My baby is 4 months and I still hate being a mother

[LittleAmy]

When is this going to change? Will it ever change? I'm at the end of my rope.

I have skimmed as I'm at work, so I apologise and I don't mean to ask bleeding obvious questions or repeat what someone else has said...

A four month old baby can be left while you have a shower and dry your hair, or make yourself some tea and read the paper. It honestly will not damage her to cry for a bit as long as she's safe and fed. Unless she is a genius then she won't be able to move very far. I was told this when dd was small and I took no notice. It's only looking back now that I realise that there were ways out and I didn't see them.

I've been where you are. Ironically, a big part of my depression was caused by my not being able to bf. I felt useless, dd hated me, I could do nothing for her, DH had a wonderful life etc. Tablets absolutely and totally worked for me and, at about 6 months I really started to enjoy being a parent.

I missed if you said generally what part of the country you're in. Maybe someone here can help.

Just read your last post a bit more carefully. DD is 2.10 and there was a time when the mere mention of bf reduced me to tears, because I wasn't able to do it. I felt shit. Now, I look at her and realise it doesn't matter a toss how she was fed. Not really.

I'm not saying you should stop, that's for you to decide. But ultimately your dd needs her mummy more than she needs breastmilk. That's my take on it.

Amy listen to Aitch she is speaking real sense. Your DH needs to stop relying on you when he has your DD and you need to get a new GP.

As an aside, there is a correlation between depression and a lack of support. Your GP isn't supporting you, your DH isn't, your mother isn't. As I said earlier it is no wonder you feel like this. I would. I also know how irrational you can get about feeding a baby and whether its starving. A 4mnth old will easily survive a couple of hours without food.

Hi Amy,

Yous sound so fed up and angry. for you any your baby.

I a all for breastfeeding for as long as mum and baby want and are happy. You are not happy. So prehaps forget expressing and start giving baby a bottle of formula when you want to leave her? You really sound like you need a break. Is there anyone who will have DD on a regualr basis a couple of times a week? Prehaps a nursery?

I started my DD at nursery when she was 6 months and it has saved my sanity- literally.

My top tip is get out of the house everyday and mix with other adults, baby group, tddler group, swimming - anything, baby won't care but you will benefit hugely.
Good luck.

It's reasonable to expect your DH to look after your DD at least 50% of the time he is at home! For example, my DP looks after DS for an hour or two every morning (as he starts work later) so I can go back to bed - your DH could take your DD for an hour or two every evening after work so you can go to the gym/for a walk/back to bed. Swap lie-ins on the weekend - every Saturday morning after the first feed your DH can take the baby out for at least two hours. You can give him a lie-in on Sunday.

EBF is obviously very important to you, and you've done brilliantly with very little support by the sound of it. In a couple of months your DD will be weaned anyway, so maybe that will be a good point to introduce an occasional bottle of formula? Maybe find a childminder who can have her for a couple of mornings a week?

And do try again with the ADs. Does your mum work? Can she help with DD while you adjust to the ADs?

Hey LittleAmy, so sorry you're feeling like this.

I can really relate to your describing the feeling of being attached to DD, but also not really feeling able to get proper time away.

Your DH is also clearly struggling. Has he been to the GP/HV to see if there is any help available for new dads? Yes, my DH was/is able to cope with DS for longer than an hour or two without needing to text me and tell me it's going badly. We only tend to text each other when it's going well, tbh.

I'm SW London if you'd like to meet.

Yes, the texting is completely not on - when your DH is with the baby she is his responsibility not yours! The first time I went out and left DS with DP he was 11 days old. I went out for an hour to the doctor and when I got back DP was frazzled and said the baby had cried the entire time. But he hadn't called me back, he'd dealt with it because he doesn't have a choice - he's a parent not a babysitter.

Don't feel your DH is doing you a favour by looking after his own child!

Moon I could not agree more! I have three dds - the eldest is 9 and I can honestly say I wouldn't have three if my DH did not pull his weight. I think it must be easy to fall into the roles of mum doing everything with and for the baby especially when bfing but you will regret that later.

Amy Where are you? Am sure there are mntters near who woul like to meet.

Amy,

I think you are in Newcastle? I run a book group for new parents once a month at The Sage Gateshead. It was set up after a thread on mumsnet. I knew from my first maternity leave how much I missed adult company and the chance to have real conversations that are not all about babies.

So this is what we do - we bring our babies along and the setting is very baby-friendly (plenty of space for pushchairs, a few of us breastfeed, baby changing nearby) but I think we'd all agree that the focus is on us being adults for an hour. We drink coffee, eat cake, talk about books. The babies are usually quite happy looking at each other/ crawling about, but if they cry or you need to take them for a little walk nobody minds. We all understand what it's like.

