Is there anything nice about bringing up babies? 
I want kids someday and my fiancee does, but she is extremely fearful that she won’t be able to take the stress (she’s a very stressed person by nature).
How does one cope?
This still makes me laugh until I can’t breathe. So true.
Seriously, it’s overwhelmingly nice. Yes, there are the irritations that have been outlined in this thread, but it seriously pales into insignificance because hey, you’ve got this amazing little person that you created, who is growing and changing and learning new things day by day. That far outweighs the stress.
(Disclaimer: this is based on my experience, as half of a stable and loving couple and with a relatively happy (if insomniac) baby. I can see that single parents left to fend for themselves with some hellspawn might disagree…)
You cope because at a certain point, you have no choice. You get a certain clarity from just knowing exactly what it is that you have to do. The rest is just execution. It’s often unpleasant execution, but there is no condition in life that can prevent a sage from discharging his duty.
A lot of the sources of stress become pretty routine. You start getting used to some of the bullshit after awhile. The good things, on the other hand, stay fresh. Tickling the crap out of my son is every bit as fun as it was a year ago, but the stuff that bothered me then barely pings the radar. My son is autistic so we have other sources of stress.
I don’t know, but you do. Infantosity is 6 months old, doesn’t sleep at night for more than an hour at a time, doesn’t sleep during the day AT ALL, and screams for 70% of the time she’s awake.
But the remaining 30% of the time she’s so unbelievably adorable that I would forgive her anything.
My mom says that the best thing about having babies was having her grown daughters at the end.
(Since I was the barfiest, loudest baby anyone had ever encountered, that’s saying a lot.)
ETA: Don’t have a child with someone who doesn’t want to. It will not go well.
The things a breast-fed baby can do to a diaper? Shocking. Appalling. Nauseating. The crying? You cry with her, of course. When she hurts, you hurt. The job requires empathy and patience. It apparently develops with the infant. Two months in and I’ve yet to experience true frustration or aggravation. Triumphs, though: in spades.
My baby has been smiling and laughing in her sleep since her first day out. Since six weeks, she wakes up in the morning and from every nap grinning. Wrinkling her tiny nose, shrugging, making joyful noises. Laughs out loud at nothing at all. Doesn’t mind hugs, kisses, or silly lovey talk, even in copious quantities. She nurses with gusto, out burps and out farts a frat boy, and surprises herself and her parents with sudden happy squeals that sound like ad-libs on a Prince album. Generally we yell “Minneapolis!” after such exclamations. When she sees us coming towards her with arms outstretched, she grins so big a yawn often sneaks in. Every single day there is a new accomplishment, a step towards a milestone. She’s a wonder.
It’s fantastically nice. The problem is that exactly what’s nice about it is difficult to put into words, while the not-so-nice parts are easy to describe.
(Emphasis added.)
This. My daughters are 25 and 22, and I still recall . . .
[ul]
[li]The older daughter waving to us in utero on the ultrasound. The doctor said it was reflex; I know different.[/li][li]The first recognizable smile. The fact that in both cases it accompanied a massive BM was irrelevant.[/li][li]The look of delight they both had when they managed to snatch my glasses off my nose (sort of an exercise in eye-hand coordination which was the — pardon the expression — “dessert” that followed a successful diaper changing).[/li][li]Etc, etc, etc.[/li][/ul]Granted, there are heartbreaks that linger as well (mainly caused by the knowledge that you can’t take their pain on yourself). But these are tempered, in the long run, by the knowledge that the pain helped them to grow into the wonderful people they are. The joys, on the other hand, remain unsullied.
Couple more things:
Reading through, I remember now I had a relative who fashioned a kind of doll (looked sort of like a ghost) from a diaper! She embroidered a face on the thing and fashioned a head (I imagine one could get quite creative with a handful of embroidery floss). This was the nighty-night dolly only, for years, easily washed, easily replaced!
My kid favored one kind of pacifier, and only that one kind. We had to send away for them as they were kind of rare. If you do allow pacifiers, be SURE to check them carefully every so often as if the kid is getting teeth, they can chew on the rubber and they can come apart and be a choking hazard. One day I gave her a new one. She popped it in her mouth, took it out and scowled at it, and flung it away in disgust. 
No more pacifiers from that moment on!
If the baby is taking a late afternoon nap…please, resist the temptation to just let her sleep on and on. It will wreak havoc with her bedtime later.
When they’re learning to walk, and you have a coffee table? Buy or rig up some kind of protective bumper, even if it looks awful, otherwise they will have a black and blue forehead for weeks.
One of the amazing, fun things about young kids that really tickled us: even if they aren’t talking yet, they understand YOU. We were cleaning out my late m-i-l’s house and I said to Baby Sali, “bring mommy the (brass) cricket by the fireplace”, and that is exactly what she did!
