Being a mummy really makes me so unhappy....

[Schmauskin]

My 9 month dd has gone overnight from sleeping 7pm-7am to not settling and waking at 2.00am EVERY goddamn night. I am so bloody tired. I hurt all over, am very run down with constant sore throat and lots of spots. No family nearby for support, dh working in the evenings until June, so i feel very down and alone. I very committed to looking after my daughter, but it does feel my life is over. I had a ghastly birth, emergency 'c' section with ahorrible scar and since I became a mum it has brought very little but tears, exhaustion, panic, and an overwhelming sense of responsility. I used to sparkle and be gregarious - always organising social events, now I just want to go bed early and sleep so I can cope with the next day of parenting. I don't really see anyone apart from DH & DD. My dh and I sleep in separate rooms so that he doesn't disturb me when he comes in late from work, and so he isn't woken in the night when I have to tend to the baby. I often scared of all the decisions I have make about looking after my baby girl - what do I feed her today? should I let her have that afternoon nap? etc etc. I just want someone to hold me and tell me it's going to be ok, and that things will get better. I honestly have not enjoyed a single day of parenthood since I had her. It's all too much for me to cope with.

Today has been much better too, 'cos dd didn't wake in the night so I managed to get some rest, but I still feels like I'm on a treadmill of nappies, milk and sodding purees with so little time to do anything else. In the evenings I eat quickly, get eveything ready for the next day (make up the bottles, get food out from the freezer, etc) then I'm so tired i just want to go to bed - I have no life!

Know exactly how you feel - that tomorrow all that will happen is the same crap as today. But actually you will soon see changes... and little things will become easier... and slowly things go back almost to normal. FWIW I found it took me a year to recover from dd1's birth, I too had an emergency section and thought she was going to die and it is soooooo traumatic, then I couldn't bfeed and I was heartbroken. But you have to give yourself a lot of time to recover both physically and mentally and you need as much support as you can get in the meantime. Remember, you work too - bloody hard.

Schmauskin

Sorry I didn't see this earlier but wanted you to know you are not alone!

It's the tiredness that does it and you need to rest at every opportunity you can get. Also, make sure you are not anaemic and take some multivits, if you don;t already.

I was almost at my wits end when ds got to around 9 months, just before Xmas - I'd not had one unbroken night in all that time, was feeling very rough & low, joints aching, skin terrible etc etc.

I am BF so I can't get dh to do any night feeds & ds would just scream the place down if he went in anyway so I have no choice but it is hard.

BUT for some reason things seem to have turned a corner, now he is a year - he still doesn;t sleep through most nights, but does the occasional one, I get a few lie ins courtesy of dh, and I still get knackered, but somehow it all seems to be getting a bit easier.

He can eat what we eat now, only has one (long) nap, which means I can have a proper rest if I need it, etc.

Only another 3 months and your dd can go onto cows milk, have cups, and it does start to be less of a faff.

Hope you are feeling more on top of things soon.

Would echo all the messages you've already had add my own two pennith!

• it does get better.
• nobody tells you the truth when your pregnant about how much hell the first year is. As well as the guilt, how crap you feel about yourself etc.
• we too have no parents or reli's about and when they do put the by annual visit in they are less than useless.
• had pretty much the same experiences your describing with my first dd on number 2dd now and it is better coz you know whats coming and can cope with it better. You learn to say sod it to all the stuff you have to do for your baby, you know that it's going to be dull in large parts for a while (and learn to laugh about it a bit more than the 1st time) but you also learn not to blame the baby for that too it's easy to associate all the crap you have to do, the decisions to make etc with the baby rather than just trying to enjoy the good bits of laughing, chatting, gurgling and playing. I know it feels like a treadmill, living it at the mo with dd2 who's 6 and a half months old.
• sleep deprev is the worst form of torture ever, my dh remined me of this when I was weeping for no particular reason within weeks of 2nd dd coming along he reminded me that it is actually used to break people down in torture situations!
• it's hard to move on from a tramatic birth or experience in hospital with your dd, I can't tell you how but I did, I was mainly angry more than anything else for at least the first year afterwards you feel cheated more than anything else given you often feel surrounded by the breezy types you've described in one of your posts who had ok birth or pain relief free births never mind being sliced and diced after hours or days of labour, these guys aren't really for real and even if they are without being horrible parenthood karma will come and bite them on the arse at somepoint in the future!
• sleep whenever you can and a really bloody good multi vit and probiotic taken every day are the key to start feeling a wee bit human as well as getting out with other folks, no med expert but am convinced that hormones (didn't used to believe this when was ball breaking career bird) play a large part on how you feel after having a baby for at least the 1st year and beyond. I once read an article that having a baby and the placenta (sorry for tmi guys) coming out can be the hormonal equiv of the menaporse, would really recommend Boots own brand multi vit for woman (Red and Gold box, red pill) and own Brand probiotic have taken these relig wise since dd2 came along and I think they work a treat and help your body start doing it's own repair work.

