....to dislike being a parent?

[AllesAusLiebe]

Hi

I feel awful even saying this, but is it ok to actually hate being a parent sometimes?

Son is 2 weeks old and breastfed. Over the last couple of days he’s been whining almost non stop and crying before feeding, getting so hysterical that he doesn’t latch then screaming in hunger.

I’m completely at a dead end and don’t know what to do. Breastfeeding support have been shocking to deal with and because he’s putting on weight they couldn’t care less when I tell them what else is going on.

I’m really starting to resent being a parent and every day seems like a repetitive, tedious cycle. Is it ok to feel like this from time to time or do I need help.

AIBU to ask if it gets better?

It took me 3 weeks to bond with baby. Before then it was a tough slog all about surviving! I had baby blues until then though, perhaps you also have baby blues? the things you’re saying sound very much like me! At 2 weeks both me & DH said ‘what on earth have we done!’. He’s now 4 months old and we adore him. It gets better, honest!

It def gets better. I hated the baby stage. Yes they are cute and you love them but they suck the life from you. My son is now 4 years and he's honestly the life and soul of the party, he's so funny and I just beam when we are together. They're only babies for a bit then they become little people that make you laugh, cuddle you back and whisper back "I love you too" at the end of a hard day. You get a lot more "back" the older they get.

It gets better. Honestly, hand on heart.

I look back on the first few months and think 'wow that was so bloody hard' but also 'but it was only a few months and over so quick'.

It doesn't feel like that when you are it in. Just concentrate on trying to take it one day at a time, and know it will change.

Watching as I feel pretty much the same way about my 3 week old too. Hope this time will pass!

Did you have a vaginal birth? If so, it may well be worth taking him to a cranial osteopath, babies take a battering on the way out of the birth canal and his problems may be because of this.

But generally, small babies are awful! They only care about themselves and have no respect for anyone else . Once the first 3 months are out of the way they become less deadly.

I hated the baby stage, hated it. So much that both DC went to nursery pt and I went back to work at 4 and 5 months respectively, which saved me. They are teens now and I still consider those first months to be the absolute worst. Things did improve as each month passed but far too slowly for me so I unashamedly outsourced the crap bit. Statistically too, there are greater incidences of PND in IVF parents, so you're not alone feeling as you do.

The first weeks are very hard. Your baby is gaining weight ...but that doesn't mean he isn't hungry sometimes. The worst thing about BF is not knowing how much milk your baby is getting. We all know BF has best nutrients for baby ...but if its exhausting the mother I'm not sure its best to continue You have already given your baby a great start by BF first few weeks ...but if the intensity of it is getting to you that's not best for baby. A less tired more confident mummy is important. Think about ff don't worry about what others think. If you need the extra help you can get when others can sometimes feed the baby ...go for it. Your mental health and happiness is crucial for your baby's well being.

I felt the way you did for the first year really as DS had colic and reflux and didn't sleep. However it did get better and hopefully it will get better sooner for you. A first baby is such a shock to the system and your whole life changes overnight. It is ok to grieve for that!

DS is now 2.5 and I love being a parent, it is everything I ever thought it would be and just gets better every day. Hang in there, you can do this :)

I dislike it too and mine are 2 and 9.
I would absolutely not have children given my time again. It has been easily the worst decision I’ve ever made.

As others have said, the first few weeks are really tough! It DOES get better and feeding gets easier - cluster feeding is completely normal and so is the constant grizzling.

Have you spoken to your Health Visitor about how you're feeling? Hormones are all over the place at the moment and remember that sleep deprivation is a form of torture!!

Are there any breastfeeding groups near by? It's useful to know what other mums are going through and be reassured that everything you've described is normal. Or there's lots of really helpful info on Kellymom.com

Could be worth trying a baby sling so baby feels comforted and you can be hands free. Or a dummy may help if it's wind related

Hope this helps

Yes I found that reminding myself that sleep deprivation is used to torture people helped me realise why I was finding it so hard.

It’s very hard especially with newborns when they come out of that sleepy phase.

