Feeling swamped by regrets and ds is not even 1 yet

[embarrassedmama]

Does anyone else feel this way?

It is coming up to ds 1st birthday and I am feeling overwhelmingly sad and depressed about his early days. They seem so much of a fog and I view them as a different lifetime, not mine.

We were living away from family and friends for the first couple of months and I felt so isolated (in retrospect though, as at the time I think the adrenaline kept me going).

The first friend who met ds met him he was 7 weeks old, we had no visitors at all until then :(

Dh was not very supportive either in retrospect, getting angry and frustrated easily. He has improved so much though and is a fantastic dad now. I guess I can't blame him either though as he must have been feeling stressed too.

On top of all this ds wasn't the easiest baby, he didn't cry much except for a couple of hours in the evening for the first month or so. But he was a terrible sleeper i just re read an old post and he once had a total of 6.25 hours sleep over a 24 hour period. I have spent most of the year sorting out his sleep and he still is not the best (although he now sleeps double that now). I do look at friends newborns though and get a huge feeling of envy when I see them sleeping away most of the days as ds was so bloody alert!

Does anyone else feel a huge desire to go back and re do the early days a different way? Is this what I will be doing throughout my life as a mother, looking back and regretting what has been done? :(

I spent my DD's 1st birthday crying, wracked with guilt over how awful I'd been, how awful it all was and how guilty I felt.
She's 19 months now and I'm putting it all behind me.

You have to give yourself permission to put it behind you. I did just that about 3 months ago and have been far happier as a result.

You can't change what happened, your child won't remember and chances are that you think it's worse than it actually was.

I think everyone looks back at the early days and feels like a fraud. Honestly no one has a perfect baby or time of it. I think for most first time mums expectations are way out we are not prepared for the reality and how hard it is.

There is so much to look forward to though. Running, playing, asking for biscuits, talking, singing songs.., why not just focus on the new things you want to do together.

Yes definitely put it behind you. If you don't "do" babies then the first year is the hardest and you are doing well just to get through it, let alone enjoy it. It was a fog for me too - both times around.

It gets sooooo much better from hereon in - your DS is becoming a little person now - and rather than let yourself be consumed by regret the best thing you can do is start enjoying the next few years as he does. You are still in the early years and in a few more months it is slowly going to become fun (er...give or take the odd tantrum...).

No regrets. Many people find the first year incredibly hard - a teeth gritter!!

Thank goodness I am not alone in this! I wonder if it is more common than not considering the huge huge life change and the accompanying reminiscing of the first birthday.

Why are we not warned of the 1st year birthday blues!

It gets sooooooooo much better -16-18 moonths old and they start interacting more and it's less about you leading everything. Hold in there

Ooo, what an appropriate thread! DD is 1 in a few weeks and I feel almost exactly the same. At times I'm consumed by guilt and think about everything I could have done differently. She was really not a very easy baby and whilst things are easier, being a mom is much more challenging than what I ever imagined. I'm trying to concentrate on moving forward with positive parenting. We can't change the past anyhow

I do sometimes wish I could go back in time now and do things differently, and I know where you're coming from. But - speaking for myself - I'd only know what to do differently because I've got to know my dd, and most of that learning was in those first horrendous weeks/months.

I had very similar time to you, moved abroad when DS was only 13 weeks, spent a year desperately isolated and exhausted as DS terrible sleeper, awful times, in the few pics I have I look desperate and exhausted and ill. Now he is 18 months and it's lovely. I find babies hard, but toddlers a joy. He is a lovely, happy little boy and although I found his early days shattering, he doesn't seem to hold it against me. I feel sad when I hear of new mums strolling about with their babies, enjoying maternity leave, proudly sharing with friends and family.

You can't change the past and it's ok to find the early days hard. It gets better and better IME.

Well, this is meant kindly, I'm guessing when he's three you don't want to be looking back to this time and regretting that you spent so much of it sadly thinking about his newborn days instead of enjoying him being nearly 1.

What I mean to say is, if you really want to look back without regrets, stop looking back with regrets!

Its a tiny fraction of the total time that you will have with your son. I am very blase about all the "firsts" that people seem to get so hung up on - the birth is a mechanical process that needs to happen one way or another, I don't think it does or should affect bonding, feeding etc; first smiles, steps etc - chances are they did it previously and you just weren't looking. What I am trying to say is that you could always find things to get upset about at every stage, that you could have done differently but you can't change it - maybe learn from it if you have another but otherwise, just look ahead. DS is nearly three now and I actually think its getting more important now because he actually remembers things and has views etc that aren't just reflexes. I agree with post, look forward, not back x

Don't look back, look forward and make the future every thing you want for your dc :)

They say that when your child turns one, it's a good idea to use that day as a celebration that you as parents made it to that point, as the first year is so difficult.

We all have things in our lives that we wish we'd done differently, child related or not, and the past is there to learn from, not to live in.
Not to mention the fact that when you have a baby, you are both learning everything together, and that's what parenting is. A learning curve.

So don't be so hard on yourself, you shouldn't see it as something negative, you should look at it as a huge achievement that you got through it, and because of it you have a bond with your child that no one else has, and you're finally beginning to understand one another.

All you can do is your best, and your son will thank you for that, he won't remember nor will he care how the first year of his life went. I'm sure my parents had a hard time of it, and I don't hold it against them!

Just relax and enjoy the journey!

I look back at year one with huge regrets. It seems that everything I did wasn't good enough. I think a broody 18 months I went through was mostly down to wanting to go back and do it again "properly". I have twins though, and 2 is enough. They are 3 now, and I can honestly say that the last 2 years I have done as well as I could. Many, many difficult times, I was often rubbish at being a mum, but for explicable reasons (exhaustion mostly!) and nothing I have any longterm guilt over.

The big difference you will find from here on is it becomes a 2 way relationship. Year one it is all down to you. Ds will now increasingly bring his personality to your relationship. You can only do your best, and perfection becomes laughably impossible.

It gets so much more fun. Enjoy it.

On our DTs 1st birthday we drank champagne and I cried. With joy that we had got through the first year. And with exhaustion.

It does get more fun!

Yes OP, exactly the same. Recently DH showed me a video he took of DS first attempt at bf at perhaps an hour old and I realized I didn't remember it and that was just the beginning of a difficult year with ptsd and a 'high needs' baby. I regret not remembering/having enjoyed it, etc, and regret regretting it IYSWIM.
I am now trying to not have anythign to regret this time next year .

There is no way I would want to go back to the first year and do it again. No. Way.