AIBU to ask for the PFB/newborn panics & preciousness that you look back and laugh on now?

[Dennisreynoldsduster]

As a first time mum I’ve been a bundle of neurotic anxieties, and found myself warming wipes, worrying that DS has a million things wrong with him, studying the contents of nappies with rather more attention that I’d expected..

So as I’m about to do the night shift with a rather awake baby, can I ask you to share the precious first born behaviours and anxieties that you look back on rather fondly or laugh about now?

A really shitty midwife who visited the day after I took my baby home from hospital commented that I was clearly 'asking for cot death' as she had a little hat on indoors because it was an old house and a bit drafty and cold.
I was so paranoid after that, that every room had to be at most 18 degrees, that she had only 2 blankets on her bed, that she had to be put down on her back only. When my mother came to visit she wouldn't take her coat off as the house was chilly.
A different health visitor came about a week later and I said that the baby wasn't sleeping very well. She gently pointed out that the baby was probably a bit cold as she'd been in NICU for 2 weeks and it was roasting hot in there, all the babies had little hats on in the incubators, and were often laid on their side, or at least at an angle. She said that I should do what I felt was right and not take a comment like that to heart. A gro-bag and a slightly warmer room helped a lot!

The same HV listened to me tell her I wouldn't be coming to the baby clinic as I'd not slept all night as my baby had reached an awkward stage where the usual amount of formula wasn't enough but more had her projectile vomiting. So it had been listen to her cry for 4 hours or change both the cot and my bed and wash myself and the baby at least twice a night. I was adamant that I wouldn't use a dummy... The HV gently pointed out that a dummy would help a lot with this as she clearly wasn't actually hungry and just wanted to suckle something and that I wasn't a terrible mother for letting her have a dummy if needs be to get through this stage. That my sanity was more important than whether or not a 3 month old had a dummy and as long as I took it off her it before she could ask for it back it would be fine! (as it happened I had no idea dummies came in different sizes and bought a toddler dummy for my tiny premie...) of course she wouldn't use it but it seemed to give her an idea and that night started to suck her thumb and sleep was restored in the household (at least in 3 hours bursts).

That health visitor was worth her weight in gold.

I also used to make sure my daughter was dressed in the easiest to remove clothes I could find before attending the baby clinic to have her weighed as I was sure they would be judging me on my baby dressing and undressing skills.

I reported the first midwife and I believe her comments were 'dealt with' and she was 'reeducated' on how to treat new mothers.

Not really sure why I was so anxious once I was home as when she was still in SCBU the hospital had parents in to stay over night before the baby was discharged. They informed me it was a 4 hour feeding cycle and laughed at me when I told them I had brought an alarm.. 4am came, the alarm woke me and baby was still sleeping so I went to talk to one of the nurses who insisted I wake her up for the feed. I duly did this and my grumpy daughter only had about half the 'set' amount before going back to sleep. When I took the remainder out to the nurse she informed me that if she didn't take a full feed at 8am they wouldn't discharge her. At 8am the same thing happened, baby was still asleep so I woke her at around 8.30 and she took about 2/3 of the bottle. I poured the rest down the sink and told the nurse all was fine - they discharged her a few hours later.
At home I waited for her to wake before trying to feed her. Sometimes that was 5 hours, sometimes it was 2-3 but at least she wasn't rudely awoken to have a bottle shoved in her mouth before she was hungry!

@morecoffeemore I can’t believe the midwife said that to you that’s awful!

I’ve just thought of one that my friend did - her DD wasn’t much of a burper but would trump like a trooper and she was convinced it wasn’t normal so kept a fart diary charting the number of times she farted and what they smelt like for a week to take to the doctor.
The doctor was more interested in my friend’s anxieties and was very kind but clearly a bit at such thorough log keeping!

But at the time I was thinking 'what if they have HIV?'.

Uhhmm, well if they did have it, so what? Wouldn’t have infected your baby.

I was an E&E Dr for nearly 3 decades and I saw it all with nutty behaviour from parents. Nuttier than a bag of peanuts. Not sure hormones etc are to blame as when I had mine I didn’t jump on the fruit loop train (that I noticed) .

I did however have a very nutty moment when a colleague of my DH’s told him about the evils of vaccines and he really needed to investigate it himself and make the right decision for his kids (aka not vaccinate) rather than listen to me as I was part of the greater problem with spreading of lies. What a fuckwit and maybe hormones made me a bit mire rabid about that than my usual eye roll.

