PPD and rage - advice\solidarity?

[mumof2boysanddone]

Hello, I am currently really suffering with post Natal depression and rage. It’s absolutely awful, I have everything I ever dreamed of and im just absolutely furious. This is my second child and I didn’t have any of this with my first. They’re currently 7 months old and exclusively breastfed. I haven’t slept in months, he doesn’t go longer than 2-3 hours but even that is a stretch. I feel like the lack of sleep is making me feel 20x worse. I have a great husband and family support amd the health vision is trying hard to support me but I feel like my own worst enemy. They all keep giving me suggestions on how I could feel better and I just have a response of no to all of them. Stop breastfeeding - I then have no way to soothe the baby as he won’t have a dummy and will have to be washing sterilising and making bottles etc. husband keeps saying to have a night away or time away but I always feel like because of the breastfeeding I’d have to pump im the night anyway and during the day I feel like when he is off I want to spend time together rather than be apart, I also feel like just after a day or a night away I still have to come back and carry on. I feel like I can’t do anything I used to enjoy because of both feeling horrendous and the breastfeeding. I can’t run because I find it uncomfortable with the breastfeeding boobs and I can’t go out in an evening because only I can put him to bed because he doesn’t go to sleep for anyone else and the only way to get him to sleep is feed him to sleep. I just don’t know what to do anymore. Part of me feels desperate to stop breastfeeding because I do think it’s the route of a lot of the problems but also I couldn’t do it with my first and I am really enjoying it, I feel the bond is amazing and feel he will be angry with me if I stop. I also feel so pressurised by aocial media because whenever I see anything about stopping breastfeeding I read the comments to see what ‘advice’ people have left and it’s just constantly a ‘well why would you not want to give your baby the best?!’ Which is not helpful when you want to stop. I just don’t know what to do. Part of me thinks it’s nothing even to do with the breastfeeding because I dont even want to stop I love doing it I love the ease and the fact I never run out of milk etc. I just feel like I need an answer to the PPD and I can’t live like this any longer, I just want to feel like myself and feel like my life is worth living again

I think the main problem is your sleep or lack of. That really affects how you feel, sleep deprivation is horrendous. Could you try see if baby will take a bottle (expressed or formula) in the night so your other half could help to give you a longer stretch of sleep?

Agree with above- it's not all or nothing, if you mostly enjoy bf perhaps replacing one evening/night feed with formula would allow you a bigger stretch of sleep and some downtime (I'm under no illusion formula will make him sleep longer, just that it'd mean someone else can do one feed which would give you about 4 hours judging by your estimate of his feeding?). You could also express but that then is another thing for you to do, which is why I suggested formula, but that'll be a personal choice/preference and neither is right or wrong.

You could consider trying to move to a bottle for his bedtime feed so you don't have to always do bedtime?

I notice my rage is far worse when sleep has been worse but also when I've not managed to step away from baby and elder child for an hour or so every few days. Just that little reset to shower, go for a walk or even just scroll in peace can make a huge difference.