Really struggling atm. Am generally quite a patient person (worked with troubled children pre-mat leave and have dealt with all sorts). My baby has never slept well despite us hitting the tired cues early, trying to get the perfect sleeping environment and always trying our hardest to make him feel safe and secure. He is, or ar least was, generally a happy baby despite this. I EBF and do so on demand. I would never leave him to cry. I've had no issue with any of this before and will run myself ragged for him as he's a baby and this is my job. Went through 4 month regression where he woke up heaps at night and again it was tough but got through it, each day was a new day.
But for some reason, since he turned 5 months about 2 weeks ago I'm really struggling. Everything suddenly feels impossible. I'm really struggling with the daytime naps which seem to have got even worse. There is a real lack of routine, but I can't fix this as his sleep is so poor that if he's been screaming hysterically and gone to sleep 2 hours later than expected, I'm not going to wake him up to bath him at the 'right time' for example. I spend hours of my day lying with him, putting him in a sling, shushing him, using white noise, going out my once a day in the sling or pram. I spend my whole day in the same three rooms unless I'm out for exercise, feeling frustrated, angry and depressed. Whatever ends up working one time doesn't work the next time and will have taken hours to get to. I'm starting to feel incredibly down about the whole thing.
I'm missing out on my virtual classes and virtual catch ups as the timing's always bad and he ends up screaming or almost asleep. He's 'almost asleep' for hours sometimes!
I'm constantly tearful, DP is the same. I almost regret having him because nothing I do is ever good enough and I must be a shit mum to not be able to deal with it and to feel so angry at this poor baby. I know he just wants to be on me but at the same time he doesn't and he'll struggle out of the sling and arch his back like he's really annoyed.
My family say lockdown is probably making it worse but tbh I don't want to go anywhere and I think I'd be cancelling everything anyway! I'm not even sure what I want from this. Does everyone go through this? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel or does it just get worse? Keeping in mind I actually found the newborn stage ok.
Am I just missing a trick here or is this something everybody goes through no matter what and everything magically gets better at six months? Help!