I regret having my daughter and I feel awful about it

[Rosiebun]

I’m going to start this by saying I have been diagnosed with postpartum depression, so maybe this is playing into how I am feeling. I have been offered medication to help with the PPD but I struggled with the side effects so came off it. I’m on a waiting list for therapy but don’t have an initial appointment until the end of September. So here goes.

My daughter is 12 weeks old and I regret having her. There are moments where I feel joy and love for her, but these are fleeting and far between. I feel like an absolutely horrible person. I haven’t slept for more than 4/5 hours a night in months, even while I was pregnant before I had her. We had a really traumatic birth that probably didn’t help, I’m still suffering with pelvic floor pain now.

My husband is obsessed with her which makes me feel even worse. I find myself trying to leave her with him while I can go out and do things that make me feel like ‘me’ again (I enjoy going to yoga and Pilates). To be honest it does help, but maybe only for the hour or so that I’m out of the house. As soon as I come home, I’m back to hating my life again.

I find that my mood is heavily dictated by the mood of my daughter. If she’s having a good day, then I generally feel better. However if she’s grumpy, overtired, fussy, or ill, I just fall to pieces and feel like I can’t handle it. As awful as it sounds I don’t think I’m cut out to be a mother. I thought I knew what I was getting myself into but clearly I had no idea, I miss my old life so much. People kept telling me it gets better at 12 weeks but here I am, still feeling this way and still with a fussy, crying newborn who I feel like I don’t understand and she doesn’t understand me.

please offer me some non-judgmental words of wisdom because I feel like the worst person alive right now :(

No judgement here. You do need more support though. I would go to your GP and tell them you are really struggling. See if there's any alternative medication you can try.

12 weeks is still really little.

You need more sleep.
Is it baby waking or the pain keeping you up?
Take shifts with partner so you can get longer stretches. Sleeping in another room with earplugs. It'll make such a big difference

@4naans it’s mainly the baby waking me up. Either she wakes and needs feeding/settling or I just wake up at the slightest noise she makes and feel the need to check on her constantly

Agree more sleep will help massively so maybe try to work out a schedule with DH.

I was prescribed sertraline for PPA and it took a couple of weeks for side effects to subside but they did and I'm feeling better for it. You definitely need a support system to get through that initial period. If the medication wasn't for you, can you try an alternative?

If you need someone to talk to now, maybe try getting in touch with Pandas who help with antenatal and postnatal mental health. They have a WhatsApp support service so you can contact all day by message or go along to support groups. Everyone involved has been where you are so are really understanding which I found helpful.

Could you try a different medication? I also had PND and the meds really helped me. Sometimes you have to try different ones to find one that agree with you.

This is really tough on you. Please do go back to your GP.

@Justlikethattherearefive thank you, I like the idea of talking to someone over WhatsApp rather than the phone so I will look into that

@Dolamroth do you mind me asking which medication you were taking? I was prescribed mirtazapine due to my troubles sleeping, but I found it made me feel like a zombie through the day, alongside headaches and really poor concentration so I decided to stop taking it. It seems the only alternative the GP has suggested is sertraline

I certainly regretted having DS at 12 weeks. I was looking up adoption services, and I once handed him to DH at 3 am, got dressed and left (and made it to the end of the road). It gets better. Get as much support as you can.

I’ve had really good experiences with sertraline so that’s worth a try imo. Mirtazapine can work for some people but I know a few like you who just found it terrible and couldn’t keep taking it.

@PurpleSaladPotatoes im really sorry you felt that way and glad you were able to get through it. When would you say you started to feel better?

Bless you. I’ve suffered from depression and don’t forget that it affects everything and how you see it. Get yourself back to the doctor and get another anti depressant. It makes a huge difference but can take a while to work. I’ve used them before and it’s given me a leg up to be able to get out of a hole. Try not to feel bad for feeling as bad as you do too. There’s a lot of romanticism about early motherhood and so you feel doubly bad that your experience doesn’t match up. You will feel ok in the end but right now you’re exhausted, depressed and navigating a huge emotional change in life. Just give yourself a but of grace; get back to the doctors, keep going yoga and Pilates and talk to your partner honestly about how you are feeling so he can step up. It’s tough, but you will be ok

@PermanentTemporary yes this is exactly what it did to me. The GP said after a couple of weeks it would improve but I just couldn’t get through that initial stage, I felt even worse than I did before. My only concern with sertraline is that it might cause more sleeping issues for me, but I suppose I won’t know unless I try

I was on citalopram

OP sending you a virtual hug. Please give yourself a break! 12 weeks is SO early. You’ll be more exhausted than you realise, your whole
world has changed and you’re still physically healing.

