Advice on how to stay strong for them

[DancingDownRain]

I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to be a mother with PND to an 8 month old baby and be strong and available and useful and hopeful and a good daughter to elderly ill parents and parents in law and return to after mat leave and find childcare and be a good wife, friend and sister. and not crack up. Please please please tell me how to be strong. I feel so small.

You say you are trying to be a good wife, friend and sister, then you have a team behind you: your husband/ wife, friends and sibling(s). Use them to help you too.

Your priority is yourself (as in put your own oxygen mask on first) and your child. Everyone else can either care for themselves, be cared for by someone else, or be referred to social care for assessment and support. Your partner needs to back you on this and help facilitate other people stepping up.

This period will pass and you will be able to be all those things to other people again.

Elderly ill parents and parents in law may find something positive in supporting you by not making demands - one of the unpleasant things about getting old is no longer being of use to people. Get partner (if you have one) ask them for their support.

As others have said put yourself first. Essential self maintenance- only you can look after your baby. Get other help lined up for others. Facilitate, not do. You cannnot do it all.

OP I hope you are getting help with the PND. If not, that's your first priority. As PPs have said, you and your baby come first. What is your DP or DH doing about the elderly ones? None of them are your problem, but if you want to help your DH needs to step up to his half.

Just get yourself well - you're no use to yourself, or your baby or anyone else if you aren't. And your head won't be on straight. So relax and don't take on the burdens of this world though with PND it's a vicious circle.

WHEN you're on an even keel and enjoying your baby, then you can start thinking ahead.

1. Your return to work and childcare and how you and your DP/H work round it. That's your first priority.
2. Just keep in touch when you can with your family and ILs. Even ill, they'd appreciate a phone call, skype or letters and photos. It's miserable being elderly and ill, but there's nothing you can do about it now apart from asking if they've got a care allowance which helps to get eg a cleaner, pay a carer.
3. A family conference later for each family on how they deal with their elderly relatives. Including Powers of Attorney for Finance and Health so the elderly can appoint people to manage for them. Also End of Life Directives so you know what they want, which should be copied and lodged with their GPs. And Wills - make sure they have them.

And for you and your baby

Just stopping by to thank you all so much. I have read and re-read every post, and I'm trying to organise my thoughts to act on them. I have CBT and meds for PND but this past fortnight has brought 2 dementia diagnoses amongst other things, so I'm a bit winded with it all just now, not least because it completely changes childcare and other logistics that are by no means unique or impossible to sort out but even planning a basic food shop feels like rocket science at the moment.

Why is it all on you? Your in-laws presumably have a son. As has been said, look after yourself and don't promise what you can't give. Do not tell social services that you will do any caring for your parents, they will rub their hands in glee at the cash saving and run away. Let them arrange the care and you visit when you can.

Thank you.

At the moment the baby I and I see both sets of grandparents weekly for a day each so I am the family member who sees the most of how they all are. Other family members either bury their heads in the sand or are too overwhelmed with their own health problems to be of practical or even emotional help. Neither set of parents would meet a threshold for public sector care and they are too proud anyway to go that route yet. It's like we're just waiting for something bad to happen so it's taken out of their hands. I cannot remember the last time I felt light. There's a permanent knot in my stomach. Also teething & sleep regression are happening so I feel like a zombie.

I don't know why I'm still writing on this thread...just takes a tiny bit of pressure off to write it down I suppose. And I did very much appreciate the replies, so thanks again.

Hey. So it didn't get easier, it got kind of worse in all possible ways, but we're all still here so woo hoo, I guess...

So sorry, I didn't see your 29th Oct post.

So yes, you're still here, and your baby is 3 weeks older, that's 10% older than your first post. Remember, you can't stay strong for other people unless you're in a good place yourself, so the PND is your absolute first priority.

It's amazing how vanishingly small this part of your life will seem once a few years have passed but I know that at the time each day feels an eternity. But keep plodding on. Bad things may happen but overall life will get easier.

