To divorce my husband just so I have to spend less time with my baby

[LampLamp]

My husband is a nice bloke, we get on well, we have decent enough sex, we’ve been married for well over a decade and generally plodded along okay. I want to divorce him.

In October I gave birth to our much wanted daughter. She’s lovely but genuinely I’d like to spend a lot less time with her.

I don’t earn enough on my own to keep the household going with all the bills, cars, pets and mortgage but my husband does, so I’m stuck with maternity leave and relentless grizzling, screaming and shit. Honestly all she does is sleep (rarely) or scream.

I am thinking about divorcing him purely to have less time with her. Upon returning to work, I could afford a one bed flat on my own even if I dropped to 3 days a week.
I am aware that sounds extreme but I can’t cope with the yapping, whinging and grizzling for the years to come. I’d happily be a once a weekend parent.

I’ve just walked out of house (she’s with her Dad before anyone else comes for me) and driven myself to a supermarket to buy chocolate which I’m now shoving into my face whilst sobbing listening to Absolute 90s.

My lovely, I'm so sorry you're finding this so tough and you eat every bit of that chocolate and buy some more for later.

Things will get better. She'll grow and her reflux will get better and she'll sleep better. In the meantime talk to your husband and go see your GP. It will pass.

Reflux is so so tough and very hard to get to the bottom of.
In my experience GPs are hopeless.
Often, it's caused by milk intolerance and/or taking in too much air whilst feeding. So perhaps try and get prescription milk and wind, wind, wind.
'Positively parenthood' have a reflux support specialist who can help you get to the bottom of it. Throw some money at the problem.
In my experience the reflux won't completely go away but it will be considerably better by addressing the problem.
Good luck x

OP, I think you are grieving your old life and routine and are struggling to come to terms with a whole new way of life, as well as dealing with tiredness and hormonal changes.
You will get through this and despite how you feel now the sun will shine again and you won’t think about life before motherhood.
I would find a support group and also have a check up with your GP.
I have four, now adult, children and had exactly the same feelings after having my fourth.
We now have a wonderful relationship and a very special bond.
All will be well and my inbox is always open for you.

Reflux is v tough. We tried the medical route and 8-13/14 weeks was horrific. I. The end a single session with a cranio sacral therapist worked wonders. Life changed completely. The thing is when you're so exhausted and in the complete trenches it is hard to come up with a plan as you're just coping from hour to hour. I remember the doc saying at 8 weeks it would get better around 4 months and it seemed a lifetime away, it is so hard to have perspective when you're in the thick of it and feel alone whilst there.

please speak to a GP. you sound unwell, and there is help. Does your DH know how you feel?

Please don't beat yourself up. PND is common.

OP there is also added pressure if you have suffered infertility or lots of losses to enjoy every moment of your longed for baby, to savour it all. You don't have to enjoy everything. We who have struggled are much more likely to suffer from PND.

What you are feeling is far from unusual. People say get better… sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. Can you get a mothers helper or something few times a week to give you a break?

Read Buddhism for Mothers if you can in your evenings when husband has her - it will help you zoom out and see things in a different way. Hope you get in with your GP asap.

https://www.amazon.com/Buddhism-Mothers-Approach-Yourself-Children/dp/1742373771

I had a baby in August. Like you, we have zero help. Zero. It does get better. Slowly and incrementally. You'll probably have the 4 month regression to deal with first, that broke me. But once we got over that, it's become a lot more manageable.

I often thought I would have made a great divorced dad. Motherhood would be too challenging for me but I would be a top notch divorced dad!

From your longer post it’s sounds like your little girl is around 12 weeks? It’s such a hard period OP, please hang in there. There’s the peak of crying which is around 6-8 weeks and that’s hard plus you get so little back from them at that age. I found the sicky/colic phase was rough around 3 months but I appreciate reflux must be a million times worse. But once they can start holding their head up a bit, their digestive system seems to improve with less wind and sickness. That’s not far away for you now.

The hard days are so hard, especially with no support. Be kind to yourself. It’s ok to hate it, it’s ok to have bad days. Better days will come.

