Guest Post: Five Things I Wish I'd Known When The Boy Was The Baby

This guest post is from the lovely Debra, whose blog can be found at An Imperfect Life. She also has a son, but he is now a teenager and this post talks about looking back at the days her son was a little baby. Do check her blog out!

I have a nearly-teenager now. Proof of this status is the Fog of Lynx (TM) emanating from his bedroom on a twice daily basis. God, that stuff really sticks in your throat. Anyhow, being a number of years down the road  means that I can look back and think of all the things I wish I'd known when The Boy was "The Baby" in our house. Imagine the screen going slightly wobbly here and some flashback music playing....

Credit to sabianmaggy

1. He will sleep through the night. Of course he would, but at 6 weeks when my eyebags were resting on my chin that seemed a complete impossibility. In the end he slept through really well from about 12 weeks and only woke up again once a) he needed solids and b) was teething, both of which my wonderful Health Visitor saw me through.

2. We too will sleep through the night. Even though he was sleeping beautifully pretty early we still found ourselves waking to every cough, toss and turn (and yes, we were in separate bedrooms). This phase passed too. Now we don't hear him getting up and firing up the XBox. Bliss.

3. Following the Annabel Karmel book to the letter does not guarantee you a non-picky eater. Trust me on this one. I mulched that papyaya like a good 'un, and to be fair, I wouldn't call him a fussy eater. But he certainly wouldn't touch papaya with a barge pole now, or any other fruit that looks vaguely "exotic".

4. He will not be wearing nappies when he is 10. Even though we had to abandon the first attempt at potty training as a complete disaster and I worried myself stupid that we'd never get there. 

5. We absolutely need to write stuff down / video him / take photos. Ten years down the line you will not be able to remember what he looked like when he was crawling, the cute things he said whilst sat in his high chair and that very first hair cut. Record it somehow. And label it - I read somewhere of someone who can't tell the baby photos of her four kids apart.