to think that if an HV makes the comment...

[nickelbarapasaurus]

"some of the answers you gave on the MH questionnaire make me a bit worried you might be prone to PND", that it might be worthy of a follow-up?

from someone ?

that was the comment my HV made (about 5 mins before she suggested that i should go to some of the Children's centre sessions, even though she knows i work 6 days a week, because she had to visit me in the shop ) when DD had her 12 week check.

she's now 6 months (28 weeks today) and i've not heard a peep from any HV since.

I agree that the HV should have done more. You sound a bit like I was, Nickel. You don't think you're unwell, but really you probably are. I never liked admitting to feeling bad - or acknowledging it myself. My HV dragged it out of me by asking searching questions and then waiting for me to explain what I meant and then she arranged to return in 3 days time, by which time she had called my GP and told them to expect my call. My GP then phoned me herself and arranged for me to go in, so even though I was still saying it was a lot of fuss about nothing, I felt obliged to see her.

I am so glad I did - I am on medication and feeling so much better. I hadn't even realised I wasn't before, but it must have been obvious to my HV.

She then followed up - and if I don't make it to a baby weighing session once a month, she calls to see if I'm ok.

I know many don't have the time to do all of this and I do think she's exceptional, but I would have thought that it is this sort of thing that is what the HVs are for.

But surely if the HV did follow up and ask if you're OK, and you told her that you think you might not be, her advice would likely be to go to the GP. So why not just go anyway?

I agree you would expect them to have followed up, but sometimes these services are not very 'joined up', sometimes people are over-worked or incompetent, honestly I hear so many bad things about the HV system that I wonder what the point is at all! But don't use it as an excuse not to get the help you need.

Oh nickel I'm sorry you're feeling so low, are you still crying? Wish I was near your shop, I have a hundredweight of hankies.

You've said there's a chance you're not ok, and from what people are saying who have read more of your posts you don't sound to them to be ok, please phone the GP and make an appointment.

"(which was quite hard given the way i felt, actually)"
that meant difficult!!

i placed her gently, which was difficult to do!!

I knew that was what you meant, I think it was obvious!

I am sorry you feel so horrid, if that is the right word to use, i think your hv should have ddf dine more, but as many others have said they are stretched and under resourced (bit kike being a new mum!)

I do think that someone asking if you are ok would be lovely, but i think you know the answer to that, you just need to tell someone who can help the answer, i think going to your gp is an excellent idea, and if your gp is useless, mine is keen on ibuprofen as a cure all, i would ask to see another one! You can do the edinburgh post natal questionairre online, which is what i think the hv uses, but it will only be worth doing if it means you take results to gp and say this is how i feel.

In interim, are you able to get anyone to help, even if just to make you a cup of tea and give you a hug? I would imagine that anyine who knew you were feeling like this would be glad to help?

nickel my experience with HV is that the follow up varies a lot from one person to the next.
One HV never ever made any follow up when I asked for an appointment with her because I was worried I had PND. She cancelled the appointment and never rang me back.
The other came to check on me a few times just because I had PND with my first (and even though I was fine with the second).

The conclusion is: some HV are crap but it doesn't mean you should stop asking for help.
I would really advise you to go and see your GP. Whether this is PND or depression because of the business and raising a child, it doesn't matter.
I did the mistake of not asking for any help at all when the HV let me down. It was a very big mistake because it then drag on for a lot longer than it needed to.
Please call your GP and take an appointment

things that don't help - friend asking me to do some copying for her. i already feel fragile today. printer has detached itself from the computer somehow, i can't work it out (friend can't hear me if i talk to her from beneath desk so keeps going "hmm?""what?" etc. that's annoying. dd falls over and bangs her head on the door, i pick her up to comfort her, friend keeps bloody talking about the printer, even though i've told her what's the problem and that i'll do her copies to pick up tomorrow. dd by this time is howling. dd prob needs a feed for comfort, friend says this then starts going on about her having whisky in her bottle. dd is still crying. i want friend just to shut up and leave me to it, but she won't stop talking!!
i feel like this, have just been sobbing etc, i haven't yet drunk my tea, and she wouldn't stop talking! dd is now feeding, and is fine, but i'm now feeling stressed again because i can't just say "please go away now, i have to care for distressed baby"

I think you're very stressed. Times are tough for small businesses and the book trade is especially tricky.