At 2 weeks old, he’s becoming a bit more alert and won’t fall asleep as easily. So you really have to pay close attention to making sure he gets enough day time sleep. Otherwise you get the screaming fits. Also paying attention to what his feeding cues are and not thinking he wants to play before it descents into screaming!

I kept mine in slings for most of the first three months simply because it stopped themgetting overstimulated. Over stimulation usually occurred due to over excited grandparents waving toys around time and time again.

We also slid into a gentle routine - only mornings and nightines though. This helped a bit

I really, really struggled with breastfeeding, and I got fairly depressed as a result. For me, the very best thing I did was to start bottle feeding. I'm aware of the benefits of breastfeeding, and it is definitely great if it works for you, but if it is getting to the point where it's affecting your mental health don't beat yourself up if bottle feeding actually allows you to cope.

You’re doing a great job, you really are. The trouble is that there is such a huge expectation with a new baby that it’s going to be perfect and blissful. And it really isn’t with a newborn! And especially if you have fertility issues (my daughter was IVF), I think you can feel a massive weight of responsibility that you have a ‘miracle baby’ so you should be insanely happy, all of the time, otherwise you don’t really deserve them.

It will definitely get better, you are just in the eye of the storm. Everyone gets tired beyond belief, cranky, irritable and downright angry with a new baby.

It’s really early days so just be kind to yourself. Definitely talk to your health visitor and also see if there are any local baby groups you can go to. My local NCT ‘bumps and babes’ group saved my sanity because I realised that all the other new mums were sleep deprived, tearful, unwashed lunatics just like me

Also, have you tried feeding your DS in the bath? You have to be careful about the water temperature obviously, and would need your partner to hand him in and out but when my DD went through a stage like this with breastfeeding, bath-feeding really seemed to soothe her and got us back on track. You can’t do it all the time but it took the stress out of a feed or two a day!

I felt the same for a few weeks. Took me ages to bond with my daughter. I just felt duty. It does get better! Hang in there. I can't imagine life without her now.

I found moving to the bottle a total game-changer too.

It is so exhausting, I found bottle feeding transformed my early motherhood experience. I hated breast feeding and it was so painful and the baby was never settled or sleeping. It will also help that your dp can get properly involved and help with the night feeds. Once fed, ask your dp to take the baby out in the car that often helps. Or a battery operated rocking chair sometimes soothes if you are feeling tired from the constant rocking and walking.

Hang in there, parenting is amazing with a little more sleep and some routines.

I promise you it DOES get better. I felt EXACTLY the same way when DD was a newborn

for you OP. Just keep going, there is light at the end of the tunnel!

Honestly OP, the first six weeks after DC1 was born were so hard for me, even harder than having 3 kids under 4 a few years later! It's the massive shock / adjustment which is so hard.

What you are feeling is totally normal. Your life has completely changed - its like a handgrenade exploding in your livingroom. Bf is bloody hard work but will get easier. I never enjoyed it though. I transitioned to formula at 5.5 months with dd2 as I never found it easy or wonderful. My eldest was given formula from 2 weeks as I had primary lactation failure and I had no choice. All I get tell you, with my experience and hindsight, is that it doesnt matter how you feed your baby. It feels like it does, especially when the baby is exclusively milk fed, but it absolutely doesnt. Dd1 is one of the youngest in the year. Despite this she is very bright and on the G&T register. She is active, healthy and rarely ill. Dd2 is only 20 months. She was ebf until 5.5 months, mix fed until 7m and ten eff. She is also healthy and had met all of her milestones. Go with your gut and do whatever you need to keep yourself sane and enjoy your baby. The 'oh my god I love being a parent more than life' that you expected to feel. That comes later. You are 2 weeks away from your lo's first smile. 10 weeks away from rolling over etc. Thats when you get hit with that rush of love. Be kind to yourself. You are knackered. You are doing a great job.

I felt very similar with my, much longed for, baby. I spent a lot of time in floods of tears googling 'putting baby up for adoption'. Some of it is hormones, some of it is the shock of such a big life change. I also found the contrast between what I'd been told about breastfeeding (easy, natural, great bonding experience) and the reality (hell of cluster feeding and I never enjoyed it) really knocked me for six.

