Are you a 'baby' person?

Catwoman echoed my sentiments exactly on a previous thread, when she said that she's not really a baby person. I always wanted a family, but wasn't that fussed about having babies IYSWIM?

My feelings about babies at various ages are:

Newborns are cute and cuddly, but only interest me for about 5 minutes. Once you've done the whole "Look at how tiny his fingers/toes/ears are!" about a zillion times, and they're still just sleeping, feeding and pooing; newborns are really rather...................well, dull I distinctly remember anwering, when asked ifI was enjoying my ne wbaby, "Well, yes. But he doesn't do anything!"

8 weeks-4 months is frustrating, they've woken up, but you can't really 'play' with them yet; feeding, sleeping, crying etc are all usually worst around this stage.

5-9 months is frustarting because the babies are frustrated! They want to be sitting/crawling/rolling/picking stuff up that they can't etc. This whole time period blurred into a frustrated, grumpy baby mess for me.

9-12 months : well and truly on the move and into everything; but with no sense of danger, or of other people's property, or any understanding of the words "No!", "Stop!" or "Hot!"......I feel like I've spent the last couple of months prying Sebastian's finger's from aroundwires, out of sockets; pulling paper, plastic, grass and stones out of his mouth (not to mention his own poo )

12 months plus: This is where it gets interesting. And hard. But interesting. And hard. Little personalities really begin to emerge...Sebastian very much has a distinct personality now, rather than just being a rather generic baby...he has little quirks and mannerisms, and vocalisations. He copies me and kisses me and laughs at my jokes. He has very set ideas on what he does and doesn't like, and, when in a good mood, is hugely entertaining.....Bill Bailey, Jimmy Carr and Steve Martin combined couln't make me laugh so much (I'm choosing to gloss over the bad bits for now! Suffice it to say, its hard work!)

My favourite age by far though, has been from when Elijah turned 2.5 ish. My baby has turned into this  handsome, bright, compassionate, funny, chatty, imaginative, and utterly charming little boy Watching his face as he processes new information, listening to him telling Daddy all about his day when he's in thebath; watching him interact with his peers when he doesn't know I'm there; marvelling at his imagination as he plays with his trains/farm animals and invents characters and stories for them; the pleasure I get when other people tell me how polite/kind he is; seeing him comfort his little brother when he cries, even though he just broke his trainset a minute before; hearing the funny way he sings along to the  radio; and most of all.....hearing him say, "Thanks Mummy. You are the best Mummy in the whole world".  Well, what's not to love?!

So, with that fluff out of the way....are you a 'baby' person? What's your favourite age?

No, I'm not a baby person, but I don't know yet if that's just because of the baby days with S or more general. Babies are dependent, exhausting, worrying, and it's difficult to get feedback from them other than a wail (so in summary v cute but tiring).

I love love love her since about 18m though! I'm definitely a toddler person, and it's all getting better every day [fluff].

I'm definitely not having Bean because I want another baby, I'm having Bean because I want another child (the baby stuff just comes with, of course!)

macca:

My favourite age by far though, has been from when Elijah turned 2.5 ish. My baby has turned into this  handsome, bright, compassionate, funny, chatty, imaginative, and utterly charming little boy Watching his face as he processes new information, listening to him telling Daddy all about his day when he's in thebath; watching him interact with his peers when he doesn't know I'm there; marvelling at his imagination as he plays with his trains/farm animals and invents characters and stories for them; the pleasure I get when other people tell me how polite/kind he is; seeing him comfort his little brother when he cries, even though he just broke his trainset a minute before; hearing the funny way he sings along to the  radio; and most of all.....hearing him say, "Thanks Mummy. You are the best Mummy in the whole world".  Well, what's not to love?!

I adore babies and cannot wait for the chance to try for one myself. I find myself marvelling at how you can bring such a tiny human being into the world and how you are completely responsible for everything in their world and how you can watch them grow in all the different ways.

I used to avoid tiny babies as I worried I would drop them but after holding my youngest goddaughter at 5 hours old, I was completely smitten and that was first really broody (she was five two weeks ago. [weeks])

I love all stages really, especially if I know them and know their personality so I interact with them more.

I LOVE newborns, I could quite happily sit there cuddling one for hours!

Like you the 5-18mths stage - I'm not keen on as I find it really frustrating.  It's lovely to see them learning and trying hard to do things but I felt as though I was in a never ending circle of moving stuff, picking up, etc... and a broken record always saying "No!", "Stop!", blah, blah, blah

18mths + - I didn't find this too bad, as J was talking more and could communicate with us a little better.

Now at 2yrs 10mths - he's a very independant little boy, who is very demanding (and frustrating at times) but the majority of the time is absolutely lovely .

I'm not a baby person at all, always found them boring tbh and currently think we are in the dog house with the inlaws as we've only been to see our new nephew once since he was born 3 weeks ago but I just don't get the obsession with teeny new borns, I never really have any desire to hold someone elses baby and tbh we're not that close to SIL/BIL so find we are struggling for conversation with them.

