How did you know if you had PND?

[User52739]

I don’t know if what I’m experiencing is PND, because I have an easy baby and lots of support, or if every mother feels this way and I’m just a useless bitch who can’t deal with it.

My baby is 6 months old. For the first 5 months I felt fine - I’ve only felt as described below for the last few weeks. He’s an objectively easy baby. Not a good sleeper and will only settle for me, but otherwise a dream. I have an amazing, hands on, faultless husband and a wonderful mother in law who I love and who helps so much. My own mum is great and comes when she can to help. I have all the support in the world so literally no fucking excuse for being so useless and bad at motherhood.

But recently I feel like my despair and shame are all consuming. I don’t sleep. I am awake all night every night waiting for the baby to cry. My husband takes him for a long walk first thing in the morning, and those 2/3 hours are the only time I sleep in the whole day. The days are so long because I am awake for 21 hours.

I cry multiple times a day. I hide it from my family because I’m so ashamed. I’m useless beyond belief. My baby is an easy baby so why do I get so angry and distressed when he doesn’t settle easily to sleep? I breastfeed and sometimes when he is wriggly or kicking I have to scratch and pinch my arms for release. I scratch myself til I bleed sometimes.

I feel like every mistake I make has lifelong repercussions - if my baby cries when I put him down for a nap I feel like I’ve irreparably broken our bond. If I scratch myself when he’s feeding I feel like I am traumatising him. He is so sweet and beautiful and cheerful and he deserves a mother who isn’t a stupid, selfish cunt. He would be better off being looked after by my husband and MIL and not me.

If this is PND, why has it only struck after months where I was fine? And why am I so useless when I have so much support? There are other mothers out there with no help managing not to fuck up their babies and ruin their partners’ lives, so why am I so useless and stupid and pathetic?

This sounds exactly like PND.
Depression of any kind can strike with no outside reason, so please don’t feel like you shouldn’t feel this way just because your baby is easy and you have support. Those things don’t stop mental health issues.
Please speak to your GP and see if you can get some help for this, and talk about it with your partner and family if you can. It’s absolutely not your fault you feel like this, and you are not a useless mother, nor are you fucking up your baby’s life. Take care of yourself.

PND can start later. And there is nothing in your post that suggests you are useless, stupid, or pathetic. I would suggest a trip to your gp who can assess this, and please be honest about your feelings. I had all the support you describe, but still couldn't stop crying and feeling anxious etc. I kept putting it down to sleep deprivation until I had a week where my parents and husband did everything to allow me to sleep, I slept loads, and I didn't feel even slightly better.

Speak to your gp. It does sound like PND. I had similar but never got diagnosed, I wish I had. Don’t battle through this alone. Wishing you all the best.

In the meantime be kind to yourself. Hormones can really mess us up mentally, but you are doing all the things to take lovely care of your baby despise feeling awful. Well done.

Please speak to your GP, and maybe your health visitor. Later onset PND or PNA is very common but there is help available.

My DD was an "easy" baby... wouldn't say I had loads of support... but mainly took things I must stride. But would then have days where I called my husband in tears telling him that I wasn't a good enough mum and she deserved better. Or I'd have moments of absolute rage... threw a hairdryer across the room, broke a plate in anger (not in front of DD) but I just had no control of myself or my emotions.

I mentioned the tears to our health visitor and she recommended me for therapy. I was given a prescription for medication but stupidly never took them. It took A LONG time for me to feel normal again and it was only once I felt normal that I realised how bad I was.

So please if you are having feelings like this please speak your gp or health visitor. Talk to your DH.

There is no rhyme or reason for PND.... it's not just for mums whose kids don't sleep!

Hi op, sounds like you are doing a fab job with a lovely happy baby but definitely your mood and thoughts about yourself are negative and far from the truth. Can I ask Has your baby started eating food and if so reduced breastfeeds recently? I ask because at 6.5 months my baby was so in love with solid food that the breastfeeds went from every 1.5/2 hrs to every 3/4hrs and longer at times. The shift in hormones affected my mood dramatically and very very suddenly, I felt similar to how you are feeling, this was very difficult as had felt “ fine” for the months leading up to this, spoke with a friend first then my Gp to get the support needed to help cope. Maybe this is not the case for you but please please reach out for support, post partUm depression can come at any time and there is no shame in seeking help. You are a wonderful mum and your baby’s absolute idol so you deserve to feel so much happier than you currently are .xxx

I honestly don’t deserve how kind you’re all being, I feel like I deserve a slap for being so stupid.

@Panda2021 thank you for sharing that - he has actually reduced his feeds over the last few weeks. I thought he was just getting more efficient but he’s definitely now feeding a lot less overall than he used to. I hadn’t really considered whether that would cause a hormonal shift

You’re not stupid and selfish. It sounds like your baby is thriving and that is because of you. You have to give yourself some credit. He wouldn’t be a cheerful and sweet baby if he was “traumatised.”
You’re over worrying right now and sleep-deprived. Talk to your health visitor or gp. You said your husband is amazing, he will support you if you tell him how you feel. Don’t suffer in silence.

I have read that pnd can kick in up to four years post birth.

This is exactly what happened to me. But be wary about taking to professionals. I did and they were very overbearing, pushed for me to take medication and said I didn't need therapy. I did and still do.
Terrible made things 10x worse and the only thing that helped was disengaging and blocking their numbers, binning post from them and basically ignoring.
Sorry, I know people always say talk to your gp but it got out of hand for me very quickly when I was at my lowest.