There are different/ new people each month and you'd be more than welcome to join us. the blog, scroll down to the bottom for more details as I tend to go off at a tangent about any old thing

Looking back I can see now how the sleep deprivation of having a new baby set me off on a spiral of ever worsening anxiety. I didn't think anything major was going to go wrong but I was constantly in fight or flight mode and everything felt (and was at times) just another burden.

It sounds like you are doing loads of stuff to help yourself but it also sounds like you are full of cortisol and adrenaline which is making it impossible for you to relax even just a little bit.

Please, please get a better GP. Try a different AD if you can and for the time being forget about getting the understanding and support you deserve from your husband. He is probably in as anxious a state as you are. My attempts to get my usually kind and sensitive partner to understand how exhausted I was just added to my troubles. I wish I had just accepted he didn't get it and not let the injustice go round and round and round in my head.

I didn't really start to understand what was going on with me and my partner until I did a lot of research into the effects of long term anxiety and it helped me enormously.

I had some counselling; some very good, some well meaning but not useful but the thing that made the biggest difference was taking a low dose of citalopram. I felt like a switch in my brain had been flicked and what had seemed intolerable was now, not great, but not a torment either.
I think this showed there really was a chemical element to what I was experiencing.

Rambling now so I'll stop but again please get a better GP he sounds like an idiot.

When I say support from your husband I mean emotional support. Looking after his own child is something else and should happen of course.

atyourservice - I think you're right about anxiety - it's a different thing to depression although the two things often come together.
I was diagnosed with anxiety and pnd, the anxiety was really crippling though looking back.

littleamy you really need to change your gp, they shouldn't be talking to you like that.

I have skimmed so sorry if I've missed stuff.

Are you planning on going back to work? I hated hated hated maternity leave. I went back to work when DS was 5.5 months (3 days a week) and suddenly enjoyed being a mum so much more. I needed that balance back.

Also, for me a lot changed when DS learned to crawl (quite late at 11.5 months). He was quite a frustrated and crying baby, but once he could move, wow! He was like a different person. Now he's this amazing toddler and the experience of being his mum is unbelievably different.

Agree about getting out of the house for just a little while though. When I was on maternity leave, once DH was home from work I'd find a reason we needed to buy something from the supermarket and wander into town - was out for about an hour. That helped a lot to just have that break.

Little Amy - so sorry you are feeling like this and I did see your previous thread.

Please keep trying to get help from GP (try a different doctor in the practice if necessary) and/or HV.

I had PND but it wasn't diagnosed for over a year (partly due to my HV being crap). In the end I made an appointment with a sympathetic, female GP and she was fantastic. I was completely against taking ADs but they were a necessary evil for me. They took the edge off my anxiety and allowed me to function normally.

IME breastfeeding was the root of my PND and anxiety. Like you, I wanted to get away from my DD and HATED feeling solely responsible for her. I soldiered on with BF until my DD was 5 months to the detriment of my mental and physical health. I hope you don't feel obliged to do the same.

Take care and keep posting as people on MN are so good and helpful

ds was a nightmare baby, he had colic and just didn't stop crying. I would nearly ruby throw him at dh when he got home from work! Dh would then take him out in the pram whilst I cooked tea, ds would then stay asleep (sometimes) whilst we are it!

I can be a horrible time, will your dc take a dummy? That can be a huge help with an unsettled baby and help you get a bit of peace.

fwiw, I can identify with the change in body shape, it's alot to get used to, I hated ds for a while for that.

Practically, when you feed, have you tried expressiving from the other breast? I found this was the best way to get a serious amount of milk. Well done for getting out and about and meeting other Mum's that was a turning point for me.

Are there any breastfeeding support groups near you? I also found them very helpful

I'm so glad you're reading What Mothers Do. Have you got to "Snapping at my partner" yet? It's on (goes off to rummage) page 212. It might be worth skipping ahead to that, along with the "so tired I could die" chapter. And then go back to the rest. I remember early on she was talking about the time mothers spend saying "this is a sock" to their children, and you (and I when I read it) are/were nowhere near that stage.

There is a brilliant article Zoe Williams wrote for a Guardian pullout on relationships. It basically talks about the atom bomb that is the impact of a new baby on relationships and the staggering number of parents of new babies who talk about divorce in their child's first year. I'll see if I can find it on the web, although I've tried before on a similar thread without success.

I agree with pinkhebe about expressing with the baby on the other boob. It's totally the way to do it.

Would you get your DH onto this thread do you think? Or another one, in which you namechange? Since no-one talks about the horror of looking after a newborn, I think sometimes men think their partner is the only person in the world feeling these things.