HOWEVER with my own I was somewhat different as somehow seeing your own child learning something new whether it's clapping, smiling whatever it just seems more interesting that when anyone elses baby does it - or is that just me??

Daniel is at his most amusing and challenging at the moment (10 and bit months), well and truely mobile, into every single thing but his personality is right there and he's a cheeky little monkey, can put you down with a look - he is rather exhausting though at the moment so I think I will enjoy it more when he is more vocal and able to understand 'no' a little better.

I love newborns. I find them fascinating, cute and amazing.

I'm not so interested in them past those early days though

I'm loving the good parts of the 3+ at the moment (like you, ignoring the bloody awful moments ). As O was opening his presents this afternnoon, he just looked up at me and said 'I'm a very, very lucky boy Mummy'

i can't comment on the new born bit as i didn't have one of those 24 hours a day.

However i preferred things in someways when she was still having milk but slept through the night.  Food is a nightmare.

at 18 months i'm not sure things are getting easier and i'm not exactly having a great time right now.  I love her to bits but sometimes i need an off switch...

I think i prefer 3 year olds and above if i had to choose.

I think i'm having a cr@p day because i now smell of puke and the washer is on and i've just had my tea so my judgement is a little clouded.

Right now I am a "why the feck did I have children in the first place" kind of person. I would take a newborn over a threenager and her sidekick any day.

I'm more of a baby person than a child person - I found it much easier being around my younger siblings as babies than as children, although I do find it easier with my brother than sister (I think I'm also more of a boy person!). I have great fun chasing him round the beach generally play fighting etc (he is 5) whereas my sister (now 12) at that age wanted me to do her hair etc - I'm more of a rough and tumble type and had no idea how to plait her hair! The language barrier didn't help when they were toddlers - although they speak english and spanish (they live in spain) they learnt spanish first and both went through a stage of not knowing which language they were speaking/ unable to comprehend that I didn't understand Spanish which didn't help with coping with them as toddlers! I'm hoping the toddler phase will come more naturally to me when its my own!

Madonna - exactly how I feel. Like you, I do wonder how much of the anti-baby feeling is PND related....although I distintly remember picturing children rather than babies when I imagined my future family.

Mrs M - "I find myself marvelling at how you can bring such a tiny human being into the world and how you are completely responsible for everything in their world"..... that's babies for you; awe-inspiring and terrifyingly dependant in equal measure! You're going to be a fab Mum

godmother - I agree that  2+ year olds are very demanding, more challenging in a lot of ways than a younger child, but you get sooooo much more back. Maybe I'm just selfish then, I don't like the lack of payoff/reward with a baby...I like to get something out of all that hard work I think its  just that my realationship with  Elijah feeld more balanced, more 2 sided IYSWIM? With a baby its all one-way.

PC - How cute, what lovely manners he has (unlike my bizarrely camera-shy screecher (Sorry ) Hope you enjoyed the party  as much as we did.

Sparkling, Puss  Its horrible when you hit a stage like that, regardless of the age of your child. They all go through stages where you'd gladly throw them through the window (and not bother to open it first )

Well, obviously you know my thoughts.....babies are dull.  A few of my friends have little babies at the mo - they're cute, because they are my friends' babies, but actually, I prefer every single one of the toddlers I know.  I find newborns a bit scary....so helpless, sooooo needy, so unable to communicate and I can remember a rising panic with my own, who cried lots for no apparent reason - perhaps if I'd had an easy one I'd feel differently? That said, I don't really find babies all that exciting.  Proper little people, who talk, laugh, get excited over the daftest things....that's when it gets interesting I think.  A's been great since about 18 months, but every month gets better - he's now 25 months and just fab.  And I had such fun with the toddlers today - perhaps I should think about retraining as a nursery teacher. Hmmmm....lol

I love the baby newborn days and would do it 100 times over, I've not had a single bad day with Henry and can't believe how fast it's going.  Even dealing with a difficult baby is a million times easier than dealing with a difficult toddler. 

Def the newborn days are my favourite though. 

I am so not a baby person. If fact, I would go so far as to say that I positively dislike the baby stage (ironically, I actually prefer other people's babies than my own because you can hand them back).

I didn't realise how much I disliked the baby stage until my oldest got older and then I was dreading my second coming along and sadly wished away the first 18 months of her life.

I find 18 months + fantastic though. Of course, it's hard but oh my goodness, it is so much more enjoyable.  A real person with such a character. It's funny too because as they get older, it makes me see that they did have a personality as a baby (a watered down version of the toddler character), but I just couldn't see it at the time.

It's funny because I see so many posts on here how people seem to begin to struggle as the toddler gets older, particularly with behaviour. I think because I found the baby days so emotionally difficult that (touch wood) anything that gets thrown at me from my pre-schooler and toddler seems relatively easy.

I love toddlers and pre-schoolers and am looking forward to what the next few years bring.

As usual I agree 100% with Hamsgirl!!

I remember someone on here once described the newborn days as 'a thankless servitude' .......and I couldn't agree more.

Defo not a baby person......give them to me 18 mths +