To feel a bit bloody useless

[KeremyJyle]

Sorry woe-is-me post alert...

I had a lovely little boy a couple of months ago. Adore him, wouldn't be without him etc but already I feel like I'm failing him in so many ways. Like his birth - I took all the drugs going (long and complicated delivery ending in emcs) and couldn't do it myself. Every time I hear about someone's all-natural, mooing-in-a-birthing-pool labour, it's like a stab to my heart. I just feel like I was a total wimp and a failure.

And feeding: I have found breastfeeding stupendously difficult and am now mix feeding as I felt it was the only way I could manage to continue giving ds the breast without quitting altogether.

And oh my Christ he has a dummy. From day four.

I love him, so so very much (dont know why I have to keep justifying myself on that front) but from about a week after he was born I was itching to get out of the house and see my friends and get completely off my face a little bit merry. I'm 36, not 17.

I do think I'm a nice, cuddly, loving mother, but I just don't feel I measure p against all those self-sacrificing women who give birth without drugs for the good of their child, exclusively breastfeed despite any difficulties and are blissfully happy in that baby bubble for months on end and don't feel like they want to break free every other day.

So be honest, am I a total flake of a mother?

What everyone else said. Plus - it's all still so fresh for you now.

When DS was 2 months I was still having vivid birth flashbacks and lots of regretful feelings about the birth and its aftermath. My HV kept seeing me until DS was about 4/5 months as I think she thought I was at risk of PND. But I was fine after that - it just took me a while to come to terms with the difference in what I had expected/hoped would happen (whale music birthing pool spiritual ecstasy etc etc) and what actually happened (induction, agony, epidural, post epidural complications etc etc).

But DS is now a lively 2.5 year old and I can genuinely say that it seems so much less important now than it did back then. I am now preg with DC2 and, although I'd like a nice low intervention birth, I will refuse to feel too bad if it doesn't happen - it's only 1 day or so compared to years and years of being a mother.

On the comparing yourself thing - everyone does it but it's really not helpful - you are great at being a Mum in your own way, just as others are in their own ways. Very few people are not good enough mothers - and I don't think anyone is actually a perfect mother - we're all just stumbling through as best we can, considering our completely different personalities/backgrounds/luck.

Congrats on your new DS :)

I took all the drugs going (long and complicated delivery ending in emcs) and couldn't do it myself.
You did what you needed to do, I'm sure, to safeguard your DS and you. Who knows what would have happened if you'd put a 'natural' childbirth before that?

self-sacrificing women who give birth without drugs for the good of their child
Well, I didn't manage that either. And that's ok. But please don't confuse the overall statistics people like to bandy about re drugs and the effect on children with YOUR decision to have them necessarily being bad or the wrong thing for YOUR CHILD. High level generalisations about epidurals or whatever are all very well, but I expect you did your best to manage a very hard process so you and your son would be ok. And if so, job done.

I also did mixed feeding with my first, and suffered quite a lot when breast-feeding. Here persistence really does help. Just try to access all the help you can, here and with breast-feeding counsellors.

But please, please love yourself a little bit here as well as your son. You haven't stopped being you because you've had a baby, and how much you conform to the earth mother/Hollywood mother stereotypes people persist in having is no evidence at all of how good a mother you are or will be. Frankly, wanting to see friends and have a drink is a perfectly healthy sign.

Relax and enjoy.

OP?

You sound pretty normal to me.

pole he was the only one not to love a dummy! Awkward little cuss that he is.

Keremy my last two births were homebirths with gas and air. You know why? I am too bloody scared to go to hospital and I had pethidene ready and waiting incase I needed begged for it.

Some people like to talk about their births. Its not usually boasting. Its just something people do and its not meant as a judgement on other people.
Dont take it personally.

We can only have plans for how we want our births and can only do so much to help those plans happen. The rest is down to luck, biology and circumstances.

You havent failed.

Pain relief- check , Formula Fed - check, Dummy- check. Yep, if you are a flake then I am one too. My dd will be 11 soon and she is lovely. What I did at her birth/babyhood has not influenced this. It is the love/care/ stimulation she has received from both her parents, wider family, school, friends, and environment which has had a bearing. Please don't feel like a failure, there are no extra brownie points for doing things a certain way. You are doing great!!!

Oh stop it you're making me cry all of you! So so bloody lovey of you all to take the time to reply and make me feel better. I do think maybe some post-birth counselling might be helpful and yes I know I'm being rather hard on myself. I am also massively sleep deprived (colicky DS who seems to be at the peak of his screaming in
agony stage right now - 7 weeks, is that normal?)

