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, I still get this occasionally now and my baby is about to turn 1. It used to happen every night. I'd wake up and be convinced my partner was my baby, falling out of bed - I grab him or Scrabble with the duvet to 'save' him. We didn't co-sleep, and my partner is quite a lot bigger than my baby and looks really quite different I can be wide awake and looking at him and still see the baby, it's incredibly unsettling.

When I was in the depths of sleep deprivation in the early days I used to see the bedroom door opening and closing of its own accord. That was really horrible.

I remember having a clear vision of me throwing baby DS into the local swimming pool whilst standing at the side while my older DS swam.
Also stood at the bedroom window one night, totally sleep deprived, and could see World War Two vehicle's driving through a barrier that was being lifted at the bend in our road. Totally impossible as it was someone's garden!
I stared for ages and felt completely perplexed by the fact I'd never noticed the barrier before... because it didn't exist.

Oh yes. My DS is two and I still think I hear him crying almost every time I’m in the shower.

I got my DH confused with Dan Humphrey from Gossip Girl when DS was about 6 weeks old. To be fair I’d been going on about 2 hours sleep a night for ages as DS had reflux and needed to be held upright to sleep. I have zero plans for another baby, I couldn’t go through that again.

I had this, particularly with my first. He slept loads, I don’t think I can have had sleep deprivation so it must be something more than that.

I had twins and woke up one night in terror that the third baby was in the sheets, it took my dh ages to convince we that we only had two babies and there was no third one. I was hysterical and remember starting to calm down and just sobbing from the sheer stress of the blind terror

I also remember feeling in the early days like I had about five babies, not one. It was all just so much, so stressful, so much to do and think about, that there must surely be more than one of them. It was a very clear feeling of 'ok so I've got one baby in the carrycot, one on my shoulder, one on the playmat, where are the others'.

Lack of sleep sends you funny.

Had the ‘where’s the baby’ moment several times.
One night I heard a baby crying and was scrabbling around in my bedside drawer to try to find a biscuit to feed it. My baby was only 2 months old and I never had biscuits in there!
Worst one was listening to dh read baby dd a story while I was half awake and half asleep and instead of the actual words I was hearing really violent descriptions. I do actually think I was a bit unhinged at that point.

DS is a pretty good sleeper, although wasn't obviously from day 1. I assumed it was part of my PND diagnosis but I would (sometimes still do) wake up in a sheer panic either because I've had a dream where something awful has happened or I've imagined I've heard him crying or struggling to breath. DH fell asleep holding him in bed once and for a week I would wake up in a panic because I thought he'd lost him in the bed.

Not really had the bed thing as such and I am bed sharing (DD now 5 months) -I seem to know where she is instinctively in the bed as I alway sleep curled around her as per safe sleep guide.

But in the early weeks I felt really weird, everything was sort of blurry and I did have lots of intrusive thoughts. I also kept seeing things move in the shadows. I knew it was the lack of sleep but I felt sort of drugged.

I also had very scary intrusive thoughts such as: what if I drop the baby as I was walking down the stairs. Or I was scared that I would get some mental disorder that made me hurt my baby.

Yes I had things like this especially thinking DS was in the bed. but one I remember vividly is I was trying to get some sleep downstairs (DP upstairs in same room as DS) but I was convinced I could hear people breaking in upstairs it was real bangs and footsteps I can still hear now, I ran upstairs so fast to them both sound asleep it’s definitely sleep deprivation.

DS2 is nearly five months now, but about 3 weeks in I nearly called the GP to book an appointment as I was convinced I had post partum psychosis because I kept seeing shapes in the corner of my eye. People when I was in the house on my own, cats running around the living room.

DH kept the baby in the Moses basket and slept on the sofa giving me a full nights sleep and I woke up a different person.

Didn't get it at all with my first (although definitely convinced myself I could hear him crying while I showered) and I think it's because between the two children I just never switched off. Just constant demands running through my head meant my brain never disengaged.

I'm feeling a lot better now, but do have PND recently diagnosed. DH does night feeds maybe 3 or 4 nights a week now because I just couldn't switch off after a feed and would be up for two hours, just about fall back to sleep and it was time for another feed whereas he could go back to sleep immediately. I'm thankful for him helping me out like this, because I think I would have been an absolute nervous wreck if he hadn't stepped in.

