Too rough with newborn - need advice

[Tommy1980]

Hi - Im the Father of a 2-month old preemie. He was born 3lbs but is now 6. I love him to bits, he is amazing!

I work from home and so share all responsibilities with my partner if I’m quiet. At night I look after him in first part of evening so my partner can sleep. It is during this time I start getting stressed and angry with my son when he is crying / grizzly / squirmy. I get the urge to be deliberately rough with him - I need to stress that it isn’t violence or hitting, but more like wrapping him too tightly in a muslin, or forcing a dummy in his mouth, or hugging him too tightly.

It upsets me that I can’t deal with his behaviour in a calm manner and I’m a bit frightened that this roughness will escalate if I don’t address it soon.

I’m quite a highly-strung and emotional person but not violent in any way and it’s so out of character for me to behave like this with a tiny baby that doesn’t know any better. I love him and don’t want to hurt him.

Any relaxation techniques someone could recommend? Ive toyed with the idea of seeing someone to talk it through. I don’t want anyone thinking I’m shaking my baby wildly or hitting him etc - it’s not that - it’s just this urge to be rougher than I should. It’s such a weird feeling.

I’ve talked to my partner about this and she is being very understanding and says it’s a challenging thing to deal with an shes glad Im being honest with her. I’m glad to say she’s still OK with leaving me alone with him - the idea of her being too scared to leave us alone is just awful. She’s said if I feel that I’m not in control to wake her up and hand him over.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks, this helps a lot. And a lot of what you said there is very familiar

How much does he cry? Do you recognise a pattern?

My DS cried and I tried to cope thinking it's normal that babies cry - it turns out he has colic/milk intolerance.

I've not read the full thread but have you identified the times he cries? Could it be colic or reflux? My DS was like a different baby once these issues were addressed.
Of course, your DS could just be a whingy baby - some are. My DS (7weeks) cries from 7pm til 11pm. And I've just started learning what his cries mean (sound stupid but I can tell a tired cry from a hungry cry). I know his evening cry is tiredness and I know what his cry is like when he's waiting for me to make up his bottle.

When my DS cries and I've tried everything I can see how frustrated you get. It's frustrating when you know he has a fresh nappy, and he's been fed and cuddled and can't think of why he's crying. My DS tends to be over tied - if that helps - but likes to fall asleep sitting up.

My health visitor said as long as u know the baby is fed and dry then when you feel yourself getting frustrated then put him down and leave the room. Personally I couldn't do that but she told me this just before DS was diagnosed with milk allergy so maybe the cries are different. I know I can now tell the difference between his cries.

Just to add, something happened with me and DS and I saw him being cared for by someone else with much more experience with babies. No matter how much he cried and screamed she remained calm and looks at DS with complete sympathy. It changed my life as a (very new) Mother. My life with DS changes that day.

Your child cant help how they feel. It's not their fault. Imagine being in pain and uncomfortable but not being able to express what is the matter. Poor baby doesn't even know what's what.

I find when DS is crying I put myself in his shoes / booties.

Also, white noise app helps

I said it gets worse cos I found the worst part to be the 4 month sleep regression, or that phase around 6 months when you haven't slept in months and can't cope with them not starting to sleep better cos it's been months FFS!

I do recognise what the OP is talking about as when I had PND I had the same urges late at night when they just wouldn't settle for hours.

I went to the GP and got put on antidepressants and my coping dramatically improved and it never happened again.

Sometimes there is a fairly simple solution.

Antidepressants helped enormously with feeling of extreme frustration.

Figuring out dd was a cluster feeder worked wonders for us. She was every couple of hours during the day, then from 6pm to 10pm she would scream. Turns out she needed feeding every 30 minutes at night. She would then wake up at 2 and 5 for feeds. Until 5 weeks when she started sleeping through after her mammoth feed sessions.

Oh gosh, I remember the fury and rage all to well. I pretended I was the star of a parenting tv show, and I was being filmed 24-7. It made me fake it, untill I was actually being the kind of mum I was pretending to be!

Also, when feeling really bad (I must sound deranged) I would make myself imagine repeating what I would say to a judge. So, that curbed my outbursts too.
Babies, especially very young ones, seem to bring out the utter worst in some people.

@Tommy1980 whilst it’s good that you have recognised that your behaviour is aggressive; you aren’t going to get many sympathetic replies on here as your behaviour is dangerous and an outburst of anger could seriously injure or even kill your tiny baby.
Babies cry, it’s what they do! Please please please show your DS love and empathy when he’s crying, he needs you.

