Everyone is super excited when a family announces that they are pregnant. A lot of parents talk about how fun it is to be a parent and how life gets so much better when you add a baby to the mix. BUT sometimes in everyone’s excitement, people can say things that they don’t realize are stressing the mama-to-be out!

I’m going to blame the hormones for this, but when I was pregnant, with everything that a lot of people told me, I was pretty nervous my life was going to suck after I had Max. I thought I’d be like 500 pounds, a sleepless zombie, and that being a mom was going to be the hardest thing in the world in the worst way possible. I’m happy to report that none of these things happened. Being a mom is actually awesome, despite what everyone had me believing while I was pregnant. It’s not always sunshine and rainbows, but it’s not the hell that some people will lead you to believe. So I put together this list of things to stop saying to pregnant mamas, because even with good intentions or saying these things light heartedly, you could be really scaring them! Here are the top six things to stop saying:

1.) “You’ll never sleep again”

We get it, babies aren’t the greatest sleepers all the time. Conveniently, neither are pregnant women, so the idea of not sleeping even more than we’re already not sleeping is terrifying. If you had a baby that didn’t sleep, that’s okay, it happens. I’m sure it wasn’t every night and it didn’t last forever, but there is no reason to make a pregnant mama nervous about her lack of sleep in her future. Plus, I think at this point it’s common knowledge that not all babies are good sleepers. So you don’t have to tell us- we’re probably already worrying about it.

Say instead: “It won’t last forever!”

If a pregnant mom comes to you and voices that she is nervous about her baby sleeping, just reassure her that getting up nightly is not going to last forever. In the beginning, we got up a few times a night, but then after a few weeks, Max started only getting up once a night to eat. Sure, there have been a few nights that he’s gotten up more, and a few that he has slept through the night, but neither has been a sure thing. Most nights I sleep about 7-8 hours. It’s usually broken up into two parts, but I still feel rested. Reassuring a mama-to-be is so much more helpful than scaring her.

2.) “Your whole life is going to change”/ “it’s all over”

I heard this so much I actually was really scared about Max coming. Like… every day someone new would tell me about how much my life was going to change or how I wouldn’t be able to do the things that I love anymore. Has my life changed? Definitely! Did it change in the way that a lot of people made me think it would change? Nope. I think when you have kids your priorities change a lot, and maybe you have to make a little more of an effort to make time for the things that you want, but you can still have hobbies and do things outside of just being a parent. You can still be successful at your job or go back to school or start a business or whatever you want to do. Life doesn’t end when you have kids, it begins.

Say instead: “You’re going to love being a parent!”

Any time you can build up a pregnant mama, take advantage of it. I promise you she needs to hear this. With all of the changes happening in her body, and all of the emotional changes, the last thing she wants to hear about is more change. Her life will be changing, but there is no reason to scare her into feeling like that’s a bad thing, whether you mean to or not.

3.) “You can’t possibly just have one baby, only children are brats!”

I can possibly have only one baby if that is what I want. I didn’t love being pregnant, so I while I was pregnant I was pretty sure that I was only going to want to do it once (this now changes depending on the day that you ask me). I feel like every time I said that though, the person I was saying it to would say that it wouldn’t be fair to my baby to be an only child. Only children are brats! It made me feel selfish and like I was being a bad mom if I only had one baby.

Say instead: One and done is okay!

Having one baby is enough for some people. Sometimes the first baby a family has is a difficult baby, and that one is all they can handle. And that is okay. Every family is perfect. And their baby will not grow up to be a brat just because there is only one of them. So if a woman is saying that this is her first and last baby, just let her know that that’s okay.

4.) “You look so little!” Or “you look like you’re having twins!”

Literally no woman wants to hear either of these. I always like to hear that I look thin, but even in my crazy head when I was pregnant didn’t want to hear that I looked little. It made me nervous that something was wrong that I wasn’t gaining enough weight! And then toward the end of my pregnancy I remember going to the nail salon and some woman asked me when I was due, and I was actually due the week before I was there, and she said “yeah, you look like you were due last week”. THE NERVE. I thought I looked okay, I knew I looked pretty pregnant but I didn’t think I looked like I was overdue! So, the moral of this story is to stop commenting on how hormonal, very emotional pregnant women look. No matter what you think, just keep it to yourself.

Say instead: “You’re glowing mama!”

Saying this will make any pregnant woman’s day. And to be honest, all pregnant women, even when they’re dealing with trying to keep their breakfast down, or insomnia, or gaining weight faster than they would like or any other crazy pregnancy symptom, they all glow, and they deserve to hear it.

5.) “If you think it’s bad now, just wait!”

So you had a bad experience when your baby was a newborn and now it’s your personal mission to make sure every pregnant woman knows just how bad it’s going to get. STOP. Just because you had a bad experience doesn’t mean that we all will! Chances are good that the woman you are scaring will have a perfectly happy baby. Again, no reason to scare a new mama for no reason.

Say instead: “It only gets better from here”

Especially if you know that someone is having a hard pregnancy, this is important to say. I read a post on facebook in a mama group that I’m in right before I was due that was asking if people would rather be one week away from giving birth or one week after giving birth. The amount of people that wrote one week away from giving birth was terrifying to me! I felt so sick and tired all the time, the idea that this was better than what was to come was so scary, and also very untrue. I don’t know if those women all had a better pregnancy than me, or if they had harder babies, but I will be the first one to say that I would take one week after giving birth over one week before any day of the week!

6.) “You know you’re not really eating for two, right?”

If you ever feel like this is an okay statement, we need to have a little talk. We all want to have a healthy pregnancy, and to gain a healthy amount of weight, but sometimes eating made my morning sickness better. Or I thought it would give me energy. Or I felt like it would just help me get through the day at that moment. I worried about how much I was eating but I was more worried about surviving being pregnant most of the time. So if you ever feel like saying this to a pregnant woman, just keep that negativity to yourself. Or say it, but do so at your own risk!

Say instead: “You’ll lose the baby weight, or you won’t, but you won’t care much either way”

I was complaining to my sister in law about how much weight I had gained when I was pregnant and this was her answer, and I remember thinking it was my favorite thing that anyone had said to me while I was pregnant. It made me stop stressing about how much weight I was gaining like almost immediately. Some people gain a lot, some people gain a little, and it’s okay. Your body will do what it’s going to do, and you’ll be so wrapped up with having a new baby that I promise you mama, it won’t matter either way.

Obviously no one is setting out to intentionally scare moms-to-be, and I know I am guilty of saying some of these things before I knew how much they affected me while I was pregnant. Probably most of the time people just like to tell their stories and don’t realize what they’re saying or how it’s affecting the people around them, which is understandable. Just remember that if you are talking to a pregnant woman, it’s likely that they are a little more sensitive than they usually would be, and it’s super easy to be a little more considerate with your words. I promise that the mamas-to-be around you will appreciate your pep talks!