I'm struggling so much with feelings of guilt and remorse, and I'm hoping that by sharing this I can somehow come to terms with my feelings and move on. Apologies for long post....
DS1 was born at the beginning of January, 6 weeks premature. Thankfully he was healthy but had to stay in hospital for 2 weeks to establish feeding. When he came home we had to feed him through a stomach tube for a further 3 weeks which was exhuasting as it meant an endless cycle of attempting a breast feed, then tube feeding, then expressing, every 3-4 hours day and night. Finally I got him fully breast feeding, which he still is, but then owing to an undiagnosed tongue tie, feeds were taking 1.5-2 hours each time which at night was pretty tough.
3 weeks after he was home, DS started making VERY loud grunting noises when sleeping. I'm a terribly light sleeper so I just couldn't sleep in the room with him, despite trying night after night even with ear plugs, white noise etc. I was too scared to put him in his own room at such a young age. After 4 nights with absolutely no sleep, my DH sent me to spare room so I could sleep. Despite continuing to try to sleep with DS at regular intervals, it was impossible and as DH could sleep through the noise, we ended up me sleeping in spare room for approx 6 weeks and DH would bring DS in to feed through the night. The noises also meant I could never nap during the day when DS was sleeping.
During this period although I was BF, I started to feel quite detached sleeping apart. DH was very aware of DS's sleeping habits but I wasn't. This made me feel very disconnected but rather than try to do more to understand his sleep, I just retreated away to a different room and in some ways it feels like I stopped caring. DH managed to get DS to sleep at night in his moses basket with a hand constantly on his tummy which helped him to stay down. I just couldn't cope with this - lying there for hours wide awake whilst DS grunted and I had to keep my hand on him the whole time - there is no way I would have a minute's sleep so I just let DH deal with it. During this period, even when I tried to settle DS to sleep, if it didn't work within 5 minutes I would be in tears and handing him over to DH as I couldn't cope with the frustration. This still makes me feel like a total failure when I share stories with other new mums who have been up for hours at a time settling their babies at night.
At about 3 months, things really started to change and DS became a quiet sleeper, and would stay down for longer periods, plus I discovered bedsharing - life saver!!! Now at 4.5 months things are great and I do the majority of the night time duties and I am enjoying it (as much as you can being up in the middle of the night!)
I feel though like I "gave up" on him during those early months. I can kind of justify the fact I had to sleep in spare room because those few hours sleep I got in between feeds meant I was able to function and cope with looking after him the next day. But I couldn't deal with the settling and keeping him down in his moses basket and I suppose I let DH "take ownership" of the situation. New mums are supposed to be the ones in charge with support from DH but I feel like it was the other way round. I felt aggrieved and frightened sometimes when DH left me to sleep with DS on my own as I couldn't deal with the feelings of hopelessness and frustration at trying to get him to sleep and failing. I feel like I just passed him over to DH and now things are better, I don't deserve to enjoy the better times.
I compare myself to other new mums who do everything at night, and whilst I know how very lucky I am to have such a supportive DH, it just makes me feel like I let my baby down by not being there for him when he was a poor sleeper.
These feelings are really impacting my enjoyment of my time with DS now in the present, and I just want to be able to move on and not feel such crushing guilt and regret. I wish I could go back and change things and "do the newborn phase again" but better, but obviously I can't.
Can anyone help with this, has anyone experienced similar feelings or situation?
Thank you in advance x
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Feeling like I let my newborn down
30 replies
catlike1979 · 25/05/2016 13:18
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