It is totally natural to be on high alert and constantly waking to check on baby. It is absolutely punishing particularly at night but it does get better in time. But whoever told you that 12 weeks is some sort of magic marker when it suddenly gets better is badly misinformed. Every baby is different so ignore ignore ignore. But it WILL get better.

In the meantime you must prioritise sleep when you can. You need sleep. Sleeeeep. More sleeeeeeep. Can DH support you more here?

Do you have wider support? Do you have a group of new mums you can socialise with?

If it helps, I never ‘understood’ my babies so early on either. They were mainly a mystery!

Hang in there OP x

Is there anywhere you could stay for a night to get an actual break? My Mum had my nephew at 2 weeks old for a night to give my sister and her Dh a much needed full night's sleep. If you could stay at a friends, relatives or pay for a cheap hotel you could have a long bath and an undisturbed night's sleep which may massively help.

I have not had any sort of PPD and I still struggled as a new Mum. It is hard and relentless. I also had no help as we lived away from family.

i’m always amazed by women who don’t feel like you after having a baby.

i was raging! And so resentful that my husband got to carry on his life as normal. I was so anxious as well. About everything.

Anti depressants helped. And time. But why wouldn’t you grieve your old life? The societal expectation that women are sole caregivers whose needs come last …well it still grinds my gears!

You will come through this and feel joy and happiness again, not just about being a mum but all aspects of your life. But right now you are in the trenches. And it’s ok to be mad about that. And it’s also ok to need support. I wish I’d had the pANDAS info, it sounds exactly what I could have done with.

thinking of you x

Yes so you need to be in a different room with earplugs while your husband takes long stretches. Honestly lack of sleep is huge contributor. Your partner needs to step up.

In terms of medication I ended up on a mega dose of sertraline (150mg) and a whiff of quietapine. I came off the quietapine after a few months but have stayed on the sertraline. I had some diazepam as well. It took some tweaking and perseverance to find the right meds but they were life changing and in my case life saving.

Op please be kind to yourself . I felt the same as you for months. Things got a bit better when I went back to work at 9 months abs I felt like me again. But it took me about 2 years to bond properly and to not regret my daughter. She is 13 now and the light of my life. Also had 2 more children which I enjoyed… because I knew that the early days don’t last.

with your first your identity gets blown up and you don’t know the pathway through as you have never walked it before. Just put your head down and survive. It will get better x

Sleep deprivation can be absolutely devastating and not everyone is built to withstand it. If there are ways to prioritise your sleep, that’s where I would start, including changing how your dd is feeding if that’s part of the issue.

Can your dh take over the night feeding? Could family help out? Could you afford to pay a night nurse?

You don’t even begin to feel semi normal until you’ve had two consecutive nights of uninterrupted sleep. The first night, your brain will prioritise REM sleep, and you can actually feel more wretched after a night off if you don’t get to follow it up with a second night.

At an absolute minimum, your partner needs to support you to get blocks of four hours to complete a sleep cycle.

I suffered from ante natal depression and the worst aspect of it was suddenly losing all sense of love for my older dc. At the time I focused on loving as an action, rather than a feeling and just made sure he was cared for, cuddled, played with, fed, etc. What we do, for our dc, is arguably more important than what we’re feeling. Knowing that kept me going when I felt like the worst mother.

@Nicecuppatea2025 thank you, I appreciate your kind words.
I agree I definitely do need more sleep, just find it hard to switch my brain off and like you say, am constantly waking up to check on the baby. I feel guilty asking my husband for more support on a night as he is the one going to work through the day. Although I know it’s equally as tough for me at home with the baby all day.

sadly I don’t really have many new mum friends, I don’t feel like socialising much but I know this can be a sign of depression too so I’m trying to get out where I can, even though I don’t feel like it at all

Very very common. PPD is hard. This too will pass. Be kind to yourself.
I felt this way too. 21 years later the baby who 'ruined my life' is the best thing I ever did.

Firstly, back to the GP, you cannot wait until the appointment. all medications take a while to kick in, and often, side effects will lessen if you can ride it out.
it does sound like you are very unwell, so maybe the GP will suggest a stay in hospital so you can rest and get treatment, as it does seem like your husband can cope with the baby fine.
That's the practical bit. can you go to a quiet room and do some yoga at home? There are numerous good online classes, so that would be a good idea for keeping calm in the meantime.
if you have help, then sleep when you need to, do not limit it to bedtime.
Make sure to share with your husband how you feel about this; you will need his support.
sending you love, there is light at the end of the tunnel

I was like this and things only improved once I slept more eg once she started sleeping through around 5 months old (be prepared for the sleep regressions). I didn’t have any time away from my dd and I didn’t know any other new mums. Most mums to babies and toddlers don’t have much if any time to themselves.