What helped for me in the end was having a diary of lists of things I wanted to do every day (even make dinner, wash, dress etc because I wasn't doing those basic things)
list every single time you feel good, grateful, the baby does something cute or a first.
Get outside in nature without my phone and look into the trees, barefoot in the stream, trying to identify birds or butterflies, plants etc. anything to get closer to nature (but my problem was being terrified of global warming, too much tech, losing time to my phone - still big problems for me but I don't want to kill myself now -)

Think carefully before inviting professionals into your life. we ended up with teams coming for home visits, a social worker (just incase kill me now) and the health visitor coming round daily. it made everything so hard I felt like my life and my home wasn't my own. I couldn't get my release (walking in nature) because I was expected to be home for them to ask me why I'm not better yet.
I almost killed myself. I acted very recklessly. it is scary to look back on.
I genuinely believe I'd have been better off just telling my family how I feel and having them talk to me about it, walk with me, baby sit or something.

I also had an easy baby and a supportive dh

Definitely sounds like PND to me. I had it over 30 years ago and it was not really discussed in those days so I had to battle through it on my own. I would say it took me 18 months minimum to get through it, but oh the guilt I still feel that I didn't enjoy and love my firstborn as much as he deserved because I couldn't see beyond simply going through the motions to ensure he was cared for. I can still get upset about it to this day, even though we have a good relationship.
I so wish I'd been offered support, and really really recommend you get help now, while you need it. You will come out of it so much happier and will enjoy your baby so much more. xx

Yes, I had delayed PND. Your words about yourself are very self critical, you are being far too hard on yourself. Your mind is clearly working overtime and this could be PND /Anxiety related. Please seek help from your GP as soon as possible. I suffered with PND after all 3 of mine and it didn’t manifest in the usual ways that people talk about, so I didn’t recognise it for ages. Your doctor will be able to help with this, please make an appointment

Could have wrote your post OP 💐

I don't feel myself and struggle to enjoy my baby.

My DD is 10 months old and I finally called my HV last week. She's referred me to a perinatal mental health nurse who I'm going to speak to this week and will take it from there. It was a relief when I reached out, I'd recommend it.

oh and I scratched myself to bleeding when breastfeeding too. I don't know why but it helped so much.

My relative works with animals and she said they they have coping behaviours when in captivity that wouldn't be seen in the wild. I feel it is the same thing. A baby basically traps you, you are 'mommy' 24 hours a day 7 days a week. You can't get up and go, wash when you want, eat when you want, go to the toilet like you used to. it is very very hard to get over.
please tell your dh exactly how you feel (if you think he would be nice about it and not shame you more) or write it down.
If you feel like it (I didn't so no hard feelings) you could privately message me and just chat about how crap it is. I'm just over a year on and scratcher myself and cried the other day. but it was the first time in a few months. So I'm better mostly but its still niggling.
Its common and you aren't a bad mom or shameful in any way. You are still you. its temporary and I know the days feel long. waiting for baby to cry is hard and long nights but if you blink really fast sometimes that helped me sleep. tired my eyes so I closed them. Hope this helps and I genuinely would love to chat if you feel like it. been there 4 times but the last time really did break me.

@babybabybabybabymother that’s how I feel. Like I’m trapped and have to lash out at myself to release some of the feelings. And I feel sick with guilt over that because I love my baby so much. He doesn’t deserve a mother who feels trapped by him.

I'd give the health visitor a call, or your GP. They can refer you to a mental health specialist or there might be a local charity they can recommend. Please try to remember is that this is so so common, they will be so used to it.

I was diagnosed with PND when my second was 6 months old. I was coping fine until a few things happened, first child fell, I slipped and the baby got bronchitilitis and stopped sleeping. She never slept during the day.

They are at school now but I'll still always remember the feelings of despair and crying. My husband would close the door to go to work on Mondays and I would sob. My oldest was 14 months and he would comfort me.

I took medication and it helped but I also did a lot of therapy. For months my therapist would ring weekly to check in as I had suicide plans.

I'm so far from there now and love my kids. Before the PND I would have thought that it was because you didn't want kids. I had unexplained infertility for years and my first kid was ivf. The second was an unexpected bonus and they are both incredibly wanted.

PND was really tough. Don't underestimate the huge life changes you have been through. If you are in the UK you are coming out of a severe lockdown and this is probably also affecting you and causing you to think too. Plus sleep deprivation is awful. My second finally started to sleep at 3.5 and the immediate benefit of getting sleep was huge.

Good luck. Get treatment and allow others to help. I struggled and beat myself up for too long x

@User52739
Your baby has no clue and you are well within your right to feel how ever you feel. Feelings are never wrong.
Have you heard of Bullet Journalling? particularly habit trackers? and mood trackers?
Its really helpful to see what you feel and see what you can do, what you're skipping etc.

That sounds like PND to me. I had it with my DS which was made worse because his father was vile. I had drugs and within 2 weeks I felt so much better.

Drs are very sympathetic. You have a hormonal imbalance and it is not something you can control without drugs. It will lift I promise you but in the meantime you need help.

My DF always said that asking for help meant you were strong. You are strong!

I don't know if you've heard of nursing aversion but if you're feeling particularly distressed/anxious/in despair when feeding it may be worth looking into. There are things you can do to ease it www.breastfeedingaversion.com/copy-of-what-can-help
Aside from this if you're feeling anxious often and not sleeping I would see the Dr and ask for help, CBT might be useful I was diagnosed with severe PPA and it has changed my life

Big hugs. You do not fail and you are not stupid. I was there where you are.

For me it kicked off big time when I moved to formular and my period re-started. According to my councellor, PND can happen even 2 years after birth, there is no time plan and everyone has it differently.

I felt like I had to do everything perfectly, couldn't take time for myself and - like you - felt I am not good enough.

It took 6 months of thearapy to put me in a position to fully enjoy DD again. She is now 14 and while I think depression is a part of my life (I may had always the tendency and PND brought it out in full) none of the issues had made any impact on our bond.