just screamed at 6mo - feel like shit

[gretagrape]

My throat is actually hurting I screamed so loud.
He's being really clingy at the moment - two teeth are coming through - and I can barely move more than 1ft away from him before he goes ballistic. He just woke up early from his nap and wouldn't stop screaming and wouldn't go back to sleep even with the usual comforting. It's been so relentless for the last couple of weeks and he's waking earlier each morning, that I think tiredness just got the better of me and I snapped.

I know he won't be harmed by what's happened and I am generally really happy at the moment, but I worry that my mood can change in a heartbeat and I don't seem to be able to control myself. I worry that as he gets older he WILL remember me going mental and will stay scared afterwards. Sometimes when I feel crap he looks at me so seriously because I'm not interacting and it makes me feel awful. I've just asked my husband to come home from work which means he'll lose a day's pay, not something we can afford but I just can't cope for another 10 hours before my son is in bed.

How can I learn to cope with the moods that tiredness creates? How am I supposed to recognise what's coming when it happens so quickly?
x

Oh god, I know that feeling! Don't beat yourself up, seriously. You've recognised that occasionally you lose it (which everyone does, no one is perfect) and you seem to know what tips you over so from now on, when you feel yourself getting towards that point just take yourself out of the situation. Put ds in his cot and walk away. Go and make a cup of tea, scream into a pillow, have a good wail- whatever it takes for you to calm down a little. He will cry but as long as he's safe he'll be fine.
It gets better and we're always here if you need to vent.

I have a 6month old who has just got his first tooth. While he was teething he was a nightmare . It does get better though. The things that got me through it was teething powder, distraction, letting him sleep in my arms while I watched a movie rather than trying to put him down and the screaming start again , calpol in the evening , and imagining someone was always watching my interactions with him. I begged my DP not to go to work one day but he was having none if it .
Probably not the best advice but it worked for me. Hope things get better for you.

Don't be too hard on yourself. Good suggestions here about walking away and the watching something while he sleeps on you. Is there anyone who could take him for a couple of hours during the day so you can get a breather and catch up on sleep?

Oh! It is the lovely mummy guilt which gets bestowed upon us in vast quantities!
It is hard work and it, let's not say gets better, it changes.
An idea that worked for me was, baby in buggy. Appropriate clothes, and walk walk walk walk..till both of is calmed down.
Does not work as an idea at 3 yrs plus though :-)

Also guilty of screaming at my baby! I found it was really due to my frustration at not getting anything else done when he was so clingy. Can you identify what you are feeling? I learned to let go of my wish to achieve anything else and turned it around to an excuse to watch daytime tv, or read, with him in my arms. I just did the bare minimum of cooking and laundry when he was like that. Do you have a carrier or a sling so you have some hands free time?

Please don't beat yourself up over this. Many parents have done the same. I shouted at my baby to go the f to sleep on more than one occasion.

It won't be forever, things will settle down again. In the meantime sleep when the baby sleeps, take any offers of help. When things were awful, DH and I would take 4 hr shifts at night to make sure we each got some sleep and at the weekends/when he was off work we took turns to have a lie in, while the other one got up with the baby.

calpol and Ashton's & Parsons teething powders were also a magic combination for teething.

And to reassure you, she's now 4 it does get better and there was no harm done. We have a very close bond and she has no memory of me shouting at her when she was a baby.

Meant to add, I learned to recognise when I was getting frustrated and would put her somewhere safe and go into another room and scream or count to ten to calm down.

It's not the first time it's happened and so I did try to do things to calm me down - I went into the lounge and screamed in there, but it just seemed to build up.

I'd like to say that what I was feeling was only selfless - eg, he's woken too early, he's still tired, he's going to feel crap if he doesn't go back to sleep, but if I'm brutally honest part of it was also feeling really pissed off because he's being so clingy that I only get to do things when he is napping, so for the nap to be cut short meant I got even less done. What I was doing wasn't even important - copying out some recipes from a bloody library book!

The worst thing is that although he is clingy at the moment, he won't be comforted by being held - it's as if he just needs me to be 6 inches away from him (and facing him all....the.....time).

If it stops bucketing it down we will go out for a walk later I think.
Thanks all. Feel like such a stereotype.

It is ok to still have needs of your own, and to feel frustrated if they have to be put aside - even for something relatively trivial. You'd be a robot otherwise!

Can you put him in a bouncy chair, or even buggy and sit him right in front of you?
then MN on your phone

You're not a stereotype, you are a mum and you have a baby. This is what happens.
You're not being selfish, it's normal to feel frustrated when you want to get something done and you can't especially when the baby is so specific about where they want you and what they want you doing (or not!).
Dd is 17mo and I still feel 'aargh' when she wakes early from a nap or get grumpy through the day as it means I can't get done what I had planned. Anyone would be hacked off with that.
I try to say to myself that it's ok, it can be done later. Have a drink, make a snack, do what you have to do to get through the day. That's all that's important.
Seriously, you're doing fine.

It is normal to feel tired and stressed in this situation, but...I think if this happens and you feel that you can't control yourself you should take it seriously.
This is not to make you feel worse-I know you already feel shit-but I am worried that you screamed AT your baby. Or am I getting this wrong, and you went elsewhere to scream. Because the former is a bit scary and seems like a big red flag to get some help.

I also shouted at my 5mo Ds to SHUT UP when he had be crying for about 3 days cutting his two first teeth (I didn't know he was teething at the time, I thought he was just miserable).

