are you the parent you thought you’d be?

I had a thought today as I was sitting on the couch with T after I'd fed him to sleep (11 months of doing this hehe) and then put him down in my bed where he has his nap and then sleeps for the night, that this is not what I thought i'd be doing. I dont mean that in a negative way at all because I absolutely love the way things are with me and T, however if someone had told me i'd still be breastfeeding on demand, co-sleeping and various other things at 11 months, I probably wouldnt have believed them. It started with my birth, I thought id stay in hospital for a few days and then go home, but ended up going home 4 hours after T was born. I always knew I would never let T CC or CIO so never have, and I for some reason assumed I wouldnt be able to BF. It was bloody painful and hard, but happily still going now 11 months later. I also thought that once T hit 6 months he would be in his cot in his own room - but 6 months came and went and I just had this feeling that I didnt want him by himself, and we started co-sleeping. I also assumed I would have a rather structured routine, again this never happened, we have a generalised routine I guess, but one that im flexible with, I love the way that I parent (not gloating here just meaning that it works so well for me and T) and I intend on keeping on going this way until whenever it happens to change, so just wondering how any other people have found themselves parenting in a way they wouldnt have necessarily first thought?

Bizzy wrote: the short answer is No. In the beginning though i think i did... but my perfect birth went out the window with the induction. I'm not the mum i thought i would be or the mum i want to be quite often... Then again parenting isnt what i thought it would be either! Kids dont do what they are told! babies were easy compared to toddlers, preschoolers, school age kids!

i am in agreement with all that you have said...i feel like i am a horrible mother when i am stressed (and im majorily stressed at the moment), but i have learnt that no matter what my kids love me and at the end of the day, as long as i can tell them that i love them and they smile and hug me then its all okay

Nope. I'm very much like you Nic..I feed my baby to sleep and co-sleep with him hehe I love it so much.
But when I think back to when I was UTD I never thought I'd do it like this..Even my birth was a bit different then how I'd of liked but ohwell.

HOWEVER lol apart from those things YES I am haha so far. Of course DS is still a baby things will be TOTALLY different as he grows. I guess time will only tell aye

Hmmm

Well we parent the way I always thought we would ... we dont smack, our kids dont want for much etc etc.

However .. we dont yet have the family life I envisaged, but mostly because our kids are still quite little.

Both DH and I are quite active individuals and we always imagined weekends outdoors playing with the kids, teaching them to surf etc etc .. however we kind of need Elias to be able to stand up for that and he just seems to be too lazy.

i think im pretty much what i wanted to be. i always said my kids wouldnt have junk or packaged food except on special occasions and they wouldnt watch tv until they were at least 2. most other things i was cruisy about. i was lucky enough to have chilled kids so far who will eat what they are given, dont need to be cried or fed to sleep but i strongly beleive that was just good luck and nothing to do with my parenting. lol.

on the odd occasion my oldest has jar food and might get a treat from family members but i have almost entirely stuck to my original thoughts. i dont have a problem with tv or junk food at all its just something i wanted to avoid myself until the kids are a bit older.

Pillow_Fight hehe yea we all love co-sleeping here too, its so nice!

Aww thanks Emmecat so kind of you hun Im a bit concerned with when T gets too big (we don't have the biggest bed lol)

and i agree with everyone who mentioned about the tempers after a night of little sleep and then feeling terrible for being in a bad mood and about how its definitely harder then i could have ever imagined - but also more rewarding and amazing then i could have ever thought!

Probably not, but I can't identify how I'm different.

I do know I'm not the parent I'd *like* to be but I have an idealised version of the perfect parent.

No way. i thought I would be much better.

Hah - I thought I'd be much better too! I was in no way prepared for this level of sleep deprivation.

Also - I used to think that people who coslept were seriously weird and crazy types. Now, if DH would agree I'd happily just cosleep every night - as it is, bubs comes into our bed in the small hours VERY frequently (I love it!)

Nope - I never had much faith in my ability to be a mum... I have always killed my plants and been hopeless with pets too and I was always worried I wouldn't cut it as a mum.... I have surprised myself as my children are healthy, happy, individuals whom I have managed to feed, cloth and care for pretty sucessfully... There are definitely things I've done as a mum I would change but on a whole things are going ok...