As a mom, I have had a ton of moments where I’m left thinking “Why on earth didn’t anyone ever tell me this?” I can only hope that I am not the only one. There are many things that I could say right now that no one ever told me… No one ever tells you that your baby may not be perfect. No one wants to talk about that. And then, lord help you if that beautiful baby isn’t perfect because you either get loaded up with people who think they know it all, or most of your support system abandons you. The good news about that last group of people is that eventually you replace them with a much better group. So let’s sit back and talk about what no one ever told you about having kids!

What no one ever told you about having kids

I think I can honestly say the first thing I ever thought of that no one warned me about was just how much poop was involved. I expected poopy diapers, what I didn’t expect was for a toddler to take off his diaper and cover his entire crib in stinky, nasty poop. What I really didn’t expect was for him to climb out of his crib a few months later, take his diaper off, and paint his room and smush poop into his carpet. I thought I would die when that happened. And speaking of poop, kid number two may not have painted with poop, but he had poop problems of his own… He was my 100% breastfed baby, and there would be times that without warning, he would poop and it would run out of his diaper, up his onesie and somehow into his hair. And don’t think it stopped at that. It would get in his shoes too. Poop was everywhere. For four years of my life, I swear everything revolved around poop.

Let’s see, what else… Do you remember ever being told about febrile seizures? I know for a fact that I had never heard of one… Until my son had one. I read the statistics later, and supposedly one in four children under the age of four have one. What is a febrile seizure? Well, to put it simply, if your child suddenly spikes a high fever (say 103 or higher) it is likely that one is coming. When my oldest had his, he was 14 months old, and teething. He had no reason to have a fever other than that. I remember that day very well… He was a little warm, but happy, and toddling around our living room, when he decided to climb onto a chair, and he fell and didn’t get up. I walked over, waiting for him to cry, and saw my baby laying straight on the floor, eyes rolled back in his head, and shaking. I screamed, and then called 911. The seizure lasted for about 5 minutes, and we were in the hospital for less time than it took for the ambulance to pick us up and bring us there.

After his seizure, my oldest stopped talking. I brought him to the doctor (still concerned about why he had the seizure to begin with) and no one seemed concerned about his lack of speech. I researched and found a service that would evaluate him and provide speech services if they thought that he needed them. Thankfully, they found that he did, and at 15 months old, my son started speech therapy. But I didn’t know how much crap I would catch from everyone else in my life for trying to do what I thought (and still think) was right for my son.

When I divorced and moved back home, even though I had been parenting solo for a while, I swear no one told me how exhausting it would be. Then again, this was also when my oldest first started having his behavioral issues, so maybe that’s why it seemed so much harder. There were/are many mornings where I would wake up at 5:00 a.m. and not go back to sleep until 2:00 a.m., only to have to get up and do it all again a few hours later. ADHD, OCD, and anxieties in children are just nothing at all to play with. There have been days where everything goes smooth, but there are still a lot more days where it feels like nothing at all goes right.

I could go on and on about everything that has happened that no one warned me about, but I think instead I would like to ask you… What’s something that no one warned you about? In my search to find support in the issues I have had raising my oldest, I have run across many stories, and I never tire of hearing them. I can tell you, it helps to talk about it, and it helps to hear/read someone else’s story and find out that you really aren’t alone, so please, share it here! So tell me what no one ever told you about having kids?

P.S. Make sure to follow me on Facebook!