Your Baby’s First Year: 32 Things You’ll Obsess About In Your Baby’s First Year

Just had a baby? Here are 32 things you’ll obsess about in your baby’s first year…

1. Why no-one told you childbirth was going to be like *that*
2. If you’ll ever feel normal again
3. The bellybutton clip
4. How your baby could possibly be one week old already – where does time go…?
5. Boobs or bottles, in some form or another
6. Is it too cold? Do they need another blanket? Shall we turn the heating up to ‘super super tropical’? Shall I put an extra top on over their vest, babygro, tights, cardigan and snowsuit? Do they need socks?
7. Is it too hot? What does the back-up thermometer say? Is factor 50 enough? The pram parasol’s not covering a tiny fraction of their body, oh my god
8. How your baby is the most beautiful baby ever and they should probably be a child model despite the fact you don’t believe in that, and all the other mums must be secretly jealous, but yeah
9. Some sort of minor mini person medical non-ailment that will send you into a tailspin of 3am visits to Dr Google and self-prescriptions of worst-case scenarios
10. If your baby will ever sleep through
11. Or just sleep
12. Or if you’ll ever sleep. Or if lack of sleep can actually make you crazy.
13. How you really, really need that life-changing baby thing that’ll solve all your problems immediately. That doesn’t ever work and why did you waste your money?
14. If they’ll ever do X (insert random developmental thing here) because all the other babies in your NCT group are, and how is that person’s baby walking already?
15. How you really, really need another super-cool unisex patterned babygro. That immediately gets covered in sick. Or that super-cute impractical outfit they’ll never, ever wear
16. That all the other mums seem way more natural, sorted and good at this motherhood thing than you are (clue: they’re not)
17. Six months…already? Slow down time!
18. Weaning, how to wean, if they’re eating enough food (not realising that your child will hit three and point blank refuse to eat anything but chips and cucumber for a week on holiday, and you’ll be fine with that because cucumber’s a vegetable, right?)
19. Where that mum over there got her patterned muslins from
20. First tooth is coming…no it’s not…first tooth is coming…no it’s not…first tooth is here! Now, just need to repeat this 19 more times
21. Which top secret super hiding place you put the red book in
22. Your child’s injection scar
23. The best way to spend time during nap time, for the entire nap time
24. How is it ten months? HOW? My baby’s grown up already
25. Going back to work, not going back to work, childcare, if you should have put their name down for nursery pre-conception
26. Some ridiculous thing the health visitor said
27. If your child will be developmentally, emotionally or physically stunted if you miss Baby Yoga this week because you’re too tired to leave the house
28. Some ridiculous thing an old lady in the supermarket or person on a bus said
29. How is it possible your baby is nearly…one?
30. And how did you survive?
31. Why you spent so long obsessing over ridiculous things
32. And isn’t it funny how unconditional love is a real, actual thing? Hey, baby x

P.S. baby milestone cards…for mums and  things I don’t miss about life before children.

Follow me on Instagram