When you announce you’re pregnant, the first thing every parent will say (hopefully after “congratulations!”) is “get ready to never sleep again.”
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you already anticipate an end to sleeping in. It kind of comes with the territory.
But what you may not have anticipated is the other less obvious sacrifices… the ones your friends are scared to tell you about. Let us do the honors.
Here are the 11 things that will never be the same after you have kids:
1. Hot Meals
… or any meals, really. Having an infant is sort of like having an insanely loud alarm that goes off,
at minimum, every two hours. When they’re born, babies have stomachs the size of large marbles. By the one month mark, they’ve increased to the size of a large chicken egg. They have to eat often to fill those little bellies and help support their expansion. Which means whether you are breastfeeding or not, you are pretty much a slave to their eating schedule. And if you can sneak in a meal while the baby naps, great. Just don’t count on having enough time to cook AND eat. Too many times I tried to throw together something healthy like an egg omelet or a pasta dish. HA! The baby would sleep through my prep and, like clockwork, wake up screaming just as I sat down to enjoy it.
And eating with toddlers is even worse. They want anything you’re eating, and you’ll spend 15 minutes cutting up your meal into tiny, bite-sized pieces they can fit in their little mouths only to have them put the kaibash on the whole affair by chucking the food straight across the room shortly after.
Do yourself a favor and either invest in a crockpot you can use to stock up on pre made meals, ask friends and family to take on some of the burden, or even better, load up on cereal, PB&J, and takeout menus to get you through the next 10 years of your life.
2. Your Shows
When friends would go on maternity leave, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy. I pictured them in their comfiest sweatpants, sprawled out on the couch snuggling a sleeping baby and watching movies.
Well, the sweatpants part might be true (mainly because, in the words of Regina George, sweatpants are all that fits me right now”). But once you have a baby, there’s really no time to Netflix and chill. I can’t tell you how many shows I started (like six times) and never finished. I breastfed, which meant the baby was crying for food every two to three hours. (Pause show while you quiet his crying and get set up). And, when he finished eating, he needed to be burped, which he could only do effectively if I walked him around the house singing “On top of spaghetti… all covered with cheese…” OK, maybe the song wasn’t necessary, but I was desperate. (Pause show while you pace your house wondering if you missed your American Idol calling).
By this point, he’d likely need to have his diaper changed. And if it happened to be a massive blowout, which so many of them tend to be, that blowout may have necessitated a new outfit entirely. (Pause show while you run upstairs to grab a new onesie and throw the spoiled one in the wash. Oh and while you’re up there, you might as well start a load… which means first you’ll need to move the load you forgot you already ran over to the dryer, which also needs to be emptied). And you probably should empty that diaper pail, too, while you’re at it. Oh, and you should probably quick run to the bathroom while the baby is calm and quiet. Ouch… is that a hunger pain? Wait, did you eat anything today? Quick, shove anything down your throat before he wakes up.) Damn, he’s up again and ready to eat. Rinse and repeat.
And it only gets worse as your baby becomes more mobile – and more aware of the television. Get ready to be judged by the mommy and me crowd if you attempt to watch an episode of Shameless with your two-year-old in tow.
3. Showers
Remember when showers were long and lovely? When you got to use your loofah and your fancy washes and gels? Remember when you had the luxury of shaving your legs? Or when you got to blow dry and even straighten or curl your hair? Yeah… those days will quickly become few and far between.
If your little is an infant, you’ll either be popping in and out of the shower to check on him the entire time, or you’ll take the world’s fastest shower before throwing your soaking hair in a quick top knot and calling it a day. And, really, it’s probably your best move anyway, since the few times my little guy slept or didn’t fuss long enough for me to actually dry my hair, he made up for it by spitting up all over it right after anyway.
And the fun doesn’t stop once they get older. If your little one is a toddler, get ready to have your shower constantly interrupted.
4. Hot Coffee
It’s kind of a cruel joke: Never before have you needed caffeine so badly and yet, never before has it been so difficult to actually consume. Sure, you’ll make it. You might even be so bold as to take a sip or two before the chaos ensues. But inevitably, your newborn will start screaming for food or your toddler will come running by with blue marker all over her face or your older child will drop the bomb that you that you forgot to wash his soccer uniform, and BOOM. Coffee cup down.
5. Your Body
Of course you know that your stomach might look a little different post-baby. While the linea nigra, the dark line running down your belly during pregnancy, will likely fade and eventually disappear over time, the stretch marks you accrued may not. And if your belly button popped during pregnancy, it might look a little different afterwards.
But your belly isn’t the only part of your body that could be permanently changed post-baby.
Your feet, which can grow an entire size when you’re pregnant, may stay that size afterwards. And even if you return to your pre-baby weight, your hips may be permanently wider. That’s right: Having a baby travel through your birth canal can alter your bone structure slightly.
Other potentially permanent changes? Your boobs could grow or shrink, your areolas could darken, and you could retain some of the brown spots on your face that likely appeared during pregnancy (this is officially referred to as melasma). Your hair and nails may also become brittle and limp post-baby – but for most women, this one resolves itself around the year mark.
