Am I a bad mother?

[alanna10]

As of recently my 2 month old baby daughter has been suffering with colic, day and night she is crying and I do everything and tried everything to try and calm her.

Today, I spent 3 hours trying to calm her down after sleeping roughly 5 hours in the past 48hrs. She finally fell asleep... I sat down and within 15 mins she began to scream again. I just lost it. I began to cry uncontrollably and couldn't face spending another few hours calming her. So I locked myself out of the house and rang my mother who lives an hour away and waited outside my house until she arrived.

I feel so awful for leaving her alone for over an hour crying while I felt sorry for myself. She means the world to me, but I am finding it so hard.

Your not a terrible mother! Infact I think you did the right thing. Sleep deprivation does silly things to your brain and if it gets bad can cause you to do stupid things that we normally wouldn't do. Getting your mum to help you is a great idea. Take the stress of you, allow you some rest so you can look after your baby properly. She wasn't in any danger when you locked the door, she was just crying. Give yourself a break. Can you ask your mum to pop in every other day just so you can grab a quick couple of hours sleep? I think this will help a lot.

What have you tried to help ease the colic? I read someone say baby massage can help. There are some videos on YouTube to help relieve wind in there tiny little tummies. Have you been to the dr about it?

Your doing a great job, the fact you are on here worrying just shows how much you love and care for your baby. I hope you get some rest soon and you find a way to manage the colic. Lots of hugs xoxo

Infacol. Use it every feed. It could change your life.

Do you have anyone who can take a night shift for you, so you can get a good nights sleep?

You’re not a bad mother- you’re sleep deprived.

And I promise you- 6-10 weeks is peak time for “purple patch” crying (google it)- this too shall pass

Honestly at that point the best you can do for the baby is leave them in a safe place and take 5.

No idea if you’re already looking at this stuff but of course there are bottles that help with colic if you are formula feeding... I know i’m Probably telling you something you already know but just in case it helps.

I have a 3 storey house and there isn’t a room in it from which I can’t hear DD’s screams... the whole close the door and walk away doesn’t work for me but I’ve found that my husband’s car is very soundproof, as much as I love my baby I also like how much the car can contain her screaming when I get out to go and open her door... it genuinely brings me a moment of calm. Also zipping up the rain cover on her pram... not giving you solutions but some ways to get 2 minutes of near silence which really helps your sanity...

Colic is just a phase that will pass - keep telling yourself this, it helps!

Good luck my dear.

OP you are not a bad mother, you sense you are near breaking point and that is good to know. PRactically it's worth scraping money from anywhere to buy some really good ear plugs and employ someone to come over, preferably at night, but realistically likely in the day for a block of about 3 hours, to look after baby while you sleep. They could even put a wash etc on. If you are EBF you could pump and save for when help is there. Is likely only until DC can sit up that this will be a problem. We got a babybjorn bouncy seat which held dc but was quite upright, also supporter of infacol too. It will pass but I know,the,feeling if I need to get through the next minute and the sleep deprivation

You did the right thing. It won’t always be this bad.