I notice you're open 6 days a week. Have you looked at how much trade you do each day. Is there one specific day or 1/2 day that is so low in trade that you might as well shut then and give yourself a bit more time? If it's a regular day people will get used to it and you won't lose trade. (My mum had a gift shop for years - I know how much running a small business can suck btw)

Well your friend doesn't sound like a friend tbh....

Would you still call the GP?

nickel, love, you need to focus on you. Tell your friend you're having a bad patch. You sound as if you're trying to cope and help out like usual - but it's your turn to admit you need a minute.

Your mate sounds like she leans on you ... why can't you say 'please go away now'?

It sounds perfectly ok to me!

Lady - she's a bit, erm, clueless. she's nice really, she just lives in her own world (and is mostly deaf, which means she often misses meaning in what people say). she is well-meaning, which makes it worse when she's having the opposite effect!

My HV said similar to me and then disappeared. I hated going to the weighing clinic as it was so open, no chance for a private word. Noone realised my dp had fucked off shortly before birth, people just assumed I had a partner and I was in no position to correct them. I struggled on and made myself seriously ill. I didn;t get help til my ds was 18 months old and I was in a real state. I'd taken the questionnaire at that appointment and was essentially left to go even crazier.
Nickel, from all I've seen of you on here, you are a 'coper'. So am I, but it doesn;t tend to serve us well. The fact you are being asked to do stuff by friends just goes to show how well you're hiding how you're really feeling. You feel you're being strong to struggle on, but actually, every time someone fails to notice how you're feeling, it chips away at you a little more.
I can't imagine how stressful it must be to have your dd in your shop with you. IS there any chance of using childcare at least a few days a week? It sounds liek you need a break, and if practically it can't be a break from work, then a break from your dd, while you may be reluctant to ask for it, might be just what you need. But in the meantime, GP, and sooner rather than later. They've heard it all before. I was a wreck when I finally went, just broke down and cried, said I wasn't coping. I was put on some truly excellent, bf-friendly meds, had CBT and am a changed person.

That's still shit, you're crying in front of her and she hasn't noticed

MrsMicawber - i'm in kent, I've texted DH to tell him i feel crap. he finishes work at 2, and will be coming in to make me lunch.

I don't know where it's all come from. I was fine. I started to feel a bit panicky and helpless last week, when DH was on holiday from work. Maybe it was having him available that has brought it all out - i didn't have to rely on myself all week, and now i can't shut it all away again.

Oh Nickel, no wonder you are upset, it's a very stressful situation you poor thing.

I am pregnant with DC3, and look back 8 years ago to after DC1, and can so easily see I was suffering with PND. I think - at the time - I figured depression was lying in bed in a darkened room. And I did get out and about to baby groups, and got dressed, and DC1 was fine, so I must be fine.

But to feel this stressed is not right, and it's not your fault: you have a lot on your plate, your hormones are probably still all over the place and sleep deprivation does not help. A lot of us on MN have been there, and that's what the support out there is for: make an appointment with the GP, and as another poster says, write it all down to prevent you minimising it when you get there.

And have you thought about contacting Homestart? It's a brilliant organisation that is set up for mums feeling like you are right now (and me 8 years ago) - someone could come, sit with you and entertain the baby for a couple hours so you can have a bath/ read a book/ sort out your printer - whatever would make you feel better. If you search for them, you should find one in your local area.

