After sharing the five things I am enjoying the most as a parent, here are the five things I am NOT really enjoying:

1- Bottle cleaning

Separate each part of the bottle, rinse the bottles and attachment with a special brush using a special detergent, then fill the bottle sterilizer with water after making sure it’s clean, put the bottles and attachments and turn it on. Once done, re-assemble the bottles and put them in the fridge.

I didn’t mind bottle cleaning the first couple of months but when you have to do it on a daily basis for at least 5 bottles, then you get sick of it. The worst part is that you can’t leave them like you do with the dishes as baby bottles should be cleaned immediately after use. Of course I don’t do that and clean them all at once but it’s still a pain.

PS: We use Dr.Brown bottles, which have more parts than the usual bottles but are highly recommended.

2- Car Seat:

Are the straps too loose? Is the car seat too small? What is he doing now? Is he leaning his head forward? Should we remove his jacket? Is he comfortable?

Car seats are a life-saving pain. I would never allow someone to hold the baby in the car instead of putting him in the car seat but car seats are still the most annoying thing ever. Even carrying them is a pain. During the first 2 months, we thought the car seat was too small and would stop every 15-20 minutes to make sure Brian is ok, then we installed a small mirror on the back seat but that made things even worse as you are no longer focused on the road. Right now, he’s always annoyed when we first put him in the car seat, but we can’t get the bigger one because he’s still 7 months old. The good thing about our Baby Brian is that he loves sleeping in traffic, because you can’t really do anything when you’re driving and the baby is crying.

3- Changing Clothes & Diapers

Just like bottle cleaning, changing diapers may be fun the first few times but when you need to do it 6 to 7 times a day, it gets annoying. The best part is when the baby decides to pee on you while cleaning him and you have to clean everything and then change his diaper again! Of course the older the baby gets, the more active he becomes and changing diapers or clothes becomes a whole new experience lol!

Speaking of changing clothes, you’d think it is easy to dress a baby in these tiny clothes but most of them have a zillion buttons and zippers.

4- Handling Strangers Trying to Touch Our Baby

“OMG Your baby is so cute! Can I hold him? Can I squeeze his cheeks?”

I honestly don’t know how to handle strangers who want to touch our baby. I don’t mind it when friends do but when you are at a mall or a supermarket, I still find it hard to tell people to look but not touch. We always have wipes to clean him up after someone touches him, but I don’t like being rude to people so it’s an annoying thing to me.

I was thinking of putting a cute sign that sends out a clear message but what I’ve been doing recently is just smile, act busy and walk away and it works most of the time.

5- Watching TV
He likes to stay connected with Jerry

Baby Brian is not allowed yet to watch TV and it’s not that easy to stop him from doing so, especially when you spend most of your time in the living room. Moreover, even when he will be old enough to watch TV, I would probably have to put some cartoon channel or stick to football games which I enjoy. I guess it will only get better with time but until then, I’ve been waking up really early on weekends to watch movies. Last Sunday, I watched Creed at 5:30 am haha!

Despite all that, having a baby is one of life’s most rewarding experiences and I highly recommend it to everyone.