Tammin Sursok writes: "These are the things no one tells you about having a newborn."

I remember vividly calling my friend in Australia and telling her my beautiful fantasy of how my child’s birth would be. And how fucking sexy I’d feel. Oh yes, I’d be all glowy after giving birth, a woman’s beautiful journey, and afterwards I’d look at my husband with my quaffed hair and my red lipstick on, wearing my oversized, but sexy, slip-on as I fluidly breastfeed my newborn child and mouthed “We did this. I love the shit out of you”.

Well… I ended up in a fucking nappy for two weeks. An adult sized gauzed panty nappy. I bet no one tells you THAT do they? My husband had to hypnotise me to get me to fart (at least our hypno birthing classes weren’t a complete rip off, get it?) and I was so beyond exhausted that I couldn’t even fathom squeezing my elephant boobs into a modest sized bra. Go to Target and buy 20 pairs of disposable underwear and a sense of humour and you’ll make it out okay.

Don’t buy your newborn expensive clothes.

So imagine you saved up for a beautiful Dior dress. Perfect and spotless and crisp. Then imagine you go out for the night in your new prized possession and then you get food poisoning and you don’t have time to take it off before all hell breaks loose.

Look I don’t need to go into detail but I’m sure I’m giving you a vivid visual. So… when you have a new baby, the scene I just presented you above happens to your newborn EVERY DAY. Every hour of every SINGLE day. Would you ever wear that Dior dress knowing the body fluids it came in contact with??? Yeah, me neither.

You will never, ever, ever, never, need a wipe warmer.

When your first new baby is born you freak out! And why wouldn’t you?! I did. You buy EVERYTHING that will in some way make coming home with a new tiny infant less terrifying. And one of the items you will buy or consider buying is the dreaded wipe warmer.

In theory, a tepid cloth that warms your infant’s bum sounds like a genius idea right?! And it totally is, when you’re not living on two hours of sleep, your baby has diarrhea running down its leg, it’s screaming, you’re screaming and you’re waiting for the fucking thing to warm itself up. And heaven forbid you forget to close the lid and every cloth has dried together. It’ll cause you more anger than figuring out the mind numbing swaddle.

Watch: The funniest fails from sleep-deprived mums. Post continues after video...

Stop freaking out about the sex part.

Vaginal birth, Caesarian birth, whatever the case, at some point the “vagina guilt” will make you start thinking about sex. Whether it’s three weeks or three months you will have the “getting jiggy with it” conversation. The one MAJOR problem is your vagina may not be ready. Go on give it a go. I’d say the forecast is a 95% chance of RAZOR BLADES.

Guys your vajay is going to be there for the rest of your life. It’s not going anywhere. It’ll hold your hand through the good and bad times so why don’t we give it a little bit of a vacation. I mean we just worked it to the bone. How about paid leave? A nice mojito on the sands of Mexico? What do they say about a nice vacay?! You’ll always work harder when you come back!

You will not be on time again for a very long time.

You’re at the door. In slow motion you go to turn the handle. Could it be?! 45 minutes and you have almost made it out?! That’s a record! You have it all right?! The nappies, the wipes, the burp clothes, the formula, the milk, the teether, the squeak toy, the favorite toy, the giraffe chewy thing toy, the calm down your screaming child toy, change of clothes for the baby, for you, another for the baby- as you leave the house you look like a Sherpa carrying every tourist’s belongings up frickin’ Kilimanjaro. Then fart, fart, fart, plop. Fuck.

How does your newborn know every time you are almost in the clear to drop a smell bomb. Seriously! If it’s not that bodily fluid, it’ll be another bodily fluid. You will never be on time ever again!!! And if you are? Then you’re like finding chocolate covered almonds at the back of your fridge when you’re PMS’ing. You’re a very rare find.

Stop the breastfeeding guilt.

I have above average sized boobs. They flop when I run, they have been felt up way too many times and while pregnant they resembled that of a surgically enhanced penthouse pet. So, naturally I thought I’d produce enough milk to feed a small army. My 4.7kg baby was born with an appetite of a baby rhino and I dried up like a breastfeeding vagina. So I paid an obscene amount of money to have a Russian woman massage my engorged boobies for hours on end. My husband’s fantasy was playing out in a very unsexy way.

I was milked like a cow for hours and would retrieve 90 millilitres of liquid gold. It was hell. I continued for two months but at some point I was hating myself, my child was starving and my relationships with people were hanging on by a thread. Guys. Just do the best you can!!! If your milk is flowing like the Nile River – amazing! You can yell EUREKA. (although try not to tell your milk-challenged friend how hard it is to keep the overflow of your surplus in the freezer – she might just punch you). And if it’s not happening. That’s okay too.

Go get some good formula without all the crap in it and give yourself a break. Life is tough enough as it is being a new mom. Do whatever is right for your family and let’s move away from the judgement. We have no idea what anyone is going through unless we walk a mile in their shoes.

Some babies just don’t sleep.

I have an almost three year old. AND SHE HASN’T SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT! "How can this be" you cry! "Try the scream it out method!", "Feed her more at night?!", "What about more carbs?!", "Oh it might be because she needs to be more active during the day", "Is she cold?!!". Don’t you just love people’s advice and opinions. Like after three years you haven’t tried every damn thing under the sun and you enjoy the 3am wake up call while you’re dreaming of flying on a unicorn to Paris for the evening (or is that just me?!) and the zombie like state you find yourself in.

Some babies just don’t sleep. If this is your child, I’ll let you in on something. There is absolutely nothing wrong with them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. It just is. At some point your baby will be a teenager and you’ll be checking to see if they are still alive at 11am. You’ll get sleep, one day. My advice? Invest in a hell of a good coffee maker and drink that glass of wine. This period of time will be over before you know it.