Bullshit. First 6 weeks is pure sleep deprivation. Sure, being a parent is more and more complicated as child gets older but not letting somebody sleep for weeks is literal torture.
Mines about to turn 4, to me it's easier when she can play with toys and stuff and doesn't need to constantly be held or takes 3 hours to finally nod off
Definitely a case-by-case basis
Agreed. I’ve got a 3yr old, 4 yr old, 5 year old and about to have a newborn next month. It definitely gets harder when they can move depending on the child. My middle child got easier for sure after age 2.
Thanks for having kids for me! For anybody else looking to feel less guilty about not having children to keep society running,
SCRAM! Go find your own breeder!
2 month old and 4 year-old for me. I’d say the easiest time was when the first kid was a newborn and they were the only one to worry about. Sicknesses were something that could better be controlled back then.
Currently watching an 8 month old for a friend and it's much easier than watching my nephew who is 1 and crawling. I'm way too scatterbrained to keep up with a kid that doesn't stay where you put them. I'm honestly not sure how my 2 kids survived thru early childhood. That newborn phase is an entirely different beast tho. The sleep deprivation felt like torture. Not sore how I survived that part.
I always called this my "zombie phase". My daughter was very premature and needed to be fed a small amount every 2 hours.
There were times I arrived at appointments and couldn't for the life of me remember driving there.
Each stage of your child's life is exciting and challenging in it's own unique way, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.
Accidental sleep training.
Happened to us once. Month of terrible sleep. Finally in exhaustion slept through the night and she cried herself to sleep for 45 minutes. After that, back to sleeping through the night without waking.
Waking up every hour and a half to get ready for meal time, every 2 hours. Half hour of feeding, and then "sleep" for another hour and a half so we can do it all over again consistantly for weeks, weeks, weeks... That's not even taking my wife's breastfeeding schedule into consideration, which lasted for a whole year.
It's wild, the awesome and mentally devastating power one little potato can unleash on a sleep schedule with such extreme prejudice.
That's bananas. Did your baby cry a lot? We didn't experience that at all. She woke up sure, but it was little more than a quick change or bottle usually. My wife and I had it down pat and took turns day to day, sleep was never an issue.
Newborn = hell. Fun the first time because 1st baby. But with my second I couldn't wait till they started sleeping through the night and developing a personality. 1 year old is fun and you get lots of sleep! Once they're potty trained it's a bit easier. But you still gotta feed em. When they're in school they're WAY more independent but now you gotta contend with homework and trying to steer them into good friend choices.
I haven't gotten to middle/high school yet but I assume having two teenage daughters is gonna be a cakewalk /s
I hope your kids never join the wrong group, when I was in middle/high school I saw lots of ex classmates ruined by their friends, they turned into completely different people, the grand majority didn't even finish.
Going on month 4 now with my first kid. And basically, the way it seems to work is
Prior to going into that period: everyone says ”oh get ready, you’re fucked, it’s so hard”.
Then when you’re in it, “oh get ready the NEXT stage is the hardest”.
It’s been fine. It’s a lot easier than I expected to be quite honest. Ive done plenty of hard things before this, I wouldn’t say this is the hardest.
So my wife and I have had 3 children now. And I basically agree with everything you said.
My wife actually prefers the newborn stage. She says she loves just being in her own bubble with the newborn baby. But she is the one that gets 6months maternity leave!
I do my bit with the baby and am permanently sleep deprived. Then I have to go to work all day wanting to fall asleep and that's where the real torture begins... You're not given special dispensation for being a new dad, people expect you to perform as you did before. You get like a few weeks where people kind of sympathise but also where is the latest reports I ordered, I need them on my desk and can you also go and sort out issue x with person y.
Nope. My kids are now all between 2-10. They sleep through the night. Don't need 24/7 attention and are all cute and want to play with me still. That's the sweetspot
I think for some people the emotional work of having to deal with another person with their own wants and desires (especially the often illogical ones of a child) may be harder than the constant care and lack of sleep when you have an infant.
It took until my daughter was 18 months but she's way easier now than she was as a new born. This meme is dumb because every baby is different and just because for many parents a new born is easy it's not the same experience for others. I'll take my two year old over her six month old self all day every day, but some of my friends had kids that literally just ate, slept, shit, repeat as newborns while mine demanded being held 24/7 and was an awful sleeper.
