7 Things I Wish I’d Known Before We Had Kids

Parenthood is an ongoing learning curve and a job for which you are never wholly prepared. But, if I could have been given a heads up, here are the things I wish I’d known before we had kids:

1. Even a rock-solid marriage will be tested when you have a newborn.

Everyone tells you, “Oh it’s all different after the baby comes,” but no one seems to go into detail as to how things change after your baby is born. Not to toot our own horn, but I dismissed this vague warning out of hand because Andrew and I had a stable and deeply loving marriage. 

But once we became a family of three, that foreshadowed change came in the form of me silently but resentfully taking on a lot of the care responsibilities and “invisible labor” of managing the household. I was not telling Andrew what support I needed and was increasingly bitter. Was this our new life together?? 

One book I highly recommend new parents read is How to Not Hate Your Husband After Kids by Jancee Dunn. Dunn delves into how and why marriages change once the baby arrives and, even more importantly, how your marriage can impact your child’s well-being and upbringing. After reading this book and starting couple’s therapy, we worked through a lot of my communication stonewalling and struck a healthier balance of shared parenthood to get our marriage into an even stronger place than before kids. 

2. Making parent friends is hard.

Tabling the COVID pandemic aside for a moment (which has made it next to impossible to make parenting friends): making parent friends is surprisingly difficult for me.

I’m not an extrovert, so I’m not one to easily strike up a conversation with another parent at the playground. Moreover, it felt like as soon as I got comfortable with the familiar faces at the park (who tend to be there at the same predictable time each day) and mustered the courage to schedule a solo playdate, one of our kids’ nap schedules would change and they would no longer be at the playground at the time as us. 

What I have learned though is that parents are surprisingly eager to commiserate and share pro tips on the best scooter helmet or life hacks on how to make your own bubble solution. So, if you’re looking for a way to nonchalantly introduce yourself, ask another parent, “Where did you get that snack container?” and you’re in.

3. Being the parent of a newborn is very isolating. 

I don’t think anyone told me that watching a newborn is so boring-- or at least it can be at times. First of all, when you’re solo with your baby, getting out the door is a monumental task, compounded by a plaguing fear that you’re forgetting something or “now is not a good time.” Therefore, you’re likely to forgo an afternoon walk because, frankly, it’s simply easier to not go.

And secondly, even though the baby is asleep for 90% of the day, there is still somehow no time whatsoever for you to shower or do anything for yourself. It’s very frustrating when you look back at your day with your newborn and think, “What did I even do all day?!” 

This weird elasticity of time (both going by so slowly and so quickly) levels out as your child ages and you become more confident as a parent. But it was definitely a struggle for me at the beginning when I went from being able to tear through a to-do list in an hour to suddenly not brushing my teeth until 5 PM.

4. It’s more important to take a nap than to fold the laundry.

Whatever nagging chore you have to do or phone call you have to make while your baby naps, skip it. Go nap! We have an entire blog post dedicated to the importance of taking naps, especially when your baby is firstborn, so read more here.

5. Parenthood is a constant battle of FOMO.

As a working mom (even while working from home), I worry a lot about missing out on precious time with Lee. When Andrew offers to take Lee to the playground so I can relax at home solo, I fear that I’ll miss out on some memorable event that day. But then I also worry that I’m not taking care of myself mentally, so I should really stay home… And around and around I go, fearing all of what I might be missing out on by choosing this door instead of the other.

6. You probably won’t want to spend the money on date night.

The number of times Andrew and I have told our therapist, “We know we need to go out on a date, but…” is embarrassing. We barely venture out after 6 PM anymore. 

While we recognize that it’s important for us to get out and do something as a couple (and not a family), we’re kind of cheap about it. Factoring in the cost of a babysitter, dining out, transportation home for us, and said babysitter, the cost of date night becomes too inflated for us to justify when we’re seemingly just as content to split a $10 bottle of wine on the couch.

That said, we know we need to go out on a date...

7. You are no longer an “on-time person”; you’re now an, “Ohmigod, I can’t believe we’re only 15 minutes late!” person.

We used to be a very punctual couple-- always exactly on time for a reservation or fashionably late to a cocktail party. But after Lee, it is a constant mad dash to get anywhere even remotely on time. I liken it to a bit on The Benny Hill Show in which everyone is just running in and out of rooms and then there’s a man in a gorilla costume that walks through… I could not even explain to you what it is exactly that we’re doing that zaps all of our time; we just sometimes can’t seem to get out of our own way and out the front door. 

For more hard-learned lessons from our first year as parents, read our blog post “12 Lessons for New Parents” here.