What I found helped was getting out every day once DH went back to work - so we went to a baby/toddler group every morning (the ones in church halls have baby areas and someone brings you a cup of tea and commiserates). Getting into a routine helped, although I didn't until four months as I had been told to do everything on demand and didn't dare not to. Also getting away from the baby for at least one evening a week made a huge difference. I regret now forcing myself to carry on breastfeeding when I hated it so much.

The first year was tough, and the first six weeks were like being in Hell. It then got a bit easier, and then again at 3 and 6 months. Going back to work made a lot of difference too and I regret now not going back earlier - I stuck it out at home for a whole year.

Please try and get to a breastfeeding clinic at your local hospital if possible. Around 10 different midwives and HVs watched me feeding ds and none of them picked up on the tongue tie because they don't have enough training on the issue. He was also putting on weight, so they were convinced that there was no problem, but the breastfeeding clinicians confirmed that he was feeding extremely inefficiently because of tongue tie and was having to work very hard to gain very little

@AllesAusLiebe I’m a parent after IVF and recurrent miscarriage, and I felt very similar to you at the start.

There is so much pressure to be enjoying being a parent, regardless of how you got there - if I had a pound for every time someone told me to ‘enjoy every minute’ I’d be rich. What an impossible ask!! Then add to that the feeling that you should be extra grateful because you struggled for this, and you really heap the pressure on. Thing is, a miracle baby still doesn’t sleep, pukes, shits etc, the birth is just as hard and the recovery just as slow. Breastfeeding is still as tough. I also found that I just transferred a lot of the anxiety I had about getting and staying pregnant onto keeping a baby alive!

Two weeks in is still well in the grip of the ‘WTF have I done’ stage. It gets better and easier, I promise. Hang in there. Get out to a baby massage class at 6 weeks or so - it’s the first class you can go to and get something out of. Everyone else will feel at least partly the same, you can see it in their eyes even if they look otherwise together! Also, Find out if there is baby cinema screenings near you. Cuddling and feeding my newborn whilst watching a film was the most relaxing couple of hours of my week.

Good luck!

Seriously my love, nothing can prepare you for the total change a newborn wreaks on your life. It's like having your head blown off. Two weeks in I was barely sane.

You are totally normal, and it's not parenting you don't like - it's total sleep deprivation and never having a single second to yourself. It is not always like this, it gets easier, and you start getting more back for your trouble. Right now all your baby offers you is need, need, need, which is bloody shattering especially when you are a ftm and terrified you're doing it all wrong. But there will come a time, not at all far from now, when they will smile at you, say your name, and make you feel like the most special person in the whole world. Hard to imagine in the thick of the newborn and new parent phase though. I doubt there's a mother in the world who hasn't had a "what have I done?!" moment in the first few months.

If it's NHS bf support that's not helping you, I'd ditch them and talk to La Leche League - they're passionate and knowledgeable and experienced breastfeeders, they aren't on the clock with a list of patients to see, and they care about how YOU are, not just the baby's curve on the centile chart. Really, it helped me so much just to sit in a room with women who didn't seem to be broken by motherhood telling me they'd been exactly where I was and offering real empathy and support without constantly checking their watch.

Sputnik, my baby was like yours. I felt like I was doing awfully because she was so ratty and hard to please compared to my friends' babies. Far too late I cut out dairy, and that helped a lot, but tbh I think she would always have been restless and demanding - it's her nature. But that's because she's frankly very very clever and she needed a lot of input or I think she was bored senseless! Once she could crawl she was much better, once she began walking (at 10/11 months) she became genuinely jolly, and now she can talk at 21 months she is a genuine delight. Still very demanding of attention, but she defaults to being happy, rarely whinges or cries, never really tantrums - just ridiculously bloody persistent, which I actually quite admire.

It's worth excluding any possible issues - well worth checking symptoms of CMPA or other allergies as they can make babies very cranky and it's not all about rashes - but it could be you just have a baby that hates being a baby, like mine, and they will get better over time as their skills expand and their dependence reduces.

And oh my God have a drink, you're fine to!! xxx

Chin up new mums - you are not abnormal, it's bloody hard work, but it absolutely will get better.