What’s going on dancing? Read the advice above- you cannot do it all.

OP, it sounds like the rest of the family are dumping on you because they don't want it to be their problem, you also have far too much going on I think you should step back and let people know that you're not able to do anything
If the elders are going to be 'too proud' let them crack on with it, why should you have to suffer for their choices?
Put yourself first and don't let anyone gaslight you out of so doing!

The OP's last two posts are TWO years apart.

@DancingDownRain I hope you are ok. Lockdown etc has made everything so much worse. I hope you are prioritising yourself and that others are pulling their weight.

No advice from me. I came to the Elderly Parents board to be with others in a similar situation. I am the only child who is local. My sisters live overseas.

Hello. Me again. Gosh, such a lot. I'm doing the night feed with my second born and my kid was cast back to those other, darker, days (nights). I'm a bit better at asking for help and acknowledging that it's not all on me to make things okay for everyone all the time. As of tonight, everyone is still alive. One person is in a care home permanently and one is bedbound in their own home. Visits to both are limited due to lingering covid issues, a new baby, there only being 24 hours in a day & such like. So things are way more intense than they were when I first wrote, and there are days when I cry a lot, but I've coped with so much in the past 4 years (haven't we all), more than the above, and I'm still here. There are lots of reasons I'm making it through each tough day, but Mumsnet certainly helps me make it through the very early mornings 💐

*mind not kid!

Lack of sleep makes everything worse. You've got through the last few years by taking it one day at a time and focussing on the things that only you can do, you'll get through the next years the same way.

Congratulations on Baby2, you know there will be someone here the next time you pop by.

Keep remembering that you can’t carry someone else unless you are well yourself, so looking after yourself is the key to everyone else’s wellbeing.

But you should look after yourself anyway - you are every bit as important as everyone else in your life.

You've no idea how grateful I am to posters on here 💐

Hi OP I have older DC than you- teens - bit I also have some MH problems and elderly parents who can be quite demanding.

It's hard but I am learning to try and put myself first and not get too bogged down in their problems.

Bless you @Orangesandlemons77 it's hard, isn't it?

It is, i find I feel guilty, and veer between that and feeling angry / sad... I do feel for them but sometimes they don't help themselves either x

When my youngest was born and we were still in the hospital, one thing I enjoyed was that I could only focus on the new baby, it just wasn't possible for me to even think about anything else. That wore off quickly but it was a reminder that I do need to switch off sometimes despite the guilt. It's so hard though, especially when, as you say, they don't help themselves. So beyond frustrating!

@DancingDownRain Hope today you feel a little better and that somewhere along the line you got a little bit of quality sleep.

It's my beloved dad's funeral in the morning. I started to grieve for him a good couple of years before I started this thread. For the past 18 months he was a shell but he was ours, and here with us. For so long I've been unable to access memories of him properly. The man he was before the dementia felt like a dream I had about someone imaginary. Over the past week since he died, the memories are coming like waves crashing on top of me. They are happy memories but, my god, I'm about to drown, surely. It's impossible to make space to learn to breathe again and live alongside the memories and the pain of the present, with babies and other Life Stuff. I'm up with the baby, watching crap films and thinking about laundry. I'm burying my dad tomorrow. I'm thinking about washing machine cycles.

Don’t run before you can walk! The future will take care of itself. All you need to worry about today is the rest of the day.

It was lovely and lots of good people came and shared memories. Today I'm starting to feel the comedown. A constant fluttering panic, jelly legs, brain fog, unable to make simple plans or things like dinner, unable to understand the concept that he's gone, drowning in memories and things unsaid. This is shit. I can do the immediate, instinctive stuff to look after the baby day to day, and put on a show for my older child for a couple of hours a day, but I could close my eyes for a month. It's like a concussion. I'm folding in on myself, endlessly, constantly.