Oh, this thread is bringing back some shameful memories of pfb lunacy!
I had my one and only baby over 30 years ago... and spent the first few months in a grip of fear about him dying - to the extent that if he was sleeping deeply, I would wake him up to make sure he was still alive 😮... Used to drive his Dad mad! this actually carried on until the poor lad was several years old, and he’d get quite narky at his daft Mummy disturbing him!I I was convinced he had meningitis and was frequently pressing glasses on a non-existent rash and I would lie awake in the night straining to hear if he was breathing ok, and very often could only relax totally if he was awake during the day! I was the only Mum I knew that really looked forward to school holidays as then he would be with me - and therefore - safe🙄 Quite ridiculous!
I have to admit I still have the urge to hold his hand crossing the roads even now (he’s way taller than me, lives 100 miles away and is 34) and can’t help saying things like “have you got a coat with you, it’s going colder” and “are you eating properly?”
It must be a ‘Mum’ thing!

I had terrible exhaustion at the beginning and just could not sleep so it was getting pretty bad by day 5 or 6. DS was jaundiced so pretty much woke, fed, slept in 3 hour cycles. In one of his rare moments of awakeness, I was convinced his mouth was getting smaller and that any minute I would see it just disappear into nothing. I stared at him for a good ten minutes. To be fair he was making a sort of "ooh" expression but I had to give myself a shake when I realised how daft I was being.

I had pretty bad postpartum anxiety that I’m still dealing with, my baby is 5 months now, but looking back these were the silliest times.

At two weeks postpartum I convinced myself I had nits, I didn’t know anyone who had nits but just had this awful fear the baby would get nits, and I would be checking my hair and hers constantly, never found anything.

My baby accidentally wriggled out of my hands in the bath and I convinced myself she must have been experiencing secondary drowning as it was the first thing that came up when I googled about it. 2 sleepless nights later, I had my baby at a&e at 2am with croup, her breathing sounded awful, and I was frantically trying to explain to the doctor that she might have secondary drowning, but she laughed and explained these things happen all the time and you would see clear signs if it had been secondary drowning, and the baby just had croup.

I also really struggle letting older people who aren’t my family touch my baby, I died inside when I seen an old lady at church kissing my baby on the mouth, took her back swiftly, and I have a habit of cleaning dd hands after old people have held them. I spent 3 weeks indoors after my baby’s first cold refusing to go out in case old people touched her, I don’t know what my problem was, I was convinced all old people wouldn’t respect my boundaries. This was finally shaken off by my mum and dad telling me I was being ridiculous and that people would kiss me on the mouth and put their fingers in my mouth when I was a baby, it’s just what older people do and the germs are good for them. I still don’t let anyone do it though, I don’t like it, but I had to leave the house for my own sanity. I still often check my baby’s breathing at regular intervals throughout the day and night.

Postpartum anxiety is awful, I just want my baby to be okay, I think I’m helping by doing all these over the top things, but it’s not good for her so I’m trying to snap out of it. I found having a strategy in place helps, if I’m having a bad day it helps to have a nap, have a shower, get out for a walk, speak to adults, practice a bit of self care, makes me feel 100x better. Hope you’re okay op, I’m sure you’re doing a terrific job

everything.it was like i was living i nthe final destination film.everything was out to get us.i was too too anxious.

My friends took their twins home, the first night they cried in the bedroom. Friends quickly decided the twins didn’t like the wallpaper. The whole family moved into the living room for a week while they redecorated!

I have borderline low milk supply (confirmed, not imagined) and had to top up with formula under drs orders from day 2. This was (rightfully) very upsetting to me, but I was most upset that my baby’s poo wouldn’t be pure breastfed poo but rather be like a formula-fed baby. I googled and found threads on various forums where people could “tell” the smell of a BF vs formula-fed baby. I was completely devastated by this and thought I’d ruined my baby’s life forever with my broken boobs. I was also convinced that in my yummy mummy area of north London that I would be literally the ONLY mum using any formula.

I realised at about 6 months in that no one gives a toss how other people feed their baby and that I saw people using formula all the time. And no one but me cares about my baby’s poop or smell!!!

@Inthebleakmidwinterz tbh I’d freak out if any random kissed my DS on the mouth or stuck their fingers in it! I hope you’re ok though anxiety is the worst, are you getting any help for it?

@kateandme eurgh anxiety is horrible isn’t it, can completely take over

@Russianslice that really made me laugh!