As a new parent I can believe that. Building up the mental fortitude to not shake the baby, when it's crying, even though you tried everything. There are also multiple risks of them dying to random things and I don't want to imagine the psychological stress.
On the other hand you have a growing child that has WAY more random outputs it can give.
So overall: just having a child is stressful. Don't get children/jk
Apparently common with new parents who go apeshit when they don’t get enough sleep (as if no one ever warned them about sleep deprivation) or mothers with postpartum depression (this one can get more dangerous though)
As someone with nephews but no kids of my own, I have been babysitting for the 4 year old a lot. He just hit me with a HARD “no” when I told him it was time for bed. It was a drawn out *n* with a sharp, punchy *o* - and this was after I let him come downstairs because he was crying that he wanted his mom. Who obviously wasn’t home, or coming home any time soon.
I picked his 35lb ass up and marched him upstairs, as he was kicking, thrashing, and screaming.
I’ve had to wake up every three hours for a stint to feed formula to fresh kittens, and I’d rather do that for like a month straight than try to communicate boundaries to a small child.
I don’t know. It’s depends. The newborn stage is incredibly stressful on your mind and body. I just remember being exhausted and emotionally drained. Then if you have any health issues with the baby that stress just multiplies by 1000.
On the other hand the terrible 2s-terrible 5s can also be incredibly stressful depending on the kid. I’m at 8 with my oldest though and I don’t think I have ever felt like I did when either of my kids were new born.
As a single father I’d say it always gets better. Every year they grow and are capable of more. Raise them right and the workload is less, but the mental/emotional attention to detail goes up as they become teens, which is expected given puberty.
The first 8 weeks WERE A BREEEEEEEEZE. Eat sleep poop, that's it. I played so many video games while my wife rested and did other shit. My wife pumped milk and then went on a week long camping trip after 2-3 months, I stayed home and babysat. Easy peazy. When our baby became mobile tho... all bets off. Sidenote: today is our daughter's 19th cake day!
I feel like it's gonna depend both on the child and how they are being raised. There are kids, even young ones who are polite and respectful and not a total pain. And there are others who are like trying to raise the devil themselves
I imagine it’s subjective and varies from child to child and parent to parent. My oldest is 5 and everything has definitely been getting progressively easier since day 1.
This is only true for people that don’t know how to parent. Raising children is pretty simple if you can communicate with them, give them adequate attention and approach them with patience. It only gets harder for those who want nothing to do with their kids.
Depends on the child I guess. The more they move and make on their own, the easier for me.
Newborn time where you had to carry it all the time was the worst for me.
I had good girls. Both of them slept through the nights. Both of them up at 4am everyday, little diaper change, bottle for them, we both fall back asleep in the recliner.
I actually miss those day the most.
It only gets worse is if you suck at the actual parenting part of parenting.
There's no avoiding the trials of the newborn phase. You can avoid most of the trials of older children by just teaching your kid to be a decent person and treating them like a human being.
Which I know a lot of people fail at, thus this meme is actually valid and true. But that's not a flex.
Source: my two kids who were incredibly easy after the baby stage
All I can say is that having kids is genuinely hard.
There are things that can make it easier: having good support system, your spouse/partner is on the same team, money, and if your kids are easy going, etc.
Love my kids and feel like a better person having gone through the experience… but my god do I feel defeated some days.
Just because something is hard doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing.
Sure you sacrifice your time, and work harder than you ever have before. But you will never know unconditional love until you have a kid, just won’t happen.
Ryan Renolds (weird person to quote, but it’s true) said something like: “I had a dog, thought I couldn’t love something more. Then I met my wife, I was so in love that I would die for her. Then I had a baby, and I would use my wife as a human shield to protect it”.
Maybe I’m not in a stage of life where I’m ready for that. I think I’m too selfish of my personal time right now. I don’t want to lose the ability to do what I want.
In my case, it was unforeseen. Yeah, could’ve been a little “safer”, but I wasn’t and now I’m a family guy.
I wouldn’t trade my kid for the world, though. Yes, the tough times are worth it. Taking a little piece of you and a little piece of someone you love and creating something entirely new and unique is a beautiful thing. It’s not a feeling that can be easily described without a huge oversimplification, and it’s not something I’ve felt anything like before.
Obviously we’re all unique and experience life differently though. Having a kid shouldn’t be something you do on a whim, and you should absolutely do everything in your power to avoid having one until you can answer your own question. You have to consider whether or not it’s worth it to you, and whoever your partner is.
