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?

I don’t think it’s as straightforward as sleep deprivation.
I had terrible intrusive thoughts when both my kid were young. I remember vocalising my thoughts and so many others sharing their experiences. I still experience it (kids 5&7) - I think it’s to do with managing perceived danger.

I remember waking up in the middle of the night and feeling that the whole bed was rocking.

I was so used to feeling weird I just shrugged it off and went back to sleep again.

Next morning I read there had been a minor earthquake in my area.

Oh yes I used to wake up not having a clue about how many babies I had to check were safe. Even when son was found safe and well, I'd be panicking about the others.

Wow I thought I was crazy. I remember cats too.
I also had anxiety crossing bridges, I felt like I was going to drop the baby in the water.

You know I do wonder how many women have long term mental health issues from having children.
It is something that puts me off having more because I wonder if it would be the one to make me crack.

I’m in the thick of it now. I wake up jumping out of bed worrying that I’m sleeping on her. Run to her cot to make sure she’s there then I end up waking her up 😫

I also worry about things like hot tea being spilled on her or a car crashing into her when we’re out and about.

I’ve also been thinking I can hear her cry when she’s not...

It’s such a fun time haha 🤣

Thank you so much for this post! My dd is 8 and for the whole time I’ve thought I had completely lost it when she was born and the memories of what it was like have haunted me. I saw people with bites taken out of their faces and frequently thought I’d dropped or lost her. This thread has made me feel so much better about it 8 years on. I’ve always worried it was some underlying problem that might resurface but now I feel much more like it was just shock and sleep deprivation.

Sleep deprivation and an element of PSTD I think which I reckon is far more common in the aftermath of birth than is recognised. Even a "good" birth can be mentally overwhelming and you're instantly thrown into keeping a tiny human alive with not much sleep to do it with. No wonder our brains are so jangled and hypervigilant.

I heard music that wasn't there and yes phantom cries. The line between waking and sleeping just is so blurry...

Just read the thread, I keep seeing cats in my peripheral vision too!

And I’m definitely having intrusive thoughts. Why isn’t this spoken about more?

Yes I had this. I remember thinking we’d lost the baby in the bed and desperately searched to find him and he was in his cot. I did have postnatal mental health problems (anxiety mainly) but I think a lot of the confusion is the result of sleep deprivation.

Intrusive distressing thoughts (again fairly common in my experience and from what friends say) is another symptom of PTSD incidentally, but I wonder how many of us just blunder through thinking it's the baby blues or if we just got enough sleep it would resolve. I still jump at cars going too fast if I'm with my nearly teenage son, 13 years later, as my mind is still thinking of all the "what ifs"!

I had dreadful PNA and intrusive thoughts from DS being about 4 months to 2.
I became obsessive about them and convinced myself I had postpartum psychosis. Took myself off to therapy and am still seeing the therapist once a week (DS is 3 and a half).

In my case it was partly a response to a difficult childhood, and partly an unsupportive partner and sleep deprivation, but it “uncovered” a lot of unresolved trauma (lots of the intrusive thoughts related to things that had happened to me as a child).

My main fear was that I would lose my mind and hurt the baby. (easy to see how you could confuse that with ppp).

Get them occasionally now, but I take them as an indicator of too much stress/ too little sleep/ hormonal imbalances and make adjustments accordingly.

It should be spoken about more. I tell everyone about it (when it’s appropriate!) it’s so important that women know this is in the spectrum of “normal”, doesn’t necessarily indicate pathology, and does not make them depraved/ evil/ a danger to their babies etc (according to my therapist there have been no recorded cases of women with intrusive thoughts of this nature, harming their babies).

I imagined throwing my baby down the stairs.

I wondered what would happen if all the knives jumped out of the cupboard and stabbed her.

I also thought her face had melted once night whilst she was in the crib beside the bed- she had just turned her head to the other side and it was her hair I could see.

DH woke up regularly thinking she was in the bed and panicking.

Yes I had this.

I remember having a shower and I kept having to turn the shower off because I thought I could hear ds crying, but be wasn't actually crying.

I remember having visions of myself falling down the stairs carrying the baby.

I felt like I could see different peoples faces in my ds face.

I also had the waking up thing worrying I had smothered them.

Definitely, I also used to wake up in an utter panic that I’d fallen asleep feeding DS and he was stuck in the bed (I never did, he was always safe in his co-sleeper next to me). The feeling of going from asleep to utter panic was not a good one.

I also became hyper-aware of any risks - I used to drive to a baby class that involves crossing a swing bridge. I have never actually seen this thing open ever, and there were no signs or road markings to say that you shouldn’t stop on it - and due to its position in the city it was rare for there not to be a queue of traffic waiting on it. Without fail, no matter what the weather was doing, I would wind all the car windows right down and sit with one hand on my seatbelt buckle, so that if the bridge unexpectedly opened or failed I’d be able to undo my seatbelt, get DS and swim out through the windows.

I won’t have another baby because of the way I felt at that time. It was awful.

Oh and I definitely used to hear phantom crying as well! I still do sometimes now and DS is 4

Gosh it is comforting to see how many of us have had these intrusive thoughts. I’m hyper vigilant most of the time but it peaked when the children were small. I think PTSD must be part of it, I had a traumatic both and baby in the scbu and it must heighten the threat of danger. Most births are traumatic anyway even normal ones!

I am hyper vigilant now which is wearing for my mental health, must get some proper counseling.

However it has an up side, I am fiercely protective of my kids, and especially youngest who has SN, so I’m still super vigilant and still get intrusive thoughts. Yet it does make me take more sensitive care of her than if I was more zen. I’m ‘on it’ big style and to be honest I think she thrives that I am like this. Outwardly I seem calm but I’m like a duck, constantly paddling.

Although maybe we shouldn’t take our own mental health so much for granted and see this as a sign we need to better take care of ourselves. We just get on with it as mothers. Amazing really.

HeyMac Fri 14-Feb-20 08:00:12
I imagined throwing my baby down the stairs.

I wondered what would happen if all the knives jumped out of the cupboard and stabbed her.
.......
Oh Heymac, I imagined similar and I adored my baby. It was awful while it lasted but all these years later, a comfort to know that others felt the same.

Yes!! I haven't found anyone in real life who has had it when I tried to raise it but I had it all the time for the first couple of months.

I put it down to sleep deprivation as I I had a very difficult birth and didn't sleep for 3 days before DD arrived, but it could have been PTSD.

It is one of the reason why I will be having an elective CS for the next one in an attempt to avoid both possible causes for me, but maybe it is something that will happen at some stage due to simple exhaustion.

@Bluerussian it's bizarre isn't it. I didn't want to say anything at the time as I thought I'd get pegged as not coping.

It's odd as I would never ever harm my baby, I'm still very protective.

I did have a traumatic birth, a SCBU baby, a difficult pregnancy and relatives that were keen to "take the baby" (overnight from incredibly young). Which probably all had quite the impact too.

But I think it helped having DH being the one waking up repeatedly searching the covers for the baby so at least we were a bit off the wall together