I had awful postpartum anxiety, I was convinced she would die and was genuinely shocked and elated when she made it to a week old
I'm only just starting to feel more normal at 9 months, but I remember one time when my precious baby had thrown up blood I got completely in a tizzy and didn't know what to do. I woke up family members and made them rush over to help me decide if she needed an ambulance, or if they could drive us to hospital. I took a million pictures of the blood to show the doctors, and folded up her bib, convinced they would need to see it... I was gently told by family to go get some sleep. After all it was the tiniest pinprick of "blood" you've ever seen. Smaller than ladybird.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/2794674-AIBU-to-ask-you-all-for-your-most-PFB-moments this is the thread from Classics. Think there's a more recent one too.

Oh I also thought she had to be cuddled at all times. I once got genuinely angry at her daddy because I came downstairs to find her asleep in her chair while he was playing on his phone. The horror. Obviously meant he didn't love her.
No wonder why he left us.

@Dennisreynoldsduster Yeah I’m doing a lot better these days thank you! I’m starting to enjoy motherhood, and not just be scared all the time. It helped to finally talk about it, my parents are mh nurses so I usually speak to them. I don’t like it when people kiss her on the mouth but I feel I can just tell people now, and they won’t do it, whereas before I wouldn’t even risk her being held by anyone outside of family and close friends because I didn’t want to risk it. But I don’t think other generations were as bothered by stuff like this, I definitely think we worry more!

We transferred to our local maternity hospital when my twins were four days old. I hadn’t thought of car mirrors and couldn’t fit in back of car with them so couldn’t see them. I spent most of the car journey taking selfie videos of them then watching them to check they were breathing... I hadn’t slept for 5 days btw..

DD scratched her leg with her fingernail and I spent 10 days watching very closely for signs of sepsis

The first time DS slept for more than two hours at night, I woke him up to make sure he was still alive.

Im also another who was convinced I had a cold sore even though I'd never had one before. Even felt a phantom tingle

@sadeyedladyofthelowlandsea

Parking up outside A&E and giving peanut butter was actually recommended to me by a professional. I can see the logic and was considering it until Christmas when DD (10 months at the time) found a dropped peanut and started munching on it!

I was so pfb with my first, but I was also traumatised by his birth, and he was a crank baby. In hindsight I had significant PND but I didn’t realise at the time. Often I think the most nutty pfb things are just a manifestation of anxiety as a desire to control everything around us. Where I grew up we had a saying, ‘the wind daren’t blow on he’ which sums up quite a bit of pfb behaviour

@Inthebleakmidwinterz really glad to hear it :)

When I had DS1 I almost had a breakdown one morning because we had a doctors appointment and I had no ironed socks for him to wear. With DS2 I never ironed.

When DS1 was born 41 years ago, he was 6 week prem and spent the first 6 weeks in NICU. A week before he came home, he by then had come out if the incubator room and then the really warm room and into the almost normal temperature room. He was also off the tube feeding and being bottle fed well. I was travelling 30 miles each day to be with him. I was told by the sister in charge that I couldn't take him home until she was sure i was confident with him and capable as after all I was only a teenager.
I felt suitably chastised and very down.
The night before he came home i was bathing him and the Doctor came into the room. He watched me as I bathed him and I was sure thus was some sort if test.
" You have got the hang of handling him very well" he said
" I'm a qualified Nursery Nurse" I replied.
He looked at me with raised eyebrows.
" and you never thought to tell anybody?" He said and shook his head.

I took him home the next morning.

Glad someone found that older thread to supplement this one!

Pretty sure there’s one on there where a couple did a test flight to the proposed holiday destination (without the baby) to see if it was ok? Can’t remember the details but the value was fab!

Made me feel much better about my many months of stratospheric anxiety. But it also makes me sad that so many of us weren’t helped with practical solutions to such high hyper-vigilance. Lots can be done, and we could have enjoyed those precious early months instead of the dire panic 24/7.

Nearly killed myself with exhaustion hand washing all of my new born’s baby clothes in Lux flakes as my mother had recommended doing this to ward off any possible skin allergies. It was several months before I finally took the courage to put them in the twin tub washing machine. Nothing happened and her skin didn’t fall off! (NB - my mother had a house keeper and general staff when I was little so it was easy for her to recommend this!)

I don't laugh about it.

PFB had the proper routine of feed, burp, change and I would agonise over whether it was best to change him first or after the feed. Nights he was awake a lot.. in retrospect due to being changed so frequently.

Baby no 2 stays in nappy until she gets pissed off by it or I think it's full. Quite frequently she will go through the night without a change.

We both sleep a lot better!