I haven’t been able to answer the question yet so it’s probably best to keep waiting. I know most people end up having kids so there must be something to it. Time will tell
Early days are easy; feed, nappy, clean, dress, cuddles, nappy, feed, clean, smooth. Baby always where you left it, crying usually doesn’t last long, easy mode.
Bullshit. First 6 weeks is pure sleep deprivation. Sure, being a parent is more and more complicated as child gets older but not letting somebody sleep for weeks is literal torture.
I have a 1 month old and a 2.5yr old. It’s easier when they can’t move.
Mines about to turn 4, to me it's easier when she can play with toys and stuff and doesn't need to constantly be held or takes 3 hours to finally nod off Definitely a case-by-case basis
Wait, you're trying to tell me all kids are different? SMH my head, thats ridiculous
>SMH my head This is a good sense of humour my guy
Agreed. I’ve got a 3yr old, 4 yr old, 5 year old and about to have a newborn next month. It definitely gets harder when they can move depending on the child. My middle child got easier for sure after age 2.
This guy fucks!
This^ I wanted to make a Catholic joke, but I thought it'd be gauche.
Thank you for teaching me a new word this fine morning!
Normalise to have 5 kids
Bruh... I have to stop going to work in order to be able to take care of 5 kids.
It's easier when your wife have boyfriend
Bro let your wife breathe for a moment god damn
This one was all her. We did plan on having them close together but number three was a surprise
She can breathe when she's not sleeping through the night.
Bro, are you holding wife on gunpoint?
Lol it’s her with the gun I swear
Thanks for having kids for me! For anybody else looking to feel less guilty about not having children to keep society running, SCRAM! Go find your own breeder!
3yrs and 5mo, I sleep through anything but my wife, she might get 2 hours in a single sitting, at 4pm when I get home
Or say no... To every god damn thing. I swear my 2,5yo hasn't said yes a single time
It’s called the Terrible 2’s for a reason
2 month old and 4 year-old for me. I’d say the easiest time was when the first kid was a newborn and they were the only one to worry about. Sicknesses were something that could better be controlled back then.
The hardest is when they want to move, but can’t on their own.
Big disagree. Once they can move they can entertain themselves. 1 year of getting breakfast ready with 1 hand is enough for me
Currently watching an 8 month old for a friend and it's much easier than watching my nephew who is 1 and crawling. I'm way too scatterbrained to keep up with a kid that doesn't stay where you put them. I'm honestly not sure how my 2 kids survived thru early childhood. That newborn phase is an entirely different beast tho. The sleep deprivation felt like torture. Not sore how I survived that part.
I always called this my "zombie phase". My daughter was very premature and needed to be fed a small amount every 2 hours. There were times I arrived at appointments and couldn't for the life of me remember driving there. Each stage of your child's life is exciting and challenging in it's own unique way, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.
I'm like a heavy sleeper I'm always afraid if I have kids that if they cry I won't hear them.
Accidental sleep training. Happened to us once. Month of terrible sleep. Finally in exhaustion slept through the night and she cried herself to sleep for 45 minutes. After that, back to sleeping through the night without waking.
Waking up every hour and a half to get ready for meal time, every 2 hours. Half hour of feeding, and then "sleep" for another hour and a half so we can do it all over again consistantly for weeks, weeks, weeks... That's not even taking my wife's breastfeeding schedule into consideration, which lasted for a whole year. It's wild, the awesome and mentally devastating power one little potato can unleash on a sleep schedule with such extreme prejudice.
But you're both on leave during that time so you can nap in shifts
*Laughs in American*
I'm American and we have paid leave ...
[удалено]
But but but but America bad
Hm… yes, “We”.
Yes but after that you really don't remember a single thing from that period.
This is the way.
And people with kids keep on making great arguments why not to have kids. Thank you
That's bananas. Did your baby cry a lot? We didn't experience that at all. She woke up sure, but it was little more than a quick change or bottle usually. My wife and I had it down pat and took turns day to day, sleep was never an issue.