As everyone's said your not alone sometimes it's easier to have these sorts on chats on line bet the NCT mums hit sites like this all the time!
Anytime you fell like a rant or need some help just holler.

Am off to watch Footballers Wif's!

Love, thoughts and best wishes.
(Hope didn't scare you with advice/rant just don't think it's fair you feel like this although comepletley normal, promise you there is light at end of tunnel)!

Haven't had time to read any of the thread other than your original post.

You sound post natally depressed to me.

Try this link for tentative self diagnosis:

edinburgh post natal depression scale

If you think you are depressed see your doctor - and don't resist taking ADs, they've done wonders for me (no depressive symptoms currently)

would echo HMC.
it IS hard, but as someone who had an experience very similar to yours for my first child's first year, and shortly after the birth of my 2nd a few months, after the awful draining misery started to set in again, worked out it was PND please do the test and if it's PND, don't be freaked by it, take great comfort from it, start talking to GPs and HVs, and get it sorted. yes, it CAN be sorted. yes, you CAN enjoy this time. (people on MN told me so when i was in the throes of it, and i didn't believe them. that was only a month and a half ago.)
i can't tell you how much easier things are now i know what i had (have got?), am on a very tiny dose of ADs and have talked and talked about it.
i'm astonished to find that i'm actually loving my time with this baby now. i loathed nearly every moment of no1's babyhood. all the things you describe, the panic, worrying about getting through the day, the relentlessness of parenting, tiredness, guilt, isolation... really, it's so familiar. yes, a bit of this is normal some of the time, but if you're overwhelmed by it, it's probably not.
if you want to cat me, do. i'm n london too.

Adrift

Very cheered by your story. Lovely to hear about it when sufferers from PND get better and find that they can enjoy parenting and life in general. Such a relief to climb out of that black hole isn't it? Really glad you are doing okay now

Thank you for the latest posts. I really don't think I have PND because after dd sleeping through the last 2 nights I feel so much better! (I have always suffered if I don't get enough sleep) I just think I have enormously high expectations and I must learn that life can be dissapointing if you set yourself unacheivable goals. I underestimated how life-changing having a child would be, and thought I'd 'breeze it' - how wrong can a gal be!!!! I was fortunate to have an exciting job, that meant travelling all over the world and meeting lots of interesting people before I had my daughter - daily strolls to visit the ducks or to buy a pack of nappies are a major adjustment! I'm sure it will get better, otherwise no-one would ever repeat the experienceof to mash bananas...

off to mash bananas...

Schmauskin

i totally know how you feel - and I can promise you it DOES get better. Once you have caught up properly on your sleep (and it will take months to recover from the henious lack of sleep in those first few months) you will get a spring in your step again and be able to tackle each day.

I do think though that as soon as you have a child you never really get back the level of energy you had before kids - it is an exhausting job, whatever stage your kids are at.

You will sleep soon - the worst is over!

Well yes it might be tiredness, and then again it might not. I thought so too in my case until baby started sleeping through and I was still not coping.

I hope you continue to feel 'up'...but if you don't then do not close your mind to the possibility that it might be PND, and at least try the test. It's not an admission of failure to acknowledge that there might be more to it than simply fatigue.....

I personally think that "I honestly have not enjoyed a single day of parenthood since I had her" - which was 9 months ago wasn't it? - is a feeling I would attribute to a bit more than being knackered. It's not a normal response. Not saying you are abnormal - but that despite parenting small children being very hard at times, you would anticipate some good days during a 9 month period if your mental health was fully 'intact'

handlemecarefully - just when I was feeling that it WAS NORMAL to feel like this, you've made me question my 'mental health' !!! You seem to be in the minority, so many of the posts say what am experiencing is perfectly NORMAL and part of the on-going shit of being a new mum. No I haven't enjoyed a single day in 9 months, because I'm tired, still a stone overweight with a dirty great scar on my tummy, no sex life and no time to myself,- PLUS I have to take on the enormous responsibilty of parenthood!! GIVE ME A BREAK!!! It's hard this mumying lark, and my reaction doesn't I'm clincally depressed.

