5 mummy realities I didn’t see coming

Every new mum expects sleepless nights and for their bank account to take a massive hit, but it’s often the little details of your baby raising journey that stay with you. These are my random five:-

• You will run out of baby wipes at a critical moment.

Last week I was getting into what was meant to be a stealth, well-practiced back-seat-of-the-car nappy change. It was anything but. The generous pile of poo fell out of the nappy into the car, Harriet’s legs were covered and so were my hands. To my horror I found I had just two wipes left. I only managed to get through the ordeal with some careful folding that an origami expert would be proud of.

• The opportunity for an ‘al fresco’ prosecco (sadly) won’t be your first thought on a sunny day.  

Little ones make mess from every orifice and from everything. You will spend more time with your washing machine than your own family. No surprise there. But what may surprise you is turning into that kindly old aunt (who wasn’t really an aunt) who lived three doors down from you growing up and only ever seemed to talk to your mum about how it was a good/bad day for washing. You will rejoice in being able to hang clothes out on a sunny day and I can not explain the ecstasy of managing to hang out more than one load in 24 hours. You will feel like you’re winning at life.

• You will go out, unknowingly, with baby sick on some part of your body.

Everybody will be too polite to tell you. However, it’s likely to happen frequently enough for you not to give a flying fig in the end, miles from the mortification you felt when it first happened.

• You will talk about baby poo. A lot.

The number of bowel movements,  consistency and even smell (spinach and ricotta pizza anybody?) will be acceptable conversation detail with family members and other parents – nothing will be out of bounds. You will up the ante on poo talk when you start weaning. Every mum has marvelled at what banana looks like on the other side(!).

• Google* will become your best friend… and worst enemy

Day and night you will ask it the randomest questions and it will always deliver – though whether it clarifies or confuses is for another day! No matter how weird or specialist, some mum has already asked the same question. Some of my notable ones were ‘Does my baby hate me?’ and ‘Is my baby’s head too big?’ Another guarantee is that on your obsessive clicking through numerous answers and links you’ll somehow still end up on YouTube watching dancing cats.

I’d love to hear about the things you weren’t prepared for. Leave them in the comments section or Tweet me!

*Other search engines are available(!)