Hi Amy, just wanted to chip in about ADs. I took Seroxat which I think is ok with breastfeeding. It was the best thing I ever did. No trouble sleeping although made me feel nauseous at first - but after a week or so that wore off. I started to feel brilliant and I also lost tonnes of weight on it. When people slag off ADs I just think to myself "god I loved taking those - wish I was still on them!" :o

Please go back to the docs and ask for another type. And if possible try and see a different GP as that one sounds like an idiot for telling you this should be the happiest time of your life.

LA - I haven't read all of this thread so I may be repeating what others have already said but have you thought about trying to get your DD into a routine? Obviously it's not for everyone and I don't know, it may end up making you feel worse BUT I have found it a real life saver. Since 3 mo, my DD (now 7 mo) has had a pretty consistent routine which means I know when and for how long she will sleep during the day (an hour in the morning at around 9 and two hours at lunch-time). It sounds from your posts that one of the things that really frustrates you is not having time to yourself. A routine makes things more predictable and you know when your 'me' time is going to be. Obviously it doesn't always go to plan and some babies fit into routines better than others but if it works and if you're keen to give it a go it may help you regain a bit of control over your life.

Go back to the GP and tell him that the anti-D he gave you made you wired and awake on top of the existing exhaustion. Prescribe something else compatible with bf or he can keep the baby.

You sounded a bit like me when DD was that age. I had severe PND.

I can't tell you how I got out of it it was literally a blur and I lost months of her precious life. She is nearly 4 now and the apple of my eye.

I just wanted to tell you that it can and will change and you will love your daughter and being a Mum one day. These months are hell, they were for me. You will get through it, keep reaching out.

Kangaroo - liking your style .

LittleAmy, of course it is not unreasonable for your husband to watch his baby, too! The key is in the latter part of the sentence: its his baby, too.

Some days when DD was small I would literally hand her over to DH as he came through the door and go to bed for an hour. He understood. His job is physical and gruelling and he's on call 3 times a month for a week at a time. But my life was physical and gruelling and I was on call 24/7. He supported me.

You've asked when it will get better/easier. Well, everyone is different, but for me 6 months was the switch. It was then that we sussed nap times. At 4 months DD was hard to settle. I would sit beside her cot and hold her hand and shush her when she fussed and if I was lucky she would sleep for 30 minutes at most (rarely) after I left the room. I remember once trying to treat myself to a heated demi-baguette (yes, that was a treat!) for lunch and no sooner had I put it in the oven she woke up yelling. I remember standing in the kitchen, bursting into starving tears and shouting "I just want a fucking meal!"

Anyway, around 6 months I took to heart some advice I read on here which was that if I ever got to breaking point, to remove myself from the room and take some deep breaths. After a 2 hour crying jag as she tried to sleep I broke: I left her in her cot and went to the bathroom to wash my face. She stopped crying and slept for an hour. After that I took five minutes to settle her and she would go to sleep. I guess I effectively let her cry out to sleep, although I was with her for 99% of it. I never thought I'd do that, but it kind of worked.

So from 6 months it occured to me that I could leave DD to go to the loo or fix myself some food or something like that for me. If she shouted in indignation, then she shouted. She survived. I would only be gone 2 minutes. Anyway, 2 months after that she was crawling so she'd follow me.

I also think that by 6 months when I started baby-led weaning she became much more of a sociable little part of the family. You only have 2 more months to get to that.

I don't think you and I have/had it much different. You describe your life with DH much like mine with my DH. We did get that back after those first 6 months. But he supported me throughout the 1st 6 months, too. That's the key, really, support. As previous posters have said, you don't sound like you're getting that from anyone, so I can fully appreciate your feeling lonely.

You mentioned that you feel your DH can't understand your frustrations because he has a wage coming in and a job to go to and adult conversation? Are you on maternity leave from a job? Do you have one to go back to? When my DD was 9 months old I went back to work part time which was perfect for me.
I work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings with DD in nursery for the duration. She started going one morning a week from 7 months to get into it, and having that morning to myself was bliss. I got to shower during the day and do housework in peace. And even sit down with a cuppa for 10 minutes. Have you thought about that? Just having one morning of not feeling like you're at your DDs constant beck and call?

I don't know whether you've said this, but whereabouts are you? I'm in Oxfordshire if its nearby?
I'm sorry for the huge post, but your situation has moved me so much.

Where are you Amy?

IMHO trying to get a little baby into a routine is a waste of time and can be stressful all round. My heartfelt advice would be get DH on board, he needs to do his share and get a break regularly,nursery, childminder - whatever.