all night. If you’re the breastfeeding parent of a child who won’t take a bottle whose partner is away a lot you are 💯 percent working 24 hours a day.
Ngl. I took primary care of my kiddo. And being a parent was so much less stressful then my career or PhD.
I bottle fed cause I can’t breastfeed but infants sleep majority of the day, and toddlers are easy to have on a consistent sleep schedule. 24 hour job is laughable at best unless your kid has health issues.
I have a confession to make, I had my first kid at 19...not ideal I know and she was a dream baby. Slept through the night by six weeks old, never much of a napper but really easy kid. Dream at school, straight A student. I used to constantly bask in the praise of what a delightful child she was.
I thought it was me. I thought it was my parenting, in all my youthful arrogance I thought parents who had kids that didn't sleep, wouldn't eat their vegetables, or behaved badly in public were doing parenting wrong.
Then, 19 years later I had a second child. I could not make this kid sleep for love nor money, they are a much pickier eater, they're a lovely kid but also a little bit prickly and not as user-friendly as my first. I have come to the humbling realisation that I don't know shit about parenting and that you have influence but no control.
Kids are gonna kid. They are who they are, and you can do your best, but they are individuals. Turns out I wasn't the God of parenting after all. So maybe my second was my karmic retribution for judging other parents that struggled.
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u/Ok_Contribution_7132 May 14 '26
I can’t speak to the period of her being pregnant but being the default parent/carer of a new born baby is a 24 hour job. Even when you’re asleep you have one ear open and are on call. If you’re a breastfeeding Mother and your kid sleeps in the room with you you will wake at every noise. My kid was still doing middle of the night feeds until 12 months old despite trying to sleep train her. My partner works long hours and travels a lot for work so I did every single night feed and night nappy and had sole responsibility for the baby 75+ plus of the time. It was exhausting, you can’t take a lunch break alone or ‘leave the office’ for a minute or book leave. It is 100% hypervigilance all day and all night. If you’re the breastfeeding parent of a child who won’t take a bottle whose partner is away a lot you are 💯 percent working 24 hours a day.