am i an abuser too?

[amimymother]

i have changed my name, sorry I am chicken.

i have an 11 week old baby who wont stop crying from colic. most of the time i am handling it really well but on 2 occassions, one of them being today, i have become abusive to my baby, mainly in saying things i dont mean in an angry tone of voice but also i have tapped her cheek with my fingers to try to snap her out of it. today i threw a jacket on the sofa that she was lying on and the toggle hit her in the face. that was an accident but it happened because i lost my temper.

my mother was extremely abusive to me and i love my DD so much i am devastated thinking i am abusive to her too. please help me stop this temper problem and tell me how i can move on from this. i really want help. i have no support really at home as DH is away working a lot and I have no family.

I should add I love my baby more than anything

If you really want help you need to talk to someone .. your GP or HV .. but from the pov that you would never hurt your baby but based on your personal history you are concerned

having a new baby is extremely taxing and wearing and all mothers snap .. but I think you are worried that you will be unable to control your anger .. I think that's a justifiable worry and you should get help in anger management / frustration management

so know that you're normal but a bit of outside help doesn't hurt

HTH

It's so hard to know what to do when they cry like that isn't it?
I don't think you an abuser, but you need to get help in how to deal with these flashpoints in a non-agressive way...

I think there is an organisation called Crysis that helps
Also what about sure-start or homestart?

I have 'lost it' with my dd at times
When I was feeling desperate I used to just get my shoes on, pop her in the buggy or sling and just walk round the block a couple of times

Really helps to let off steam!

This isn't extreme abuse though, is it. The fact that you know it hurt her and are devestated means you are not going to make a habit of this. You have a tiny baby and you are bound to feel under alot of pressure with the colic. Is there anyone you can call when it gets bad? Can someone come and stay for a while? To give you a rest? make sure you ar e resting when the baby does.

When it is bad, put baby in the cot & go into another room and just take deep breaths. She will come to no harm there.

I went to cover dd up one night and my hand slipped and scratched her face, she wailed & I was devestated! But I knew it was an accident, just like this was.

crysis

Parentline could also help, perhaps.

I really feel for you. Taking steps to sort this out is going to be hard but will have such lasting and positive effects for you and your dd. You can't go on feeling this guilt every time you lose your temper.

feeling unable to cope is not being abusive.i was lucky my dd2 didnt have colic but sometimes she got constipated and would be up till the early hours crying.i'd be sitting by her cot crying also saying'please let me go to sleep,just for half anhour,please!'
have u tried baby massasge?my ds2 was a coliky baby and that helped him enourmosly.plus it helped me feel in control cos i knew there was something i could do to ease his pain a bit so i was less frustrated.

I really feel for you. Crying baby is the most frustrating noise I have encountered. Itis very hard to switch off and ignore it. Try and take very deep breaths and count to 10. It helps, really. Also try biting a teether really hard. I still do it and my little one is 22 months! Fresh air really clears the head. If nothing helps, just put your baby down and have a good cry. It helps to vent a lot of frustration.

I really feel for you. Crying baby is the most frustrating noise I have encountered. Itis very hard to switch off and ignore it. Try and take very deep breaths and count to 10. It helps, really. Also try biting a teether really hard. I still do it and my little one is 22 months! Fresh air really clears the head. If nothing helps, just put your baby down and have a good cry. It helps to vent a lot of frustration.

I really feel for you. Crying baby is the most frustrating noise I have encountered. Itis very hard to switch off and ignore it. Try and take very deep breaths and count to 10. It helps, really. Also try biting a teether really hard. I still do it and my little one is 22 months! Fresh air really clears the head. If nothing helps, just put your baby down and have a good cry. It helps to vent a lot of frustration.

of course she doesn't remember you being angry around her.
i lost my rag with ds1 lots of times when he was little- i remember shouting 'what do you want!!!' at the top of my voice at him. horrible eh? and he didn't have colic.
he's 6 now and amazing and we have an incredibly close loving relationship.
i'm not proud of what i did but it happened and i made up for it by loving him to bits.
get some help-phone crysis.and when hes screaming take him outside. juts being outside sometimes stops them and if it doesn't, it sounds much less awful outside.plus if you are in public, you can't/won't do anything to hurt her.

I think having some counselling / therapy for the hurt and grief you must have from your own childhood would be extremely useful, as well.

Don't think you're an abuser. We've all been there, but it does make you worry when you have those feelings doesn't it?

It's great that you're aware and want to stop it becoming something else. I squeezed my dd a bit hard when she wdn't stop crying, I didn't hurt her but it was the fact that I actually wanted to hurt her that really scared the s**t out of me!

Your baby trusts you completely, so won't be scared of you, and is unaware of how you are feeeling/thinking. She'll only start to become scared of you if it becomes more frequent and/or escalates.

Now you have seen the signs, and don't want to repeat the abuse, you just have to follow through and find other ways of coping with the stress and anger. Otherwise you might find yourself falling into patterns that are a part of your past.

are you an angry person in general? I mean, before you had kids.