Early parenthood is really difficult because apart from the obvious tiredness and physical demands you don't know your child yet. He is a whole human with needs abut is unable to communicate them as you don't know each other properly. He is different to every other baby so although there are broad themes ie hot, cold, nappy, tired, hungry, tummy ache etc there isn't a dictionary to follow. On the day he was born you were given a huge responsibility to care for him but only some of the information as to how to do it so when you have used all your tools and your baby is still wriggling and crying or not doing the thing that you are sure will help him to settle you are naturally frustrated. We all understand it and as your child grows you and he will learn about each other and this frustration will pass. You feel bad because you love him and want to do your best for him.
My advice would be to put him down safely in the cot and leave the room if you start to feel your stress levels rising or even better to stick him in the sling or pram and go for a walk. You will both feel better and crying outside is not as bad as within the four walls ( personal experience++)

Mumsnet is the most. Sexist place on the planet. I have read countless threads with women saying exactly the same and getting far more supportive responses.

OP you are doing all the right things by seeking advice and help. The newborn stage is the worst. The absolute worst most terrifying and most stressful stage.

Why doesn’t you partner help or do night feeds, she can’t need her sleep that much surely. She could do a couple of hours out of 24 so you could rest

I would never cause him serious harm

O p it is great that you are reaching out with this issue, but the above statement concerned me a bit. Even roughly shoving a dummy in a prem baby's mouth could do harm. You have been given good advice about stepping away from him in stressful times and going to see the GP. I would imagine though that disclosing that you are purposely over wrapping him or shoving a dummy roughly in his mouth would warrant a disclosure to SS so do be prepared for that.

Damage to the phrenum by roughly shoving in a dummy (frighteningly "easy" to do in an unguarded "frustrated" moment) would signpost medical/safeguarding professionals to further investigate physical abuse of a baby

I agree. Im deleting this post as I’m sick of getting told off my angry Mums.

Have hq agreed to delete it ?

I don’t think you get to choose if it is deleted.

Something that has helped me is realising that every cry doesn't need to be solved. Sometimes they are just having a hard time. If they need to poo for example you can't make that happen any faster or make the sensation less weird for them. It's okay to just love them through it. Wind - you can't always get it up, sometimes it's going to hang around and hurt them for a bit and some comfort helps but isn't going to magic it better. You can't "fix" everything. Newborns cry about everything because the slightest bad thing which happens is literally the worst thing which has ever happened to them. Even if they've had really traumatic experiences - medical procedures in hospital etc - that doesn't help them to put something like needing a poo into context because they don't have that kind of cognition skill yet - what's happening in the moment simply overwhelms everything else. In addition when they have had a traumatic start sometimes that's something they probably need to process and may be a cause of "unexplained" crying.

In addition it is totally normal and expected for many babies to have a fussy period in the first part of the evening as you describe. It might be that this is just their way of discharging all of the overwhelming new sensations and experiences they've had during the day. You can help by keeping the lights low and keeping the environment very unstimulating. Most babies also like to feed frequently or take a dummy if bottle fed during this time and to be cuddled or lay on your chest. He might like something rhythmic like white noise or to be read to or sung to especially when lying on you as a Dad's lower voice can be really soothing to babies. However if this period is especially difficult for you it might be worth swapping your arrangement around, or at least taking it in turns? If you're struggling with crying and feeling that all the crying is saved for you, it probably doesn't help to have the most crying-intensive period as "yours".

Defo agree with if you're feeling overwhelmed put the baby down somewhere safe and take 5 minutes - but if you're getting frustrated because you feel you should be able to stop the crying and you can't, perhaps it will help to hear that you can't always.

I can't believe some people are bullying someone who is looking for help. Having a premature baby is a special kind of stress and I developed depression after mine were in nicu and yeah I struggled to cope and have done since they were born. I totally empathise with the op feeling frustrated and at the end of his tether (obviously I don't condone any sort of abuse or force to the baby) I never did anything to my babies other than treat them with kindness but I most certainly wasn't kind to myself, because I felt like everyone else would be able to deal with all this and it was some sort of personal failing that meant i couldn't. Calling someone a man baby for struggling to deal with a traumatic experience (nicu and a prem baby) is fucking disgusting. Some of you need to take a long fucking hard look at yourselves. Do you really think the op wants to feel this way?

AnyFucker not all men are wankers. Give it a break. You look like a tool.

I can't believe the reaction to this either. Absolutely pathetic.

Anyfucker are you serious? Absolutely vile response to someone asking for help.

So much sexism.

Does it make me a woman baby if I struggled to cope with my prem babies and had feelings of intense frustration and the feeling that I might hurt them if i didn't leave the room right now?

I think it can actually be quite a normal thing to feel but its how you respond to that feeling that is the issue.
I had PND with my first and had very intense feelings of hostility towards my newborn. Worse than what you are describing. I think it is so hard with your first, they scream and you feel helpless and sometimes that turns into anger.
Its really important to remove yourself from the situation if you start getting angry. Its okay to feel an emotion and actually very healthy to name that emotion and not try and lie to yourself... but it is obviously not okay to express anger towards a newborn. So allow yourself to acknowledge you are angry and stressed and immediately remove yourself from the situation. Place the baby somewhere safe like their cot etc and then just leave the room and sit down somewhere and calm down. Even if your baby is screaming just leave the room. They wont die from a few mins crying whilst you go and take the time to calm back down. Its much better to do that than get wound up to the point of being physically aggressive.