I think the problem is I have a few people around me who genuinely seem to relish raising their eyebrows at my parenting decisions. Don't want to get into a PIL-bashing sesh (though God knows I'd love to) but suffice it to say..oh let's stop there, I'll be here all day and will undoubtedly out myself!

I had a c-section, always was going to as DS was breech. I defy anyone to tell me I didn't 'give birth'. I certainly don't feel like I failed by not being in natural labour and pain for a long time. I had to stop BF at 4 weeks as he just would not do it, no matter how I tried. It just wasn't happening so we went to FF and it was much better for both of us at that time. So what ??

Stop beating yourself up, accept the hormones flying around your body are probably doing some strange things at the moment and try to enjoy your time together.

Wanky PIL? Poor you. Some people do take motherhood as an extended opportunity to give a woman a kicking.

Why not visit the Feminism/Women's Rights board? Lots of empowering stuff on there...

Anyone who gives birth without drugs is a nut job or it didn't hurt that much in the first place!!!

Breast or bottle, personal decision and who gives a fuck what other people do.

Dummys are life savers.

Yes sleep deprivation is fucking torture but it WILL get better I swear.

All moms feel guilty it's a given.

Be nice to yourself you seem completely normal to me and hang on to your sense of humour!! With 4 Dcs I know that humour is the quality that will see you through. Oh and wine of course..

Hugs to u

Firstly, You can regret the fact that you didn't have a "natural" birth OR you can be extremely proud of yourself for going through serious surgery to insure the safety of your beautiful little boy. Frankly, He couldn't give a hoot if you did a bong at the birth.

Secondly, You are doing your best with the BFing. He's getting everything he needs.

Thirdly, He loves his dummy. It's a comfort to him and makes him happy, That's never a bad thing.

You sound like a wonderful mother. Stop doubting yourself!

This is your baby brain talking - ignore your baby brain.

There are absolutely no serial killers out there who cite their mum's decision to take drugs during birth as the reason for their doomed lives.

Give yourself a break and if you need some help with bf post on the feeding room, there are some very knowledgeable people there who can help.

I had a partial epidural. Birth wasn't a problem really, I just shouted for one "get that bloody man up here" I yelled when told the anaesthetist was busy in theatre!

I couldn't bf either. Tried and tried and tried. DD lost weight and lost weight. DH was having to latch her on while I clenched my fists and screamed with tears rolling down my cheeks. I felt so guilty for such a long time, that I had failed her.

Then I was dx with ms; by which time I could barely stand up let alone walk, run, push her on the swings (or get to the park). Guilt guilt guilt.

That was my over-riding emotion for a lot of her babyhood and even toddler-hood.

Don't do it. Take it from me, your love and your cuddles matter so much more than whether your baby is bf exclusively, partially or not at all. More important than whether you wean at this age or that, whether you potty train whenever, more important than anything else.

Rejoice in your babe. Make your decisions because they are yours, because they work for you, because they are right in your own circumstances, not becuase they're someone else's. You won't go far wrong, honest!

I did manage a natural water birth with both of mine - but that was just a fluke of nature and a private birth team committed to it first time round, and a home birth the second time where what I said went. However, from thereon in I didn't breastfeed, got bored silly with childcare and handed them over to nanny at 6 weeks and back to work full time at 8. Had some holidays when they stayed with nanny or my mother. Never had a party at home, always leisure centre package. Sent them to a school where all activities were laid on and they did their prep (homework) before I collected them. If I had work committments they had breakfast and sometimes supper too at school. I must stress that I love them to pieces and the older they have got the better being a mother has been.

Mine are now just about grown up - 21 and 17. They unreservedly say I've been a great mother, still like a cuddle and have done really well at school and university (DS1) OP, you are only just setting out as a mother and none of the things you mention matter at all. I have discovered from my sons and their friends that encouraging independence, letting them get on with life, not being an over protective hovering parent (i.e. what I always had a twinge about being abit lazy) actually makes them turn out better! Don't beat yourself up, do things how you want to , it will all be O.K.

As long as there is a happy mum and baby, it doesn't matter how many drugs were/were not used, home birth/birthing pool/section/back of the ambulance/car park...it's not important. That took me a long time to get my head round as I had a emergency section under general anaesthetic and didn't see DS for 12 hours and felt bloody awful for months.