Dang. Thats a lot of change, right? My advice is to wear it all like a badge of honor. Trust me, it’s taken me some time to come to grips with my C section scar. But when I look at the adorable little face that came to be via that scar, I want to slap myself. My body worked hard to create an entirely new human who is seriously so cute I’m scared I might eat him. That’s worth a little battlescar, no?
6. Privacy
Speaking of your body… It’s a good thing you had some practice having every nook and cranny of your body poked, prodded and stared at over the course of your pregnancy because it only gets worse during labor and delivery. And it stays just as bad during parenthood. Once you’re checked in to the hospital – and of course, once you’re delivering, you will have a multitude of nurses and doctors helping themselves to every part of your body. You will be on display like a turkey on Thanksgiving.
And, if you decide to breastfeed, once you have your little nugget, you’ll have a crew of nurses, lactation consultants and neonatologists immediately in our room watching your baby latch and suck like it’s just another episode of Real Housewives. Except they’ll poke and prod your boobs and nipples as they choose. I guess it’s good because after you’re home from the hospital, your baby will need to eat so often that inevitably, a family member or friend will be there when it’s time to whip out a boob.
7. “Just a Quick Trip” to the Grocery Store
… or anywhere, for that matter. Run out of shampoo? Good luck. Need to grab a carton of milk? Say goodbye to a quick pitstop to grab it. If you have an infant, you will have to time everything perfectly. You’ll need to make sure he has a full feeding before you head out unless you want to risk an eruption in the middle of the store. You’ll want to be sure that his diaper has been changed and that he’s been burped. You’ll want to make sure his carseat is all set up and that the car isn’t too hot or too cold.
And the fun doesn’t stop when your tiny little love terrorist becomes a toddler. With them, there is a whole other set of precautions you have to take. Plus, you’ll be so busy chasing them around the store and picking up the boxes and cans they knock on the floor that you’re likely to forget the items you came to the store for in the first place.
8. Nice Furniture… or Clothes
Say goodbye to anything white or beige. Actually just say goodbye to anything that isn’t black. Because if your infant doesn’t destroy it by coating it with a nice layer of spit up, pee or poop, your toddler most certainly will. Whether it’s with markers, dirt tracked in from outside, or rejected food, your little one will find a way to wreak havoc on your world. Note to self: Consider asking grandma for if you can borrow some plastic furniture covers and go ahead and invest in a hazmat suit.
9. Two Hands
Picture moving clothes from the washer to the dryer, unloading and loading the dishwasher, cooking, peeing, and brushing your teeth all with one hand. If you’re expecting, that’s about to be your life. Because if you want to get anything done, and your little one is screaming bloody murder, the only real solution is often just to scoop that little nugget up and go about your to-dos one-handed. On the upside, you’ll start to get some serious biceps. Just be sure to switch arms or you’ll end up a little lopsided.
And the one-armed fun doesn’t stop for toddler parents. Once your peanut is mobile, you’re going to always need one hand free to play defense against whatever chaos she’s about to create.
Our advice? Invest in a baby carrier and a really good walker.
10. The Left Lane
Hi, my name is Deanna, and I have a serious case of road rage. Not only that, I get a sick
sense of pleasure out of dodging through traffic with the speed and precision of a race car driver. I could bob and weave with the best of them.
But once I had my son, I had to table my speed racing hobby. Suddenly I was responsible for this cute little nugget staring me down in the mirror from the backseat. Which meant that suddenly, the only weaving I wanted to do was to get out of the way of the psychos whose club I used to be part of.
11. Date Nights
…at least in the conventional sense. Forget the spontaneous outings to your favorite spot. Suddenly you have to think about securing a sitter, squeezing in a shower and then guarding against spit up and poop stains once you’re dressed and have your hair in something other than what friends kindly refer to as a messy bun. Then you have to think about how to time your pumping if you’re breastfeeding (and of course, how you can still have that glass of red wine you’ve been dreaming about since getting pregnant), or the bottle if you aren’t.
And let’s just say you do manage to make it out in one piece. Then, it requires a concerted effort to stay awake… and not talk about your little ones the entire night. Phew. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. Takeout, anyone?
Yikes. So are we saying you should rethink having kids?
Not a chance! Regardless of all the things that get harder once you have a little one, there is nothing more rewarding. One snuggle with that tiny little being you created, and you forget every single second that was less than perfect.
I’ll be honest – I was never sure I wanted kids. I was not one of those little girls who played house and dreamed of being a mom when I grew up. In fact, even at the ripe old age of 34, when Nick and I decided to start trying, I wasn’t 100 percent sold that we needed a child to complete us. We were happy. Fulfilled. Spontaneous. We were all the things I wanted out of my relationship. But we eventually arrived at the conclusion that we didn’t NEED a baby; we WANTED one. So Ben was born. And this adventure has been the most amazing and fulfilling journey we have embarked on together. Something about having a baby puts a lot of things in perspective. And one of them is what really matters. And it most definitely isn’t clean clothes and a flat belly. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world – even if I do really miss my hot coffee.
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