11 Things I Swore I’d Never Do As A Parent… But I Did!

Do you know when you are the most perfect parent? Before you have kids, that’s when!! When you imagine how life with a teeny baby will be. You picture yourself looking lovingly down at your baby at 3 am, being able to go for brunch with all of your Mummy friends and not hearing a peep out of your little one, thinking you will have all that time on your hands to bake homemade goodies for them…

Hahaha.

Oh, the things I thought I would do and the things I swore I’d never do as a parent. I don’t even know who that person was!! Let’s face it, we all do what we can do to survive (and for the kids to survive!)

Here are 11 things I swore I’d never do as a parent…

 

Rocking

I promised myself I wouldn’t be one of those parents who rocked my baby until my arms almost fell off. I would put him down and he would quietly soothe himself whilst I got on with the housework and probably stayed down for 2 hours. (Oh, how I am cringing right now!)

 

Dummy

‘My baby will never, ever have a dummy, urgh those things are hideous and so unnecessary’… Ummm, yeah so Jake had a dummy on like day 3 and we couldn’t shift the thing until he was over 2! I tell you what though, it worked and it meant that both me and him slept. Shame the latest addition refuses to take one!

 

Screen Time

More using a tablet to occupy the child than restricting TV because I love TV and would go insane myself without it but to allow my child to sit and watch other children unwrap plastic crap, play games and find the most annoying YouTube kids in the world? Never, I was never going to allow that!

 

Swear

This means me. I swore I would never swear around my kids but my god they push you to your limits don’t they?! Then the F-bomb slips out (usually under a muttered breath) and suddenly it becomes your child’s new favourite word! Oh, you can’t say Mummy properly but you can say that perfectly, can’t you?!

 

Chicken Nuggets

I can’t cook. I don’t even like cooking so why on earth did I think I was going to be able to do it the moment I became a parent?! I dreamt of creating beautiful healthy meals, serving them up with a huge smile on my face and watching my children clear their plates… Oh dear, I wish I could go back to my old self and point and laugh! Yes, I serve up chicken nuggets, I also give them fries, turkey dinosaurs and pasta just with cheese on top because that is all they (Jake that is) will bloody eat! Pick your battles people, pick your battles.

 

Co-Sleep

Judgey McJudge pants has well and truly left the building. Until you have a child/baby who will not sleep you have no clue. Co-sleeping has probably saved my sanity and yes he may be almost a year old and still sleep in with us for most of the night but I don’t see it as a problem. I am pretty sure he won’t be doing it by the time he’s 20!

 

Shout

If you don’t shout are you even a parent?! I honestly don’t know how anybody gets their kids to move if they don’t raise their voice. I try with the softly, softly ‘please will you get ready’, ‘please darling will you put your shoes on?’, ‘please will you tidy up just a little?’ After the 6th time, it gets just a little tedious and don’t even get me started on getting out the door for school on time!

 

Be Late For School

See above. I’m not sure what happens to kids when they start school, they seem to lose the inability to move. Show them a playground in the distance and they will run over hot coals without a second thought but tell them they have school? Suddenly they are hard of hearing, have a bad leg, cannot climb the stairs anymore, are super tired and can only move at the pace of a snail that has just woken from a coma… sigh.

 

Stare At My Phone

I couldn’t understand why those Mums would sit on their phones at the park and be ‘missing out’ on all that fun. Oh yeah, I know now. It’s because you’ve done the park thing a gazillion times before, it’s because you are so tired you cannot bring yourself to say well done for going down a slide yet again, it’s because you need that other adult interaction even if that only is virtually. My phone is my gateway to a bit of me time and I am not ashamed for saying it.

 

Empty Threats

Nope never going to have to use this one… hahaha I do crack myself up! I still don’t know why I do it? They don’t get me anywhere and I usually stand there for ages trying to think up the next threat (unless it’s near to Christmas and I can pull the Santa card out of the stocking like 2 months early!) ‘If you don’t get your shoes on in the next five seconds you won’t…’ Won’t what Emma? Oh yeah, that’s right you have no clue because you’ve already used the same empty threat 652 times before so he knows you don’t mean any of it! Yet sometimes you feel as though you need to say something in the heat of that moment, don’t you?

 

Buy The Annoying Toy/Magazine in the Shop

Anything for some peace. What pre-parent me didn’t realise was that sleep deprivation messes with your brain. You cannot focus, you cannot think properly and you cannot block out that incessant whine for the crappy toy or magazine your beloved child spotted as soon as you walked in the supermarket door. The number of magazines I have bought just for the toys is ridiculous but I don’t regret any of them. That bit of quiet whilst trying to shop was so worth it!

I am pretty sure I could have probably written 101 things I swore I’d never do as a parent but to be honest I am far too tired for that. Let me know which ones you would have added though.

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