I Hate the Baby Stage: Why That Feeling Is Normal and Small Ways to Cope Day to Day
It’s 2:17 a.m. and I’m kneeling on the shag rug of my 7-month-old son Milo’s nursery, spit up drying crusty down the front of my only clean hoodie. His pacifier skittered under the crib ten minutes ago, and the cold cup of decaf I poured at 7 p.m. sits untouched on the dresser, ringed with dust. He’s wailing, red-faced, because I tried to put him down drowsy but awake like every sleep book says to, and my partner knocks soft on the doorframe and asks if I need a break. “I just hate this part,” I say, and my voice doesn’t even crack anymore. I used to whisper it, guilty, like admitting I didn’t love every second of babyhood made me a bad mom. Now I just say it out loud.
When my daughter Lila was this age, I wrote the feeling off as postpartum baby blues. Everyone around me kept saying it would get better, that the first six months were the hardest, that once she smiled and laughed I’d forget all the hard parts. She smiled at 6 weeks old, and it was sweet. I have the blurry phone photo taped to my fridge. But I still spent most days counting down the minutes until my partner got home from work, still ate most of my meals standing over the sink, still cried in the bathroom once a week because I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a thought that wasn’t about nap schedules or feeding times. I thought there was something wrong with me. When I got pregnant with Milo, I hoped I’d be different this time, that I’d “get” babyhood, that I’d be the mom who savors the snuggles and the tiny socks and the soft baby smell. I wasn’t. At his 6-month checkup, I mumbled the admission to our pediatrician while he chewed on the end of her stethoscope, waiting for her to tell me to go to therapy, that I needed to bond more, that I was failing him. She just leaned back in her chair and nodded, like she hears this three times a shift.
“The baby stage is one-sided by design,” she said. “His only job right now is to tell you what he needs. He can’t ask how your day was, he can’t play a game with you, he can’t even hold his own bottle. Most of the work you put in right now doesn’t give you anything back for months. People sell you this idea that it’s all soft snuggles and magic, but for a lot of people, it’s just boring, repetitive, physically draining work. That doesn’t mean you don’t love him. It means the stage itself is hard.”
That clicked. I’d spent so long feeling guilty for being bored, for resenting the way I can’t finish a TV episode or a cup of coffee or a trip to the bathroom without interruption, that I never stopped to realize that’s just what this age is. Babies under 1 don’t need you to be entertained by them 24/7, either. What builds that steady, safe bond everyone talks about isn’t constant delight and 12 structured sensory activities a day. It’s just showing up, consistently, even when you’re tired and grumpy and would rather be doing literally anything else. He doesn’t know I hate the stage. He just knows when he cries, someone comes.
After that appointment, I stopped doing all the extra stuff everyone tells new parents they have to do to raise a smart, secure baby. I deleted the baby development app that sent me daily notifications reminding me to do 20 minutes of tummy time with high-contrast flashcards and sing 10 nursery rhymes a day to boost his language skills. I stopped forcing us to go to library story time twice a week, the one where I spent the whole 45 minutes chasing him around the room while he tried to eat other kids’ socks.
Tummy time still happens, because the pediatrician says he needs it to build core strength for crawling, but now I spread a blanket on the living room floor, fold laundry while he’s on his belly, and half-watch real estate TikTok on my phone propped up on the couch. If he fusses after five minutes, I pick him up. No guilt. I swapped the $30 silicone sensory toys I bought when I was pregnant for clean tupperware lids and wooden spoons from the kitchen drawer, and he likes those better anyway. He’ll bat at them and babble to himself for 20 minutes at a time while I sit on the couch next to him and answer emails or eat a whole granola bar without sharing a bite. I used to think letting him play alone at this age meant I was neglecting him, but it turns out it’s good for him too: he gets to explore how objects work on his own, without me hovering to show him the “right” way to play.
My partner and I also started what we call the 10-minute tag rule. We used to try to schedule big breaks, like one of us taking him for a whole afternoon so the other could go get coffee or get a haircut, but those felt like a huge production, and half the time one of us would end up texting the other 20 minutes in because he wouldn’t stop crying. Now, no questions asked, if either of us hits that wall where we can feel our patience fraying down to nothing, we just say “tag” and walk out the door for 10 minutes. No need to pack a bag, no need to explain, no guilt. I usually sit in the car in the driveway, drink a cold soda from the cooler I keep by the front door, and scroll stupid videos. Sometimes I just sit there and stare at the oak tree at the end of the driveway. 10 minutes is enough to reset, almost every time, and it’s small enough that it never feels like an unfair ask.
When distant relatives or random strangers at the grocery store make comments about how I should “enjoy every minute because babies don’t keep,” I don’t lie and nod along anymore. I just say, “It’s not my favorite stage, but he’s fed and loved, and that’s enough right now.” Most of the time, they drop it. Sometimes they pause, then admit they felt the exact same way, too.
Last week, Milo pulled himself up to standing holding the edge of the coffee table for the first time, and he looked right at me and grinned, like he was proud of himself. I felt that little warm, soft flicker everyone talks about, the one that’s supposed to make all the hard nights worth it. I took a video and sent it to my mom, and for a minute I got what people mean when they say this stage goes too fast.
By 9:30 that morning, he’d dumped my entire iced coffee all over the couch, refused both of his naps, and screamed the whole way through the grocery store, and I was right back to counting down the months until he can walk and talk and tell me what’s wrong instead of just crying. I don’t feel guilty about that anymore. Some days are softer than others. Some nights he sleeps six whole hours straight, some nights he’s up three times. I still eat granola bars over the sink at least twice a week. I don’t know if I’ll ever be one of those people who looks back and misses the baby stage. I don’t even know if I’ll remember most of these 2 a.m. nights in ten years. Right now, that doesn’t matter. We’re both getting through it. That’s enough.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » I Hate the Baby Stage: Why That Feeling Is Normal and Small Ways to Cope Day to Day