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18th February 2016
08:00am GMT
"Once you get used to the idea that you’re pregnant, you find yourself whiling away many the hour daydreaming about how great life is going to be when the little bundle arrives.Allow me to clear a few things up….. 1. DAYDREAM: Baby will lay peacefully in your arms/on the floor, while you pee/make tea/send that email/watch The Sopranos box set. REALITY: Baby doesn’t give a monkey’s about your day. He will figure out new ways to mess up your ‘routine’ on an hourly basis.
2. DAYDREAM: Baby will giggle and laugh at you twenty-four hours a day
REALITY: Babies don’t start smiling until they’re 10 or 11 weeks. 10 or 11 weeks?? That’s a long time to wait. I’m a comedian, anything less than two laughs a minute is a bad gig.
3. DAYDREAM: As soon as baby is born you will fall instantly in love, and all those worries you had will magically melt way.
REALITY: Not so for me. Maybe it was the fact I had a section, or maybe it’s because I don’t do well with moments of expected happiness. (I’ve always been a much happier person in hindsight.) The birth of, let’s face it, a stranger, brought new levels of fear to me. Oh my God. What if he never sleeps? What if he doesn’t like me? And what the hell do I do if I drop him??
4. DAYDREAM: Days will skip by in a haze of cuddles, perfect baby smell and family fun days out.
REALITY: Some days will drag by in a haze of colic, baby poo and arguments over whether husband or you ate the last of the Jaffa cakes.
5. DAYDREAM: You will sleep when baby sleeps and subsequently feel rested all the time, I mean they sleep for twenty-three hours a day, don’t they?
REALITY: Most of the time baby sleeps will be spent trying to enjoy the fact that he’s asleep, mixed with panic that he could wake at any moment. Kind of like attempting to have a massage in a burning building.
6. DAYDREAM: You’ll save money in the short term. Sure, kids are expensive, but not until they’re going to school right? For now, you have everything you need right at home.
REALITY: You’ll spend the equivalent of a small mortgage on coffee. 50% to keep you awake and 50% because that’s a day out now.
7. DAYDREAM: You won’t want to go out.
REALITY: You’ll want to go out. You’ll fantasise about all the things you’ll do once you get out and beat yourself up for not going out more before you had him.
8. DAYDREAM: It’ll be the best thing that ever happened to you.
REALITY: Ok, this one is pretty close to the mark. It may take a while but at some point, when you’re a few months in, you will find yourself gazing at baby wondering what you did with all that love before you had him.
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