Phantom cries while showering, that nearly sent me over the edge. I had dreadful PN anxiety, reading this brings all the memories back. Ah nostalgia, someone remind me why I'd like another?!

Ohmygoodness, this was me! I thought at the time I was going mad I probably was. DC1 and I were in hospital for over a week due to birth complications which left me pretty traumatised anyway, and the sleep deprivation nearly sent me over the edge. One particularly bad night, I was hallucinating faces in the room with me, and also a whole conversation with one of the midwives. The night we finally came home, I was falling asleep and woke up screaming, clutching the corner of the duvet and thinking it was DC1, dead It was awful. I can't believe it's as common as it sounds here, why don't expectant mothers get warned about this sort of thing?!? I honestly thought I was going mad!

I think a lot of people get intrusive thoughts but don't openly talk about it for fear of being labelled with a mental health problem. I have had the phantom cries and have even heard my older children shouting out for me when they've been fast asleep.

I once glanced in the back of the car on the way home from Sainsbury's and DS1 was not there. Convinced I had left him in the trolley, I turned around and drove back like a maniac, pulling up right at the entrance to the store, not in a parking space. As I got out of the car he wailed. He was in his car seat in the car. I started to cry with relief. People must have thought I was mad.
Several times DH and I went out- leaving DS1 with SIL babysitting- and just came home because we were both so worried about him being without us incase something happened.
Yes, waking up scrabbling in the bed convinced he was hidden under the duvet/pillows or had fallen out.
We both hear babies crying still when they aren't and we are on our 3rd now.

I've been seeing movements and shapes out of the corner of my eye since my eldest was born 2 years ago which I've put down to sleep deprivation.

When they were both tiny I had visions of me throwing them hard to the floor and wondering what would happen. My rational side told me that I wouldn't do that but it was a really overwhelming thought and scared the hell out of me in case the irrational side ever took over. I've never mentioned it to anyone in case I was deemed unfit to be a mother. Now they're bigger and I can chuck them up in the air etc it's gone away.

Yep all those and I thought the baby (2 or 3 days old) spoke to me once

Haven't RTFT but in the early days whenever I had a shower I used to think I could hear DD cry and think oh fuck fuck fuck (lovely mum guilt there, she was fine with DH!). But no, just me imagining it.

And yes to waking up in a blind panic, where is she?? Oh, in her crib. I used to wake up thinking I'd fallen asleep with her in the bed and she was in the sheets, started scrabbling about going ahhhh!!! No, in her crib. I blame sleep deprivation and a major adjustment in being responsible for this whole new baby and the new way of life that comes with it.

Oh and when she was about 6 months old I had a child free overnight stay in a spa hotel with a mate. Middle of the night, I woke up and started flapping my arm around by the bed cause I couldn't find her crib! 🤦‍♀️

It does get better, once you get some better sleep!

I recognise what you say in the op, I had it a bit for a short while, it always started about 5pm.

Sleep deprivation induces psychotic symptoms. I had some weird experiences when mine were little.

I think the shower thing might be down to frequencies- rubbing water is a bit like white noise, and I think that within those frequencies you can interpret cries, especially if you’re listening out. Same with a distant washing machine or dishwasher.

And YY to the intrusive thoughts. They’re really common, i listened to a great podcast discussing this the other day.

overcast.fm/+Kn8bm4xjo

Way more prevalent than we realise I think.

I used to get the waking up scrabbling around in the bed for the baby thing; utterly terrifying at the time. Interestingly, I only had it with the one I didn't co-sleep with - I wonder if there's some sort of instinct that your tiny newborn should be right beside you which your half-asleep self can sense but not process properly in order to realise that the baby is fine.

The crying babies in the shower has never gone away for me. As I no longer have any babies I just ignore it! Loads of intrusive thoughts too. I suppose your previously single brain has a lot of catching up to do in terms of spotting danger and keeping a tiny baby safe. Add in sleep deprivation and the whole thing takes on a whiff of madness.