Newborn = hell. Fun the first time because 1st baby. But with my second I couldn't wait till they started sleeping through the night and developing a personality. 1 year old is fun and you get lots of sleep! Once they're potty trained it's a bit easier. But you still gotta feed em. When they're in school they're WAY more independent but now you gotta contend with homework and trying to steer them into good friend choices. I haven't gotten to middle/high school yet but I assume having two teenage daughters is gonna be a cakewalk /s
I hope your kids never join the wrong group, when I was in middle/high school I saw lots of ex classmates ruined by their friends, they turned into completely different people, the grand majority didn't even finish.
Going on month 4 now with my first kid. And basically, the way it seems to work is Prior to going into that period: everyone says ”oh get ready, you’re fucked, it’s so hard”. Then when you’re in it, “oh get ready the NEXT stage is the hardest”. It’s been fine. It’s a lot easier than I expected to be quite honest. Ive done plenty of hard things before this, I wouldn’t say this is the hardest.
So my wife and I have had 3 children now. And I basically agree with everything you said. My wife actually prefers the newborn stage. She says she loves just being in her own bubble with the newborn baby. But she is the one that gets 6months maternity leave! I do my bit with the baby and am permanently sleep deprived. Then I have to go to work all day wanting to fall asleep and that's where the real torture begins... You're not given special dispensation for being a new dad, people expect you to perform as you did before. You get like a few weeks where people kind of sympathise but also where is the latest reports I ordered, I need them on my desk and can you also go and sort out issue x with person y. Nope. My kids are now all between 2-10. They sleep through the night. Don't need 24/7 attention and are all cute and want to play with me still. That's the sweetspot
At first a child cannot do anything on their own. Then they begin making mistakes. Which one is harder?
I have a 13 and 9 year old. It’s been smooth sailing since they were around 3. I did get how you think it gets harder than literally not sleeping.
I think for some people the emotional work of having to deal with another person with their own wants and desires (especially the often illogical ones of a child) may be harder than the constant care and lack of sleep when you have an infant.
Literally the easiest it will ever be
I think it really depends on what types of challenges you find more difficult to deal with.
Or how much time you actually spend with the baby.
Everything is hard but my oldest would only scream. Seemed to last forever. Tons of new issues and problems, but at least I get to sleep.
This sub is cooked I’m outta here
I had to check the subreddit I was on… this isn’t dank. Just some boring breeder shit.
My daughter just turned one and some weeks. So much easier than when she was 6 months old.
It took until my daughter was 18 months but she's way easier now than she was as a new born. This meme is dumb because every baby is different and just because for many parents a new born is easy it's not the same experience for others. I'll take my two year old over her six month old self all day every day, but some of my friends had kids that literally just ate, slept, shit, repeat as newborns while mine demanded being held 24/7 and was an awful sleeper.
As a new parent I can believe that. Building up the mental fortitude to not shake the baby, when it's crying, even though you tried everything. There are also multiple risks of them dying to random things and I don't want to imagine the psychological stress. On the other hand you have a growing child that has WAY more random outputs it can give. So overall: just having a child is stressful. Don't get children/jk
No offense, but not shaking the baby is probably the single easiest part of being a parent. Who has to fight this urge??
Apparently common with new parents who go apeshit when they don’t get enough sleep (as if no one ever warned them about sleep deprivation) or mothers with postpartum depression (this one can get more dangerous though)
As someone with nephews but no kids of my own, I have been babysitting for the 4 year old a lot. He just hit me with a HARD “no” when I told him it was time for bed. It was a drawn out *n* with a sharp, punchy *o* - and this was after I let him come downstairs because he was crying that he wanted his mom. Who obviously wasn’t home, or coming home any time soon. I picked his 35lb ass up and marched him upstairs, as he was kicking, thrashing, and screaming. I’ve had to wake up every three hours for a stint to feed formula to fresh kittens, and I’d rather do that for like a month straight than try to communicate boundaries to a small child.
I am just imagining a 6 ft man shot putting his 3ft nephew.
Nah the newborn is a shit ton of work no sleep and not fun I'll take the older runner thanks
My dad told me how I cried so much it gave him PTSD
It is 100% the hardest and it's nor even close
I don’t know. It’s depends. The newborn stage is incredibly stressful on your mind and body. I just remember being exhausted and emotionally drained. Then if you have any health issues with the baby that stress just multiplies by 1000. On the other hand the terrible 2s-terrible 5s can also be incredibly stressful depending on the kid. I’m at 8 with my oldest though and I don’t think I have ever felt like I did when either of my kids were new born.
Ngl OP based on your bio and post history I think you just hate parenting more than most people
You don't have kids, do you?