I felt devastated guilty afterwards as just held him cryin and was sure I was going to fuck up his whole life by being such a terrible mum (I am a rather firey melodramatic person...!).

Anyway just wanted to reassure you that you're nt the only one to have shouted at a small baby...it is fuckig relentless hard work looking after a clingy cranky baby and everyone has a limit.

However there are good tips on here about going out the room and leaving LO somewhere safe for 5 mins whilst you take a breath and try to chill out. Also can you make sure you Oh takes baby for a few hours at the weekend so you can get out of mummy-land and do something normal for yourself? A stroll round the shops? A cuppa and a read of your book in the local cafe? These little breaks keep me going through the week.

Also if you want some help to develop some techniques to keep your cool and deal with these testing parts of parenthood in a calmer manner, maybe speak to your HV? I have a friendly good HV who I confided in when I found myself getting angry with DS and she has been really good: reassuring me that what I feel is normal and suggesting ways that I can cope when I feel the red most descending. She has also provided some good practical tips to try to keep DS happier (he is 10mo now and still a v demanding high needs baby).

Come and vent here when you need to, you are not alone x

*red mist

I remember being told to say whatever I was thinking in a happy singsong voice, as the baby doesn't understand the words just the tone. It calmed me down and amused me to sing "shut the fuck up you're doing my head in" to the tune of twinkle twinkle. Neither of my dcs curse now they're old enough to speak btw! Hard isn't it?

You are exhausted. This is a very trying time. But you must find mechanisms to cope with your DC's crying.

Calpol is invualuable when a pre-verbal child is in pain and screaming all the damn time.

Keep him attached to you (sling if he's still small enough not to knacker your if that helps. Forget about anything else- just survive this phase.

Screams always sound less loud out and about. Put outdoor clothes on both of you and him in the pushchair and walk walk walk until you are exhausted and have worked out the stress. Once he goes to sleep, go by a cafe and have 30 quiet mn with a cup of something.

Sing instead of raising your voice. Even if you are singing quite evil things, smile and sing at him. "what the heck is the matter with you baby?" to the tune of any song you can remember at the time.

He won't remember, no, but it doesn't you any good to feel that you're not coping. My oldest is 20 and I've been where you are in the last 20 years. You just learn to turn your instinctive reaction into something less harmful.

Hang in there- this SHALL pass. In a scant few weeks you will not recognise your life. (although teething is always shit)

Thank you all. Husband came home and has this week off anyway so I've already said I'm going to have a day out on my own - we do usually arrange that I have a half day every weekend where I do what I want, but we've been so busy that it hasn't happened for the last 2 weeks. My friend put it well - I need to appreciate my baby and I can only do that if I have a bit of time off.

ifnotnow - yes, it was AT my baby, and I could see it scared him. I am having him weighed this week so I'll speak to HV and see if she has any tips. I can be quite fiery so it is up to me to put strategies in place to manage my moods.
x

Are you sure you're not depressed - don't take it the wrong way, but to shout at your baby like that makes me wonder is there something wrong, more than needing your own space?

I was in a similar place - it was the extreme exhaustion and lack of space. Also my two had reflux (have you ruled this out as a source of clinginess?) which made it harder.

One thing that helped was to put things in perspective. I remember the anger when routines were thrown eg naps went awry - my coping mechanism was to have routines and if they didn't work, then I just couldn't deal with it (I'm much better now).

When I felt the red mist descend I had to really tell myself to get control - I am capable of maintaining my cool in some situations so certainly within my capability to do so with a baby. I would walk away and look at pictures of the DC. Despite what you might think - you can control the rage - would you scream at a work colleague for example?

I'm not trying to be down on you - because I remember these feelings well and think they were linked to PND or something like that for me. I gave off the impression I was coping but it was all a front.

I can relate to that creature. I had a reflux baby and PMS (oh joy) and just clung to my routines, so when anything canaged (as it always does) I often felt like it was HUGE, and AWFUL, and like I couldn't cope.
I think I turned it on myself, kind of (maybe because I was a lone parent I was really scared to let my feelings out on my baby as noone was monitoring me) so would just feel like a failure and cry in the bathroom!
This did pass soon enough though OP, and my relationship with ds is fab on the whole 7 years later, so I agree-getting it all in perspective is key.
Be kind to yourslef.

I have to say I never shouted at my babies that young and wouldn't have dreamt of it. Once they got to about 2 years old though I would have the odd shout and maybe 4 times a year a proper going ballistic scream. They hate it and I hate it more and they remember it now. BUT I would say think about where you will be when baby is 2 if you're screaming now. I think you need to find a method that works for you, just leaving the room can be enough. Don't feel too guilty.

Yes IfNotNowThenWhen it did feel huge and awful! Exactly!! But with my second I had to let go and soon realised that it wasn't the end of the world if things didn't work but I still get twitchy about things.

Hi creatureretorts - sorry for delay in updating. I think there is a bit of depression and stress coming into it. I'm currently in negotiations with my employer about what job I'm going to have when I finish maternity leave so everything is very up in the air at the moment, bringing with it worries about money for the future as well.
Husband was off work last week and is off again from Wednesday, and that has definitely helped as it has really taken the pressure off enough for me to step back, recharge and feel a lot better.
Hopefully the work situation will be resolved in the next couple of weeks and at least then we'll know where we stand and can move forward.
Thanks
x