I know as an actor he needs energy and to be 'fresh' but so do you as a mum! And your job is far more important. Even though dh works full time, and I work evenings (so I stay at home with ds during the day) we have always taken turns each night with who is responsible for the feeds. We make exceptions if one of us is ill or if ds is we usually take it in turns on the actual night, but it's worked well for us, even if only for us to be equally tired and know how each other feels!

Hello Schmauskin, gosh your posts are so familiar. I went through exactly the same things with my dd, felt at rock bottom for quite a while, just so unbelievably knackered and lonely. I used to beg dh to take a day off work/leave work early, I think I was in mourning for my old life and like you incredibly tired. My dh got pretty worried about me and asked our best mates (both GPs) if they thought I had PND - no they said she's just adjusting and exhasuted -that was me anyhow. As everyone says it does get better - it must do as no 2 is due in a few weeks.

Whereabouts in N London are you? I might be able to recommend a few good groups to go to.
Take care and eat chocolate xx

oh honey, no one is trying to make you doubt yourself. very very sorry if we've made it worse.

i think the problem is, once you have 'got out' of PND, you feel evangelical about it; the transformation is so astonishing and so wonderful (and, in my case, so simple to bring about) that you want desperately to help people who might be suffering from it too.

the thing that people kept pointing out to me, the diff between being exhausted/hormonally all over the place and having PND was that with PND at least the sort i had i was stuck permanently at a low ebb. ie, i really was not enjoying any of my day.

everything was black, bleak and endless.

comparing notes with friends, i began to see that their experience of the first year had been very different. of course they had hard times, bad days, bad weeks. but it was not ceaselessly miserable. they had not lost the capacity to enjoy life, as i think I had.
i found this useful when I began to slump with DS.

Scmauskin, I'm interested to read what hmc says. I'd forgotten that my GP at the time did think I was depressed, albeit mildly, and recommended St Johns Wort, which I took. There was a recentish study IIRC which I think said that mild depression was a perfectly normal response to the huge shock of a new (and especially a first) baby, which made sense to me. Especially if, like me, I'm not sure about you, you had little or no experience of babies before having one and if you don't know any other mums or have any support, including family support. I didn't. So maybe you are mildly depressed in the same way that I was - I said earlier that I felt the same as you do now and therefore I thought your feelings were normal but actually, I had forgotten that I was depressed! I didn't really recognise it I don't think at the time, I just wondered why my skin was terrible and I couldn't talk to anyone. I really couldn't, my sister would come round and I literally couldn't open my mouth or engage with her or anyone. I hated the whole thing. So maybe there's a middle way in that yep, you're hating it and yes, that's normal especially with no sleep but that you need to recognise if that tips over into depression. I think the 'with no reason' part of the Edinburgh test is applicable: even after my second I would have been able to tick some boxes BUT for the 'with no reason' bit. You're welcome to CAT me if you want to talk offline. But I really think you should see how you feel after some more good sleeps and once your baby gets a bit older.

schmauskin, I felt just like you, so down but just as I was ready to go to the g.p. I'd have a couple of good nights and felt like a whole new person. What you have been through and what you are going through take time to recover from. You have to be gentle with yourself. FWIW, and I will probably get shot down in flames for saying this, I did the Edinburgh test when very low and scored highly, but never told anyone. And when dd1 turned one she became more settled and I got my life back. With dd2 I started to feel the same but it only lasted for six weeks before I felt back to normal - because unlike d1, dd2 slept well. Now I think I was midly depressed but not enough to warrant medical help. I think you have to trust yourself on this. You sound tired and frustrated, but then that is normal for so many people when they become parents. Don't beat yourself up and don't worry.

Schmauskin,

And it's not normal to vent at someone who is trying to help you. So for all I care just go wallow. I won't fucking bother next time

I have to agree with hmc that not enjoying one day in 9 months is down to more than just being knackered - you can be knackered and still enjoy and get pleasure from your baby. Sounds too like you could do with a bit more support from your dh - has he not held you and told you things will get better? Could he not give you a break at the weekend or when he's around?