As a single father I’d say it always gets better. Every year they grow and are capable of more. Raise them right and the workload is less, but the mental/emotional attention to detail goes up as they become teens, which is expected given puberty.
My parents said that first months were the hardest
The first 8 weeks WERE A BREEEEEEEEZE. Eat sleep poop, that's it. I played so many video games while my wife rested and did other shit. My wife pumped milk and then went on a week long camping trip after 2-3 months, I stayed home and babysat. Easy peazy. When our baby became mobile tho... all bets off. Sidenote: today is our daughter's 19th cake day!
I feel like it's gonna depend both on the child and how they are being raised. There are kids, even young ones who are polite and respectful and not a total pain. And there are others who are like trying to raise the devil themselves
Going to become a father in a few months. Going to be a wild experience it seems.
You'll be okay. It doesn't necessarily get harder, just different. I just like to joke about it.
At what age does it get worse?
All of them
I imagine it’s subjective and varies from child to child and parent to parent. My oldest is 5 and everything has definitely been getting progressively easier since day 1.
Just wait until they're teens and hate you and everything you try to teach them is out of touch and wrong. They won't know wisdom until they have it.
The real woke is realizing that raising a child is hard in every level
Finally, somebody who speaks English!
This is only true for people that don’t know how to parent. Raising children is pretty simple if you can communicate with them, give them adequate attention and approach them with patience. It only gets harder for those who want nothing to do with their kids.
Depends on the child I guess. The more they move and make on their own, the easier for me. Newborn time where you had to carry it all the time was the worst for me.
2-3 year olds are nightmare.
Buuuuhuuulshit.
The NICU stage is the hardest
I had good girls. Both of them slept through the nights. Both of them up at 4am everyday, little diaper change, bottle for them, we both fall back asleep in the recliner. I actually miss those day the most.
My sister's kid is 9 months old and seems to have mellowed out some, but he can craw now, and it's all downhill from here.
It only gets harder never easier
I see it as the new born experience is more physically taxing, while the older they get the more it becomes mentally taxing.
It only gets worse is if you suck at the actual parenting part of parenting. There's no avoiding the trials of the newborn phase. You can avoid most of the trials of older children by just teaching your kid to be a decent person and treating them like a human being. Which I know a lot of people fail at, thus this meme is actually valid and true. But that's not a flex. Source: my two kids who were incredibly easy after the baby stage
For those first few months there's not a whole lot of difference responsibility-wise between a baby and a puppy.
Snip snip gang
This is exactly true with puppies too.
I see stuff like this and wonder why people have kids. Is it worth it? Genuinely curious.
All I can say is that having kids is genuinely hard. There are things that can make it easier: having good support system, your spouse/partner is on the same team, money, and if your kids are easy going, etc. Love my kids and feel like a better person having gone through the experience… but my god do I feel defeated some days.
Just because something is hard doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. Sure you sacrifice your time, and work harder than you ever have before. But you will never know unconditional love until you have a kid, just won’t happen. Ryan Renolds (weird person to quote, but it’s true) said something like: “I had a dog, thought I couldn’t love something more. Then I met my wife, I was so in love that I would die for her. Then I had a baby, and I would use my wife as a human shield to protect it”.
Maybe I’m not in a stage of life where I’m ready for that. I think I’m too selfish of my personal time right now. I don’t want to lose the ability to do what I want.
In my case, it was unforeseen. Yeah, could’ve been a little “safer”, but I wasn’t and now I’m a family guy. I wouldn’t trade my kid for the world, though. Yes, the tough times are worth it. Taking a little piece of you and a little piece of someone you love and creating something entirely new and unique is a beautiful thing. It’s not a feeling that can be easily described without a huge oversimplification, and it’s not something I’ve felt anything like before. Obviously we’re all unique and experience life differently though. Having a kid shouldn’t be something you do on a whim, and you should absolutely do everything in your power to avoid having one until you can answer your own question. You have to consider whether or not it’s worth it to you, and whoever your partner is.
I haven’t been able to answer the question yet so it’s probably best to keep waiting. I know most people end up having kids so there must be something to it. Time will tell
Early days are easy; feed, nappy, clean, dress, cuddles, nappy, feed, clean, smooth. Baby always where you left it, crying usually doesn’t last long, easy mode.
Speak for yourself lol. Be Glad you had kids that didn’t cry for long as babies.