This sounds incredibly familiar, although my anxiety only manifested itself post partum. The intense worries about keeping things clean and safe are one of my strongest memories of the early days of motherhood. It was really hard and I was regularly in tears from the sheer terror of it all.
In retrospect, I wish I’d done a few things.
First of all, I wish I’d spoken to someone knowledgeable about it. Maybe something could have been done to make me more comfortable and ease my anxiety.
Secondly, I wish I’d spent more time with other people - I’m really introverted and enjoyed the alone time during maternity leave, but I lost all sense of perspective. Conversations with other people, so you can gauge what’s ‘normal’ in other people’s homes, are helpful.
Thirdly, I wish I’d known about the hygiene hypothesis. It’s the theory (backed by a growing body of evidence) that an over-clean environment is actually bad for the immune system of a baby. It’s been linked to the allergy epidemic - basically, we’ve potentially caused some peanut allergies etc. by being too clean. Having pets in the house seems to be beneficial to children’s immune systems, for example.
It’s tough but in my experience these feelings did lessen greatly over time. My house is far from sterile these days
and my 3yo is a dirt magnet. I still get anxious sometimes, and we’re very careful about hand washing in our house, but I feel like a weight has been lifted somewhat.