Losing your ‘mummy’ nurturing hormones in perimenopause

[Kitchendisco21]

I am 48 and find I am much much less patient with my kids and I wondered if it was because perimenopause and into menopause strips you of your nurturing oestrogen & ‘mummy’ hormones. Aibu?

I have a primary aged young child still so was older having my kids and maybe this is one of the negatives of having kids older!! It certainly feels like it!!

Anyone else feel like this? My peri symptoms are bloody shit to be fair and I am exploring HRT at the moment!

I'm finding similar but mine are teens. They are similarly stroppy and impatient with me. Joyful with revision and lockdown

My mum went through the menopause as I went through puberty. I’m sure I wasn’t easy to live with but didn’t cook or clean etc & basically stopped parenting. It was all sorts of grim

I'm 49 with a 22 year old and a 14 year old and I don't relate to this at all.

Not sure it's AIBU worthy - more women's health topic maybe?

I don't think I've ever had these in the first place!

I’m 49 and have been peri
For a few years. Although my children are older I don’t recall feeling like you describe at all sorry. I think I take it out in my husband instead!

@FlamingoAtTheBing0

I'm 49 with a 22 year old and a 14 year old and I don't relate to this at all.

Not sure it's AIBU worthy - more women's health topic maybe?

Well, if YOU don’t relate to it then it the OP has clearly posted it in the wrong place and should be told so

I think it is extreme common for perimenopause to strip us of much of our patience. Feeling irritated more quickly is absolutely normal as is tiredness, insomnia, anxiety etc...All of this leaves us with less energy, sympathy and patience and it is absolutely due to oestrogen depletion.

For what it’s worth OP, I felt like that too. Started HRT at 48. Am 50 now and feel like my old self again. For some us, HRT is nothing short of miraculous.

I have felt like this but think peri if applicable was coincidental to other things: getting a fulfilling job, kids getting older, I had a 'life review' after a parent died.
things change, kids grow older and grow away, I feel as if I have grown too!

New ages, new stages...

This is very interesting OP as I am nearly 46 and my youngest is 10 and I have zero patience lately, but assumed it was because all of my children are becoming more annoying by the day as they get older. I am not so enthralled with new babies anymore and feel very little for my goddaughter's new baby, which isn't like me at all, so it would be interesting if that was the reason.

@AintPageantMaterial I am exploring HRT at the moment- which ones did you have?

@Gemma2019 apparently it’s a thing- I have read around it a bit- Caitlin Moran likened it to a drugs come down 🤣

It is a thing.
Menopause hasn't caught up with today's older mums. Biologically, by menopause after years of declining fertility and (unfortunately) declining looks therefore declining attractiveness to the cavemen leading to less sex, kids should be well off our hands.
I had my final dc at 35. With family history of early isa menopause. So we had peri and puberty/teenagerdom going on at the same time. Nightmare.
We are both through it now. We live.

I embraced it , no longer a slave to my nurturing hormones yay !

Thing is, kids were mostly irritating for many, many years before the menopause for me as well as afterwards. Modern motherhood is just way too intense I think.

I think to analyse it, you’d have to find a way to separate:

• peri menopausal oestrogen depletion
• teenagers being unlovable little sods (sometimes!)
• teenagers being less physically child like and therefore not triggering a nurturing response (there’s a reason babies and puppies both have eyes too big for their faces!)
• more years down of parenting and you just kind of get bored with it 😉🤣

So I think your theory is interesting - but would never be the full picture!

I think this happened to my mum, she basically dumped us and had a midlife crisis and ill advised affair. My children are young adult/teens so don't need the mummy nurturing of wee ones, I can see that would be tough going through meno. My hormones have been wild, but my mum has served as a dire warning so I soldier on as a moody mum and tetchy wife. Fortunately my DH is easy going.

I had my first dose of HRT gel today and expected a miracle, but then I googled and apparently it takes 3 months to notice a difference wtf.
I think I have fewer nurturing hormones and baby-making hormones, OP. I had my children 12 years apart and I definitely am a different mummy this time round. That’s partly maturing and partly what you’re describing, perhaps. I can take beach days or leave them, honestly. Same with cuddles.

In some ways it’s liberating but I do miss that side of myself.

Not sure it's AIBU worthy

Fuck’s sake!

I remember reading it was a natural thing. Stripping you of your ‘nurturing’ hormones whist the next generation took over and you moved on to being the wise elder. Makes sense to me. My friend and I discussed out inability to muster cake making enthusiasm

Struggling with this. Been taking HRT for a few months now.

@AintPageantMaterial I didn't mean it in that way. It's not an AIBU discussion though is it? It's about hormones and the menopause - not the bear pot of trivia that is this place. I would have thought anyone with some reading comprehension skills could spot that

Hi Op
Don't care what thread you are are on
Agree with your post, hate everyone and cannot be faffed with all this parenting lark- kids 15 and 13.
Great if it is my hormones, makes me feel better, not sure how this works for my family

@FlamingoAtTheBing0 like many people do, I posted here for traffic! I don’t really need the thread police 👮‍♀️- it’s really not harming anyone is it?

It is a real thing. I had a conversation with a lovely GP about this many years ago when discussing the difficult relationship with my mother in my teenage years. He said it’s totally normal with women having children later that the menopause unfortunately clashes with teenage hormones. He said it was nature’s way of not breaking the mother’s heart when the children leave home. I vowed there & then I’d have my children before I turned 30 to avoid history repeating itself....

I had a total hysterectomy two years ago. I don't feel this way at all. Not sure if it's the hrt, though.