If you haven’t already looking at cranial osteopathy or oral tension specialist might be worth a shot to see if that helps baby with her reflux.

As others have said go to a specialist for reflux issue I also recommend hiring a night nanny if you can afford it. You would both have guaranteed down time then to recharge and face into it again, my child had reflux too and I remember feeling a bit like you describe and I wish I had gone to my GP but I kept talking myself out of it even though I really didn’t cope well and it effected my relationship with my partner. Focus on getting yourself into a good place to cope, also recommend GP.

Haven’t read the full thread yet but just wanted to say wow! I could have written this! I felt the same way at the same time and only just now at 15 months would I say it’s beginning to get better. I still find it tough. But I would also say that there are enjoyable moments now where I can see it won’t last forever. I had lots of support but wasn’t diagnosed with PND as such. One foot in front of the other really is all I could do (and still do!) and I can never understand people who have it all together. But managing is fine!

Could she be allergic to milk? It's something so easily missed by health care professionals but has a huge impact

How are you getting on today, @LampLamp?

Hi @LampLamp, I hope you're doing okay today. This was me after my first born, I had an awful time and felt exactly as you do now. Have you tried taking your daughter to an osteopath? We had a few sessions and honestly the change in my little girl was tremendous! Definitely worth a try.

My little girl is 2.5 now and is the best thing in the world to me. You'll get through this. Stay strong and keep tag teaming with your lovely husband - you've got this!!

Give yourself more time before doing anything drastic. I think you’re incredibly brave to be so honest. It’s not helpful when new mums go the opposite direction about how heavenly it is because those that struggle feel shit. Newborns are fucking hard work but she is here now and she needs you. She likely is in pain and crying because of that. But it’s not your fault and if you knew what to do you’d have done given it to her already. Be kind to yourself and don’t listen to all the sanctimonious people on here. It’s physical and emotionally painful to hear babies cry. It takes its toll, pay for a nanny if you can and give yourself plenty of kindness.

Erm because I’d say feeling like that about your baby isn’t the norm! That’s why is sounds like you need to see the Dr for some help.
Some people aren’t cut out for parenting but it sounds as though you need some support to talk about your feelings. Babies cry a lot and the first year is bloody hard as you don’t know why or what they want. It gets easier and more rewarding I promise.

This. We had a baby that cried for 6 months non stop, fed constantly and couldn’t put on weight. Anecdotally I knew of several babies whose reflux vanished after a chiropractic treatment and as we knew of a cranio sacral therapist we tried her. Magic! Baby had put on weight visibly by the following morning and stopped the constant crying. Life saving 🙏

OP, you say that 'upon returning to work, I could afford a one bed flat on my own even if I dropped to 3 days a week', so why not just go back to work now and pay for your DD to be cared for?

Sorry you're feeling like this.

DS (also very long awaited, and major issues prior to his arrival) had really bad colic when he was a baby. He would start screaming at 7pm and on a bad night could continue until 5 or 6 am with, if you were lucky, 5 mins off. Someone had to hold him or rock him and he'd still cry - just slightly less dramatically. We had to take things in shifts - I went to bed at 8 or 9 and got up at midnight so that DH could get some sleep before going to work the next morning. It was hell for all of us.

We ended up going to a cranial osteopath - it only took 3 treatments but he noticeably improved after both of the first two treatments and all the problems stopped after the third. We had to continue with products that helped him digest lactose but this was easy to accommodate compared to the colic. Whilst yours has reflux, it might be worth phoning a local one to ask whether they'd had any success in treating this sort of thing?

Whether or not you're able to sort out the reflux, things will change in the coming months and you'll find that the crying reduces. Hopefully this will help you realise that you've not made a mistake, even thought it might not feel like it at the moment.

Why don't you go back to work very soon.? Then you have adult time away from all the baby stuff without having to divorce your husband. Not everyone is suited to being stuck 24/7 with kids

That's not your problem

See maybe I'm strange but when I was at work I certainly didn't spend time worrying about my baby

I felt " myself" so easier to deal with baby part time rather than being trapped with her full time

That’s a very fair point.