I keep getting frustrated with my baby :(

[CobaltRose96]

Hi all.

I’m a mum to a gorgeous 7 month old DD. She was a very much planned and wanted baby and is a very happy and content little soul... most of the time 😂

However, she is currently going through a stage of REALLY fighting daytime naps. Normally she’s a pretty good daytime napper and has 3/4 naps lasting anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours. However, for the past couple of weeks she’s only been having 2 sometimes 3 20-30 minute naps. Yesterday she woke up at 7am and didn’t nap until 1pm!

She’s also become quite difficult to settle for naps. She will yawn and rub her eyes ect so I’ll start shushing and rocking her, but she will thrash around, suck her hands and wrists, and cry. Sometimes it’ll take up to 30 minutes of shushing and rocking before she’ll give in and fall asleep. And even if she does fall asleep, she often won’t stay asleep if put down in her cot. I have tried just putting her down when she starts rubbing her eyes and yawning, but she will then just lay there and cry until I pick her up.

Thankfully she still sleeps well at night (6:30/7pm to 7/8am with only one wakeup for a feed at around 4am). She can self settle at night (I often hear her chatting away to herself over the monitor) but she can’t seem to do it during the day.

Also, she gets bored incredibly easily. She can only be left in her jumperoo/with a toy ect for around 5/10 minutes before she starts crying to be let out or given something else to do. If I’m sat next to her playing with her she’s very happy, but as soon as I leave the room she will start crying. She’s always been a bit like that, but at least when she slept well during the day I could get things done when she slept. Now that she’s not sleeping that much during the day I feel like I can’t get anything done, and I often don’t even get dressed, eat, or brush my teeth until mid afternoon as I don’t get a chance before then! My partner helps when he can but he works full time so it’s only me at home most of the day.

All of this has resulted in my becoming frazzled and quite frustrated with her often sad Now it’s almost every day that I’m having to put her down and walk away as I can feel my temper rising. Earlier on she was fighting a nap as usual and I thought ‘I could quite easily throw you on the floor right now!’. I was horrified and put her down right away, and now I feel horrendously guilty. When she looks at me and giggles and smiles I feel such anger at myself. How could I get angry with something so beautiful and innocent? I’ve never hurt and never would, but I can feel myself getting so cross sometimes

Please tell me I’m not alone in this?

You are not alone!!! I have a 6.5 month old DD who is very much like this. I cried the other day when I finally admitted to myself I am hating maternity leave and want to get back to work! It's not always like this, some days she is happy and I can put her down for short amounts of time to get things done but some days I end up in tears. She's my second and my first was not like this, he slept well and was very content in the day. She seems much higher needs. Her naps aren't always great as I have the school run to contend with twice a day so sometimes I think she's just chronically overtired and just hope it will get better with time. I have a bouncer and an activity centre in the living room and kitchen so I try and put her in there if I'm doing washing etc, as long as she can see me she seems to be ok for short periods of time but soon gets cranky. No useful advice I'm afraid just solidarity! It's horrible to feel like you're just not enjoying your baby half the time, I do sometimes wonder if I have a touch of PND as it wasn't like this with my first. Sometimes I wonder how much of it is her picking up on my tension, a vicious circle if you will. She's lovely but it is a struggle for me this time round. I wanted another after her but having major second thoughts now!xx

You are not alone at all. I can relate to many things you have said, my little one is 6 months old and has been hard work from
Day 1. She quickly learned that she preferred to sleep in someone’s arms as a baby and although that was ok for the first month or so it has become a major problem. I have to admit as a baby she wouldn’t sleep anywhere I put her down except for the couch for naps, and that would allow me to get a few quick things done e.g put a load of washing on, hoover round the living room (she was a very heavy sleeper) I never left her for extended amount of time. But since she started rolling at 3 months I couldn’t leave her anymore and I really struggle to put her down for a nap, she will fall asleep in the pushchair on a walk but wake as soon as we walk in the door, same with car seat. She wakes as soon as I put her into the cot and I’ve tried to get her off to sleep in the cot when showing sleepy signs which ends in screaming. Controlled crying has not worked and it does break my heart to hear her cry. She doesn’t sleep well at night either and ends up in my bed which doesn’t help with trying to get her to sleep in the cot for naps but I’m desperate for sleep.
I found myself getting angry like you have said and although I would never ever hurt her I do have to put her down and walk away and just let her scream until i feel able to walk in the room and be calm. There’s no shame in it, your not a bad person for feeling this way and I think many parents feel the same but are scared to admit it.
I think perhaps as you have said it’s a recent thing it might just be a phase, I wish I had some advice but just want to let you know your not alone and not to feel bad x

Angry thought like that are very common. I had them daily for months while on mat leave with my VERY difficult baby! Now I'm back at work part time and my sln has become much esdier (though still hard work!), I very rarely feel that way. Its good you are being honest with yourself about it though. For me, this anger was part of ppd. I should probably have gone to a doctor about it but I didn't. All okay now though.

Your baby does not sound unusual. Some babies require more input than others. My boy was very similar to you daughter. It slowly got much easier with every milestone... today got instance he played on his own at soft play for over an hour 🙌 Hes one now. I was despairing when he was 7 months old though! Much easier when he started crawling thankfully.
As for the napping, we have had trouble with that too. I followed the Little Ones programme- the routine really really helped. He is a textbook perfect napped these days (at the moment anyway!) but those days of struggling to get them to nap are really hard. She might be ready to drop the extra nap and have two: a short morning one and a long lunchtime one. I can't remember when my son dropped his afternoon nap but possibly a similar time.

@surreygirl1987, thank you! Glad to know I’m not the only one. She’s already crawling (has been since five months) and standing, so into EVERYTHING

Thank you to everyone for your help and commiserations!

Oh wow! She sounds amazing! Def hard work though, and I don't think parents of 'easy' babies get it.

Have you heard the term 'high needs' baby? It describes my son perfectly. Worth googling. Also, 'spirited'. There are Facebook groups where parents of these baby personalities support each other; you might find that helpful if you're on Facebook.

Btw I'm a bit embarrassed about all the typos in my previous message... I just re read it 🙈

@surreygirl1987 Definitely amazing and definitely hard work 😝 I suppose she’s ‘easy’ in terms of that she sleeps very well at night (11 hours straight last night!), eats well, and is usually very happy and doesn’t cry all that much. But hard work in terms of always into things and very very easily bored. Apparently I was the same as a baby so can very much sympathise with my mum now haha.

Sounds very much like my son with the sleeping, although mine is more temperamental I think. Everyone was so jealous of the unbroken sleep (he slept through at 4 weeks old!) but I struggled with him so much during the day!!