Do all new mothers experience this? Mental alteration and perceptual disturbances.

[OldHarrysGameboy]

Was talking with a few friends the other night. All our kids are older so the young baby/newborn part of our lives is long gone. However we all remembered from that time slight disturbances in perception/strange "irrational" thoughts that were broadly similar and it got me thinking: do all new mothers get this?

Examples: thinking you hear the baby crying when they're not; hearing a baby crying over the monitor; thinking your baby looks like multiple people including uncles, the postman etc; waking up in bed in a panic and thinking you've lost the baby, when they're sleeping peacefully in a cot next to you.

That kind of thing. Are me and my friends all particularly anxious or did any of you have slightly irrational thoughts in the post partum weeks?

Yes, thought it was sleep deprivation to be honest.

I had all of this. I even saw a couple of cats running across the living room and we don’t own cats. Goes hand in hand with sleep deprivation and - to some extent - shock. As in the shock of the new as opposed to any kind of physical shock (that would count too though).

I was talking to someone about this the other day. Every night I'd be grabbing a pillow from the bed shouting at DH that I couldn't find the babies head only for him to yet again point at the baby in the cot. I still remember the panic. I don't even think I was half asleep at the time it just used to happen. Very very strange and frightening at the time

Sleep deprivation is definitely a key factor. I briefly stopped being able to read — I mean, I would look at a word and not understand the letters — and I thought we had mice because I kept seeing things out of the corner of my eye.

Yes, I had this too.

After number 2, I remember looking in the mirror and thinking that I was perhaps going mad. I couldn't hold on to a thought at times.

As soon as I managed some sleep I realised that it was sleep deprivation. It passed.

Yup I had all that too. Also dreams about babies crying and then looking in the bed for them when they were in the cot in another room!

Same here. Particularly the waking up and panicking that the baby was under me somehow (he never was, he was always sleeping soundly in his cot).

Oh and even now (DS is 6 months and I'm not particularly sleep deprived), I often think I see DS walking though the flat when he's only just mastered rolling in reality.

I did the panic and picking up the bedsheets convinced I had smothered my DS thing. It was horrible being so freaked out
XP had to talk me down a couple of times.

Yes, I remember waking up in a panic thinking DD
was in the bed, looking for her in the sheets and the seeing her in the cot.

Wow, so a few of us then. Did any of you ever discuss it in baby groups? I didn't, and neither did my friends.

I wonder if it's somehow an adjustment process that goes on to allow you to be immediately responsive to threat as you're now caring for a dependent human? But just your radar goes overboard to start with?

I never had this myself, but I remember dh waking up in a panic when ds was about two weeks old (and sleeping peacefully in his Moses basket) convinced there was a baby bird lost under the bedcovers
Sleep deprivation plus new parent shock does very strange things to the mind!

Yes, waking thinking baby was suffocating in the duvet, or was in a bag on top of wardrobe. Dp had to provide lots of reassurance he was tucked up in the moses basket.

When I got home from the hospital after having my son all i wanted was a shower, so I left the baby downstairs with my DP - when I was in the shower I was so sure I heard the baby crying that I rushed through my shower and ran downstairs. Turns out the baby was fast asleep and had been the whole time, I thought I was going crazy!

I think it has a lot to do with sleep deprivation.

Yes. Remember closing my eyes to try to sleep on return from hospital (had slept little there) and I was feeling like I was being flung along corridor floors at high speed back and forth, couldn’t stop it.

Also dreamed I took the baby into work to meet colleagues, parked the car and left the baby in the seat while I went to sign in - when I went back out to get him the entire street with the car on it had disappeared from the city. Dreamed my toddler got buried in sand and I could just see his little hand (thankfully in the dream I rescued him but the feeling of sheer terror was real).

I'm so glad you've posted about this as I experienced a really scary episode when my dd was about 2 weeks old.
I woke up and couldn't find her. I ripped the duvet off the bed, looked under the bed and even out of the window. I was hysterical and my partner walked in and literally pointed at the bed and said "she's right there". It was like I'd gone blind to her, it was terrifying and it really spooked me for a few weeks to be honest. Sleep deprivation is scary!

Thinking the baby is in the bed seems like a recurring theme. I did it many times, including one awful awful night when I was utterly convinced he had slipped between the bed and the wall. I actually lifted up the mattress! I had stitches!

Yes, definitely a mixture of sleep deprivation, the immense sense of responsibility for a tiny person, and an overwhelming number of new experiences all at once.

Both dh & I would wake up in the middle of the night and start scrabbling at the duvet convinced that we'd lost ds in there (when he was perfectly safe in his cot).

I think it might be due to the education om cot death and the absolute fear we all would have had about this. I had another episode where I thought she was under the duvet and again she wad right next to me
Anxiety & sleep deprivation & hormones can't be a healthy mixture

just your radar goes overboard to start with

Yup. An evolutionary quirk it was explained as to me.

(PS I love your username, it’s ace)

Yes... you've reminded me that I had lots of these panics/thoughts... waking up and looking for the baby/babies under duvets etc when they were in their cots - hearing them cry whilst they were sleeping. Picturing myself carrying a hot drink and tripping up near themit was horrible, but the sleep deprivation made me feel unhinged definitely...

I did with my third baby thanks to sleep deprivation. Often woke up thinking I had lost him somewhere when he was safely tucked up next to me. One night he had a white baby grow on and we had white bedding. He was in the bed with us but in my half asleep panic I only saw his head and thought he had been decapitated! We changed the sheets after that one.

When you realise that sleep deprivation is used as a method of torture to induce paranoia and delusions, you can only imagine what it can do to a new mother with responsibility for another human and all the recent hormonal changes etc

Yep, I used to wake up convinced I’d lost the baby in the covers when she was in her cot. I think that’s quite a common one!

I used to get quite bad intrusive images in my mind- like if I was walking her by a busy road I’d imagine someone taking her out of her pram and throwing her under a bus. Horrible stuff.