You poor thing, it is rubbish, and it can be hard to feel like you can talk about it (at least I found it hard at the time), so well done you for coming onto Mumsnet, and the next step is getting an appt with the GP. Let us all know how you get on. xx

Northern - i wish i could! I've spent hours in the past looking for a pattern in takings, there just isn't one! sometimes you think "ooh, mondays are crap, i could get away with opening half day, then the next 4 mondays (like today) are really busy all day!
I know i should bite the bullet and just pick a day/afternoon/morning, but i daren't miss out on trade.

stealth - i told her i had hayfever

I think you need to be blunt with the friend, and tell her you're not able to do stuff for her right now, and that you/DD need a bit of space. I know it seems a bit rude, but if she's a good friend, she'll understand. Better than not saying anything then eventually snapping at her and saying it in a nastier way.

And do see your GP, you do sound like you're struggling at the moment. Even if you're not sure whether it's PND or whether they can help or not, it's surely worth a try?

PND is very insidious. I didn't think I had it with DS (now 4), but I probably did. I realised it before, I think, but it really took DD (now 6 months - Advent baby, like yours!) for me to realise how bad my first neo-natal and toddler period was. I don't know how to deal with that, though, as everyone's solution will be different, and yours no doubt is bound up with the business, which, as LRD points out, is subject to other forces.

However, that means that you shouldn't just be calling your GP, but also Business Link, and thinking about other things for the business. Apologies if you've done any of these already, but:

1. YouTube (sample "tracks" from book events in store)
2. google advertising - very targeted and good for helping to grow the non-bricks and mortar side of your business (c.f. point 5)
3. a Mumsnet book club, with discounts for those who order from you - reading notes included as an extra, in case anyone decides to cheat and order from Amazon
4. sharing premises with, for example, a sub-post office (they can't have moved in with WH Smith everywhere) or a drop-box depot (slight conflict, in that people do collect their Amazon packages from there, but on the other hand, adults know what they want, but have little idea about their children's books, or even that there are baby books, so the two kinds of shopping could well be complementary: pick something up for the DC while collecting your summer potboilers...)
5. changing premises, either downsizing, or - sorry to be so drastic - getting out of your town altogether and going for a larger, more "shoppy" sort of place, e.g. Canterbury.

Again, apologies if any of these ideas are too awful or too already-tried-that.

The summer holidays are almost here, and mothers will be desperate to get the little soandsos darlings out of the house.

I'm not a million miles from you, so will PM you.

DD's godmother has started taking her out at lunchtime once a week for an hour. she falls asleep in the pram. so it's not too hard for her either (DD tends only ever to sleep in the pram. she used to go off if i bounced her in her chair, but that hasn't worked since about 18 weeks. she now just laughs and then tries to wriggle out. then i bounce it until she goes quiet, when i look at her, she's sitting playing with her clothes or scratching.)
the idea is it'll help me to do stuff, but what really happens is customers come in and interrupt.

like, on saturday, a school came in with a big long list of books for me to find - i started on it, dd got grizzly. i played with her, fed, changed (separate times). dh took her to play. granted, he could have disappeared with her, but we didn't think of that at the time. I haven't got the list done.
(i could be doing it now, couldn't i? )

I get to the stage where i just can't be bothered to do anything that requires thinking, when she's feeding (and not trying to join in on the keyboard!), and i just end up whiling away time doing unimportant stuff instead.

ah, yes, the old "try to do stuff/events etc"
(thank you for your ideas, i've copied them and will look at them later :) )
I've been stressing also because in the course of trying to get the schools on my books to come and visit the shop/buy books/etc, I think i've discovered that they've all been ignoring my emails. I have the feeling they've gone straight to trash, but one school (worst that it's the school in my old village, that i've supported, since i moved to kent, as a person, and dealt with a lot as a shop in the past,) the new head denied all knowledge (mums at the school have also mentioned me several times since she took over).

I'm going to write them all a postal letter saying "you seem not to be getting my emails oops", and ask them to tell me their preferred method of communication.

it's independent booksleers week next week, and i wanted to involve the schools. my first emails went out at the beginning of june, and one replied, so i followed it up after a week, two more replied. I sent out a generic "come do ibw with us" one replied.
sent out a "do you actually read these emails" and that's when i got the "who the hell are you?" replies.