Yeah, the good things stay in your mind forever. There’s a lot of drudgery and boredom, interspersed with moments of sheer panic, but the good things make it all worthwhile. And it won’t be forever. The days crawl, but the years just fly right by!
I will add a step to Mama Zappa’s very important advice: When they pick their comfort toy, buy three, and swap them out at every washing.
Celtling does not know that she has three "Ashley-dog"s. Each time one goes into the washer, the next one goes into her bed and the oen coming out of the dryer hits the back of the line. She’s five now, so this has only happened tqice this year, but it used to be nearly a daily occurrence.
Her blanky OTOH she’d had about 2-3 weeks before I bought the second one. I never could get that second one to feel right to her, and she always knew if it was “Blanky number 1” or “Blankey number 2” I had given her. More on that here.
That’s brilliant!
Just popping in to advise: You think your own baby is cute and adorable and fun? This pales in comparison to your grandchildren. Plus you get a full night’s sleep and can give them back to mom & dad when they are cranky.
Hijack (though somewhat related): I have to put in a plug for San Francisco Music Box company. I bought Bunny #1 there just before Christmas of the year we gave it to Dweezil.
The Exorcist reenactment was about 2 months later. I was home while Typo Knig was at work. I asked him to stop into SFMBCo at the nearby mall to buy a new one. He was paying for it and mentioned to them what had happened, and they insisted “Bring the old one in, we have a 1-year unconditional warranty and we’ll replace it free!!”. He tried arguing that the thing was in no way defective, but they were insistent. So he came home sans Bunnyclone. We put the old one in a plastic bag and sealed it up. We took it to the mall the next and they happily gave us the replacement. We handed the bag containing the messy one, saying “we STRONGLY suggest you do NOT open the bag!!” (as it had, well, been marinating at room temperature for 24 hours).
The fact that there were no environmental alerts or mall evacuations would seem to suggest they took our advice.
But we showed 'em - we bought 2 more over the next couple of months :D.
So anyway - while there is no longer a SFMBCo anywhere near us, I have a fond spot for the chain.
My sister in law was a control freak. She once got mad because she’d invited a dozen people for coffee and four of us paired up in ways she had not expected: anything unexpected was a personal offense.
Then she had kids. Two of them. The first one offended her by being bred sooner than she’d expected (she doesn’t understand statistics at all and confused “most couples get pregnant within two years of starting to try” with “people get pregnant exactly two years after starting to try”); by being a boy; by not just kicking but elbowing, cartwheeling, punching and headbutting (preferably her bladder); by having a (minor, damnit) birth defect. By the time number two arrived, she was a lot calmer, and able to state “you know how they say girls kick less than boys? Not true!” without yelling or looking murderous.
She’s still a control freak, but only about 1/10 as much as she used to be. Babies throw so many curve balls, you don’t just fucking learn to bat, you learn to do it while somersaulting.
As for good things: smiles. Widdle baby feet. The tiniest hand, holding Daddy’s thumb and making it look for all the world like the baby was born in Brobdingnag. A constant state of wonder (so long as nothing hurts, and sometimes even when). Being told your thighs are the bestest pillows ever (thanks, bro - ok, he was 5 at the time). Discovering just who this person is - I don’t have biokids, but I coparented my bros; one’s a night-owl, the other a morning person; one loves (spectator) sports, the other one had to finally learn about “bloody footie” because otherwise he couldn’t partake of the conversation at work on Monday morning; one’s mind has so much of a tendency to wander we’ve threatened with anchoring it to the floor, the other one needs occasional reminders that “the world doesn’t end half a handspan above sea level”. The baby is discovering the world while you’re discovering him.
There are nice things. Being able to re-experience things for the first time through their eyes is amazing. The whole sensory experience of a baby- the way they cuddle into you trustfully, the first time they deliberately wrap their arms around you, the first smile, the way they smell, it’s all amazing.
And little kids are frustrating and difficult but also hilarious. It’s like living with tiny drunks. They’re so funny and so strange.
Yes. There are good things, and the stresses don’t all happen at once, anymore than you have to do every aspect of your job or take care of every marital problem at once. You can relax, and you only have to deal with one moment at a time, especially with babies. They make you live in the moment.
Just wanted to tell you to take it easy on yourself with this. My first one I tried everything for about six weeks, and it just wasn’t working. Lots of frustration and tears from both of us. It did get to a point where I said, ya know, this just isn’t working, and felt horrible about it. But life went on, he will be 16 next month and he’s a big healthy boy. Okay, he’s pretty much towering over me and fully man-sized, but he’s still my baby. I have since had four other children, and am expecting another in about four weeks. They all took right to nursing with absolutely no problems, but my first just didn’t.
You and your new baby both have zero experience with breastfeeding, don’t make yourself crazy over not getting it to work out. It really is a blind leading the blind kind of situation. Formula is not poison and it is not a reflection on your ability as a mother if breastfeeding doesn’t pan out. Best of luck to you both and God Bless.