BF/FF or mixed, you have to do what is best for you both

Dummies are fine, as long as your DS isn't still sucking on it when he's walking up the aisle then don't stress about it. Comfort is never a bad thing for a baby

I went out to celebrate his birth by getting shit faced with friends about 2 weeks after he was born.

As easy as it is to say, don't worry about what anybody else does/says. YOU know whats best for your family, sod anybody elses opinions. Next time PIL stick their noses in make comments, use a good MN phrase " I'm sure you didn't mean for that to sound so rude"

Keep this thread because I promise you in a years time you will look back and think how silly all the guilt was, you will have realised the "perfect" mothers are all front and still have the desperate "get me away from this place" feeling we all have albeit for different reasons and you will have happily moved on to feeling guilty about too much tv to get 10 minutes peace, or not living near the right school, or letting them wear the £2 supermarket plastic sandals they prefer to the £30 specially measured Clarks monstrosities they hate.

You can't help mummy guilt and the shit thing is there is a trap that even if you get past it you think "god I feel guilty for not focusing on that guilt". The best remedy is get out to some playgroups, talk to other normal mothers honestly and their own stresses will come flooding out putting everything into perspective.

If it gets too bad admit it and talk to your gp I felt guilt I had an epidural, guilt I had to combine feed, guilt that I wanted out of the house and back to work, I had PND but admitting the worries was the first step to acceptance and feeling brighter.

Pain relief, epidurals, c-sections - you know that there's a good reason why the mortality rate for women has gone down in the last 100 years right? Sure there's lots of births that are just fine, and go just fine, and the mother's have a natural birth, and it is all lovely. Two of my sisters had those.

Then there's the rest of us. Myself and one other sister had those - labour that goes for days, babies that just won't come out, and medical intervention because frankly, as others have pointed out, all that pain isn't worth it. The labour isn't what being a mother is all about, the baby is.

On the dummy front, as someone else said, I gave my son one at three weeks old as otherwise he was comfort sucking on me. I could have denied him but then I read that really, the only true pleasure a baby has that they have complete control over is sucking. Why deny them that?

Incidentally OP - whilst yes, being really colicky at 7 weeks is totally normal, have you been shown the various techniques there are for helping the wind discomfort move?

New babies have no core muscles to speak of, so any wind they have can really make itself felt and cause lots of discomfort/pain, but if you don't already know there are lots of things you can do to help.

Some don't work instantly but do help move wind or or down and will bring relief to baby within 10 minutes or so.

Holding in the 'tiger on a branch' position (facing floor along your arm, with pressure on tummy) is good

Cycling the legs

Stroking the tummy from under right ribs in rainbow down to left groin

Pushing legs up to chest rhythmically

etc

If you haven't been told all about these look them up online and they may help you help baby and everyone is happier.

HTH :)

Oh well, I'm a flake too then. First DC was a GA, c-section and a brain damaged baby who died.
If you have failed then I'm even worse! Thing is, it's not on my CV and never stopped me getting a job, my other DC are happy and healthy, my friends haven't rejected me, my DH still loves me. In other words, it's not sensible to think about this as being a way of measuring someone's worth.

Thank you Gin -looking up now -and well said succeedingatfailing,
very sorry about your first baby, puts things firmly into perspective. Onwards and upwards...anyone want to take my cuntish challenging PILs off my hands??

With DD2 and DD3 I had no pain relief because I was too ill to make the arrangements and nobody would help me. I would have had pain relief willingly. As it was I had very painful births.

I only breastfed because it was easy. I didn't do anything to make it happen and it certainly wasn't because I had any superior skills. If it hadn't been easy I wouldn't have breastfed. I take my hat off to women who breastfeed even though they find it difficult.

DD1 had a dummy and I took it from her when she was 2. DDs 2&3 both sucked their thumbs. I tried everything to stop DD2 but she carried on till she was 8. You should see the state of her teeth now :(

It's all consuming when you have a small baby and I think it's perfectly normal to need a break.

Sorry for your loss Succeeding

KJ - how about earplugs (for you) and using the 'nod and smile' technique?

Also, any raised eyebrows / comments you get, maybe look thoughtful and and say 'interesting - would you be able to get me the latest research on that so I can read up?' - Guarantee you they won't, nor will they have a comeback.

The whole 'it was good enough in my day/two years ago etc' simply warrants, 'yes, it was, and things change, so I'm doing what's best today' finished up with a [I am one tough (and good) mother so don't mess with me smile emoticon].