Honestly, a crying baby is so so wearing. I have said on other threads, that I will never have any more children because both my two had reflux, allergies and were persistent cryers and it is just dreadful and terribly exhausting.

In your shoes, when you feel your temper going, could you go to another room and howl at the moon? Or shove the baby in the buggy and go for a really long (and exhausting!) walk to get rid of the adrenalin?

In terms of the PND, go to the GP for help. Losing your temper in your circumstances (i.e. crying baby) is not unusual so you connecting this with your mother's abuse is probably because you are looking for connections not necessarily because there is one (iyswim). If you ask your GP, he/she may be able to help with the PND but also put your name down for counselling which may help you in the long term.

I do have a temper problem, in general life. I work really hard to overcome it though.

I agree some counselling to deal with my past would be a good idea. My mother was sadisticly abusive so I know it isnt the same but I just dread being like her or ever making my child feel fear so I am super sensitive to any hint of abuse.

I have an appointment with a pyschiatrist soon for some antidepressants, hope that helps.

Most of all thank you all for making me feel like I am not like my mother and that this is fairly normal, if unpleasant.

No, you're not "an abuser". Don't fall into the trap of labelling yourself like that, you will only terrify and demoralise yourself. Actually your OP brought it back to me with vivid clarity how intense and exhausting the first months with a new baby are - the sleep deprivation, the anxieties, the lurching extremes of emotion - it's a rare new mother who never loses her temper or feels the terror of almost hurting the baby, albeit totally accidentally. It Does Get Better.

I would call crysis, it sounds like a great idea - accepting a bit of help from outside doesn't mean you are "not coping", it means that you are coping and that you love your baby and want to get through this time in the best way possible.

Also remember that none of this has anything to do with your mother. You are poles apart. This is about you being a tired, emotionally labile, NORMAL new mum going through one of the most difficult and overpowering experiences in human life - caring for a very young baby. Take it one step at a time, and be a bit gentler with yourself.

PS - I have a temper too, and lots of guilt - but I'm not a sadist, and neither are you - that is a completely different thing.

amimymother...my older daughter had colic and no matter how cheerful and confident you try to be you know that the pitch and length of crying is slowly breaking you down.

Leave her safely in her cot for 5-10 mins while you calm down enough to go back again trying to soothe her.

It stopped after a month or two and she is delightful now. I am a volunteer for Homestart and they are highly trained matching volunteers with families.

You just need to see that there will be an end and in no way is it your fault that she is crying.

good luck and congratulate yourself on being a good mum just trying to do the best for your baby. bookend

Hi, if you are really struggling then please put your dd in her cot for 5-10 mins so she is safe an dyou can have some space. You are not an abuser but have been abused and need to break the cycle by learning how to let the anger go. Parentline or crysis and the NSPCC9is that parentline?) have helplines you can ring in confidence, Most all don't label yourself and find ways to help you deal with what is happenning, for example trying singing a nursery rhyme or song or anything (it's hard to sing in an angry way- punk etc excepted)have you tried colic drops (dentinox worked for us) try not to sweat the small stuff, if you feel up to it try to look at why you feel angry then you can do something about it instead of it being misdirected. Hope that helps.

I agree, you need a plan

When I am starting to feel like I am going to lose it, I put the baby in her cot and close the doors. Then I go into the kitchen where I can't hear anything (well not much!) and try to calm down. When I start feeling normal (and a bit of empathy) again, I go back to her.

Babies can be awful and mothering alone is a very stressful experience. You are aware of the patterns of behaviour that your own mother had, and this is the most important step in overcoming these patterns and making new ones. You are NOT your mother. You are going to do things in a DIFFERENT way and your daughter's idea about what MOTHER means will be very different to yours. xx

with ds1, when i got to the point that i was handling him roughly i went to gp and was diagnosed with pnd.
you should get checked out otherwise it will carry on and get worse and you will feel worse and worse.
x

When you feel you don't know what she wants and you start to feel out of control. Put her in her moses basket where she is safe. Go into another room close the door and calm yourself.
Crying babies are very tiring. Are you able to give her anything for her colic.
Have word with the HV. Are you getting enough sleep ?

i have been in exactly the same position as you, not a good relationship with my mother and have found myself on occasions getting really angry with dd shouting at her then in floods of tears myself for no reason

when she was about 2 i actually threw her onto the sofa (not hard) as she was getting at me so much it was enough to shock me into getting some help, i saw a really good gp who said i had pnd got some anti depressants and when i was calmer i found my daughter was calmer to

i also got referred for a course of counselling to deal with issues from the past and it really helped me understand where all the anger was coming from

it was hard asking for help like you i was worried someone would tell social services but they all totally understood and no social workers were ever told and no one judged me or called me a bad mother or anything like that either

hope this helps

My ds had colic at a similar age and it can really get you down - on a couple of occassions I got down to his level and told him to 'fuck off!' I was devastated when I did this and would cry for hours but I learnt to just put him down, leave the room, count to ten and then enter with a smile, I would leave him longer if I needed to. Getting someone to help you out will probably help you a lot too.